NORTH QLD ADVENTURE - DAY 19 – CAIRNS BOTANIC GARDENS AND A DRIVE TO BARON GORGE…

We had a few jobs we needed to do this morning before we headed out, mainly some phone calls, re an insurance job at home, and also ring the school re his pay muck up this past fortnight so it was after 10.30am by the time we left the caravan park…

Our main mission today was to visit the Cairns Botanic Gardens…  I loved them the last time I was here, so many beautiful flowering ginger plants, and once again they didn’t disappoint…

These spectacular Botanic Gardens cover over 38 hectares and were created in 1886, which means that many of the large plants and trees are lush and well established. Many of the plants found here cannot be seen elsewhere in the world.  These include exotic species of palms, gingers, orchids, bamboos, vines, aroids and tropical fruit trees. 

Some of the rarest plants in the world can be found at Flecker Botanic Gardens, including a tropical flower known as the Amorphophallus Titanum, which weighs up to 70 kg with a single leaf almost 7 meters across. The exotic rainforest plant is only one of two found in Australia. Amazing arrays of orchids are spotted throughout the gardens, boasting beautiful bright colours that contrast perfectly with the variegated shades of greens.

The real bonus though is that admission to the Cairns Botanic Gardens is free, however there are a few collection boxes placed around the gardens for people to make donations and help the park exist into the future.

We spent a good couple of hours wandering around the gardens photographing many of the beautiful flowering ginger plants and also some of the lovely orchids that were in flower.

As we were still wandering around the gardens after 1pm, we decided that we might as well have our lunch in the little café in the gardens.  The service there was exceptional and we decided to just share a meal of a BLT Focassia with a salad for around $16.  Again it was quite reasonable for the size of the meal.

 Initially we had planned to take a drive up to Palm Cove and Trinity Beach for the afternoon as we were having dinner with Mike and Ann O’Hare a British couple we went when on a caravanning holiday back in 2012 and as they lived at Trinity Beach we thought it would have been great to visit some of the northern beaches when we went out to visit them.  It was not to be, we had run out of time…

Instead we thought we might take a drive up to Lake Morris on our way back to the van park and even that didn’t pan out as the road up was closed till after 3pm due to road works, so instead we headed back towards the caravan park.

At the last minute we decided to take a drive up to Baron Gorge instead… It is only a 5km drive from where we are staying and as yet we hadn’t had a chance to re visit the gorge.

It was a good thing that we did, as there were 10 rafts in the water ready to ride the rapids down the Baron River… Such a delightful sight.

We managed to get some good photos and then we headed home to have a bit of a camp before we had to leave to go to the O’Hare’s for dinner.

 Steve ended up having a short sleep which probably made us a bit late but with his really sore shoulder he has been just not feeling 100% and the pain just tires him out…

It was 5pm by the time we left the caravan park and we still had a good 15 minute drive to get there…

It was good to catch up with Mike and Ann again, and we had a lovely BBQ meal with them, before retiring into their lounge to catch up on all news re family and work since we had last seen them.

We left them around 9.30pm to head home as Mike still had to get up and go to work the following morning.

We were pretty wrecked ourselves and it was just nice to get back to the van, turn the TV on and just chill out..

We are fast running out of days in Cairns, and we still have quite a few more things that we want to do before we leave…

Tomorrow we plan to explore a little more of the Cairn’s CBD, including a visit to Rusty’s the markets.  We also want to have lunch on the Esplanade and just have a little bit of chill out time.