Cairns’ beach problem

When the whites first arrived at what is now Cairns, it didn’t look too much different from all the other gorgeous beaches that spread in a golden curve northwards towards Cape York, the northernmost point of Queensland. But as the port grew, and larger shipping was needed, dredging work started on the inlet that forms the harbour of Cairns.

The dredging disturbed tidal flows that had maintained a delicately balanced ecosystem. Within a generation, the golden beach was no more. Today, from dawn until dusk, low tide means that the ‘coast’ at Cairns is one huge expanse of mud. It’s got to be one of the world’s most famous beach destinations with no beach.

Pelicans enjoy the mudflats of Cairns

So, how do you get around this factor when you come to visit Cairns. Well, there are two ways to do this. The first is so simple, we’re giving it five stars in John & Sheena’s Guide to Freebies the World Over: the Lagoon.

The beach at the Lagoon

Take a park, carve out a big hole, fill part of it with pure white sand to create a beach and then fill it up with water. Slap the bill for creating it, running it and maintaining lifeguards from 7am until 9pm year round on the local taxpayers and you have a tourist’s dream. The Lagoon is a free beach/pool right in the centre of Cairns and right by where the beach used to be. It’s almost like a memorial to what once was.

The Lagoon by night

Because you can see the sea right from where you’re swimming when you’re in it, the Lagoon gives a great uninterrupted vista from the water out to the ocean. It’s got fountains, sandy areas for the kids to play in and there’s often live music in the evenings nearby. What it doesn’t have is a decent place to get a coffee but there are lots of nearby cafes and restaurants.

Sheena enjoys a swim at dusk under the Lagoon fountains

The other way to compensate for the fact that there’s no beach in Cairns is to go to what are known as the Northern Beaches. Stretching up the coast from Cairns are some world class stretches of sand. They get better the further north you go, we’ve heard. We were easily impressed and made it no further than Holloways Beach, the second one north.

Sheena with some sugar cane on our way to Holloways Beach

Part of the reason we only made it that far was that we rented bikes and cycled out there. It didn’t take us that long really. A 45-minute ride took you past the airport on the Captain Cook Highway and off to Holloways Beach. We chose it because, on the way, we saw that they were having a morning market on the very day we were visiting.

Holloways Beach market is right along the shore

Once we’d arrived and seen the beach, we realised that we had pretty much one of the least touristy and undeveloped stretch of beach north of Cairns. There was only one cafe and, beyond that, enough beach for us to walk an hour north and still not run out of sand to walk on. The water was pretty warm too when we swam. At this time of year, there’s very little danger from jellyfish. In the Australian summer though, you can only swim within an enclosure that keeps you safe from them. Again, you’d be a fool to disregard the advice to swim in the enclosures. The stings from box jellyfish can be lethal to adults, let alone children.

We sauntered around the market as we arrived just as it was getting underway. Lots of people selling bric-a-brac, books, clothes, jewellery etc. Plenty of British people selling stuff too surprisingly. Strange to hear those accents so far away from the UK.

As the day wore on, the wind picked up. This was a joy to the kite-surfers at the next beach up who were out in force in the distance. It wasn’t much joy for us as it was against us the whole way home.

Cairns’ Botanical Gardens

One of the best things about Cairns is its wildlife. But if you say this, 99% of the time, people think of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s aptly named because, yes, it is Great. But it also costs a Great deal (at least to us) to get out there and there are such a Great number of tourists, touts, boats, trips, tours, blah, blah, blah connected with it that, in all honesty, was pretty off-putting.

For now though, we were looking for nature in abundance on the cheap. The answer is Cairns Botanical Gardens. These are huge and fabulous. They’re extremely well-designed in that, there’s something for everyone. If you just want to wander around some flowerbeds and lawns and barely break a sweat seeing some gorgeous flowers and astounding plant life, you can do that. If you want to hike miles through rainforest and get hugely sweaty in the process, see more gorgeous flowers, more astounding plant life and some fascinating animal life too, you can do that.

We did both.

Cycling there in the morning, we left our bikes near the gate and began the Blue trail climb up to a look out that overlooks the airport runway. It’s quite bizarre to see planes take off below you. And Cairns airport has a ton of traffic of all shapes and sizes so it’s an interesting place to hang out. It’s also where all the locals go who want to keep fit. A brisk jog up here and back will, in Cairns’ tropical temperatures, certainly see you shedding pounds.

We’d just arrived at the lookout and were seated at a picnic bench up there looking at the view when an Aussie woman comes jogging up. With typical brash abandon, she says, “You don’t have to get up. I just want to do some exercises here.” She then proceeds to lie down on the table with her head virtually on my lap and do a series of sit ups and tummy crunches. Bit strange really.

We then headed off on the Red trail. As we were doing so, a woman said, “It’s a long way that way.” I think she was trying to put us off. We took it as encouragement.

We saw only a few people on the 3 mile walk. The path was pretty rocky in places and wound up and down through the rainforest. As not many people come this way, there’s more chance you’ll see some wildlife. We did indeed.

Rounding a corner, we came face to face with this splendid yellow monitor lizard. He seemed as shocked to see us as we him and we stared at each other for ages.

Later, I came across this bizarre walking leaf thing.

And later still, I disturbed a snake which, thankfully, was not the aggressive kind. It shot off across the path just slightly faster than I shot back away from it.

We wandered back to the Botanical Gardens proper and, after some refreshment in the cafe, browsed the more sedentary section with its fabulous examples of God’s creative genius.

Couchsurfing Cairns

After bed bugs in Malaysia, we couldn’t have had a cleaner and more organised couchsurfing experience in Cairns. Frank is a rare individual. This guy discovered couchsurfing a couple of years ago and, thinking it a good idea, decided to see what he could do to make his house more welcoming to his intended guests.

Now, to you or me, that means possibly going out and buying a new towel. Not to Frank.

First he started thinking about where guests were going to sleep. Of course, there was the couch, but that simply wasn’t good enough for Frank. His guests deserved a bed. But that was a bit problematic as he had only one bedroom. No worries, as they say, simply create another bedroom. But how? Well, there’s all that space in the garage.

Frank then went out and traded in his car for a Smart car. Just in case anyone doesn’t know what these are, they are tiny. In trading his car for a Smart car, Frank halved his garage requirements. Then, with the advice of an architect, he set about creating a bedroom dedicated to couchsurfers from the extra space in his garage. Brilliant.

Frank is one of those couchsurfing hosts who just can’t get enough visitors. On the day we arrived, he was also picking up a Malaysian traveller who was to stay for a few days. He’d asked us all not to arrive in the morning though as he’d just hosted a German family (couchsurfing with two teenage kids) and needed to clean up a bit and on the day we left, he had two more people coming in that evening. Amazing.

Unwittingly, apart from helping us adapt to life in Cairns, Frank helped us to adapt to life in PNG too. Frank had a rainwater tank installed out the front of his place which collects water from the roof guttering. He uses this for pretty much all his drinking water. We did too and found when we got to PNG that pretty much everywhere we stayed did exactly the same thing. Some people filter it. We didn’t and it doesn’t seem to have done us any harm.

In addition to a dedicated room for his couchsurfers, Frank also has a bike for them to get around and a laptop for them to use too. His garden also leads on to a swimming pool. No, Frank did not build this for his couchsurfers. It came as part of the complex he lives in but couchsurfers get to use it too.

It’s great to see, in a world where people are all out for what they can get for themselves, that there are people like us too who seem to thrive of hosting people to the best of their ability. We can only dream of one day being able to host couchsurfers as well as Frank does.