We have only visited Cairns once in our lifetime and we suspected it would only be once. Strike that because today we visited Cairns for a second time.
The alarm sounded at 5:30am and we were up quickly to prepare for our trip back to Cairns to get our windscreen replaced. To take into consideration the ongoing work on the highway, we decided to leave by 6:45am and that decision proved correct because of stopping twice for traffic lights on road work and the heavy traffic into Cairns North, we pulled up at O’Brien Glass at exactly 7:59am.
We were told that the replacement could take two hours and deciding not to wait, we walked to a cafe in the nearby botanical gardens a gentle 1.1 kilometre walk in each direction. We enjoyed a latish breakfast of a croissant with bacon and egg. This was a great moved as the car was finished by the time we walked back to the repairer.
Our HUD in the car is playing up and a visited to both Repco and Supercheap Auto failed to find a replacement.
Our return trip took a lot longer than planned as the two sections of roadwork had been joined into a single stretch of one lane and there was a 15-minute delay. Eventually we returned to the caravan where She was able to do a couple of loads of washing and get all the clothes dry.
Many of the members of our group travelled to Cape Tribulation today. The trip took a couple of hours each way and required the crossing of the Daintree River by ferry. The return cost for the ferry was $49 and was the only way to visit this part of Australia by sealed road. Cape Tribulation is also accessible from Cooktown but on a 4WD track. The plans for this trip were for everyone to choose what they wanted to do.
We enjoyed a happy hour with three other couples who had not travelled north today. Our travellers returned about 6pm and we received some news about a possible cruise on the next day on the Daintree River. They had called into the tiny village of Daintree and spoke to an operator of a cruise. All sounded very positive and something we all wanted to do.
With the air conditioning running, we were in bed relatively early for a good night’s sleep.