After some rock jumping in the Crystal Creek, we made our way up to Cairns, where we were met on the next day by Thomas’ parents freshly out of the plane.

We spent a day discovering Cairns, which is reputed to be the best city of Queensland. It wasn’t what we expected: the city itself is very small (the city center is barely made of 5 or 6 streets) and skyscraper-less, with its main attraction being the artificial lagoon built next to the muddy beach. The nightlife seemed pretty good though, and everybody we met there loved the city.

Our next destination was Cap Tribulation in the Daintree Rainforest in the tropical north of Queensland. Daintree is believed to be the oldest rainforest of the world and is the largest one of Australia.

The hotel, they give us two houses rather than 2 bedrooms. We won’t sue them.

The incredible thing in the Daintree was the number of different types of habitats we could find a fewer meters away from each other: tropical forest, mangrove and beaches…

The wildlife there is also incredible. From the mosquitoes to the alligators, carefulness is in order as most of it is deadly. It was impossible to swim at that time of the year because of jellyfishes whose stings can be deadly.

Even leaves are willing to arm you. Australia.

We found some rivers to play in the water nonetheless.

Free carwash

After a couple of days, we went back south to Port Douglas to go snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. We had a incredible day observing multi-colored fishes, swimming with sharks and exploring small tunnels between the corals.

We ended up our trip in the luxurious Palm Cove, relaxing for a day and getting ready to leave for the Philippines.

We left Palm Cove at 6am to catch our first flight of the day, Cairns – Darwin, and had to wait 12 hours in the airport for our connection to the Philippines as it was pouring rain outside. But it’s going to be worth it 🙂