Day 6 - Sydney to Cairns
- Woke up at 4 am and realized that not having dinner the night before was a mistake since we were famished
- Packed our suitcases and got ready to checkout at 6:25 am but bellboy took a while to come to our room so Samia and Sereen went downstairs for breakfast while I waited in the room
- I only had 10 minutes for breakfast so quickly gulped down some scrambled eggs with toast and a latte that Samia had ordered for me
- We had checked-in for the flight the night before and had the boarding passes on our phone
- Took a taxi to the airport, left hotel at 7 am. Thankfully, morning work traffic hadn't started yet so we reached the airport in about 25 minutes and had ample time to drop off our check-in bags and pass through security
- Flight to Cairns was delayed by about 10 minutes. It was a comfortable 3 hour flight where a complimentary snack comprising yogurt and a muffin was served, in addition to the typical coffee/juice/water
- Virgin Australia is a very impressive airline and even had full entertainment system, albeit through a mobile app but it was surprising since usually that amenity is only found on long haul flights. Samia watched half a movie during the flight
- Sereen had her own seat but we weren't allowed to take our car seat so she slept in it for a little while after we lay down her blanket on it
- After landing in Cairns at about 12:10 pm, we got our bags and took a taxi
- All large taxis in Sydney offer a car seat for babies, perhaps because the legislation in the province of New South Wales requires that. On the other hand, the taxi in Cairns let us hold Sereen in our lap. She loved the freedom and had a great time chattering away during the entire ride
- Our hotel Hilton is located right next to the pier where all cruise ships depart for the Great Barrier Reef
- Cairns is a tropical city which gets a lot of rain and is very humid. It's located in the Queensland province whereas Sydney was located in the New South Wales province
- On our current trip, we'll be visiting 4 cities which are all coincidentally in different provinces with different climate patterns
- Cairns is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, the largest Reef system on earth which is also the largest living organism on earth and can be seen from the moon
- We reached our hotel at 1 pm and checked-in but our room wasn't going to be ready till 3 pm so we decided to book our tours for the following 2 days with the tour booking desk next to the reception
- By the time we changed Sereen's diaper and waited for the tour booking lady to become available to book our tours, it was 3 pm so Sereen and Samia went up to the room while I walked to McDonald's to grab a quick lunch
- After having lunch, video chatting with Sarim and relaxing for a little while, we decided to take a nap around 6 pm thinking that we'll get up for dinner but that was a bad idea since the next time I woke up, the time was 11:40 pm. I went back to sleep till 1:30 am
- Samia woke up at 11 pm and then Sereen woke up at 1:30 am and needed a diaper change so we changed her
- Sereen played for a couple of hours before going back to sleep at 3 am which is when we went back to sleep too after scheduling an alarm for 5:30 am in the morning
Day 7 - Great Barrier Reef
- Woke up at 5:30 am with our alarm and got ready for the day
- Went down at 7 am to have complimentary breakfast in the hotel restaurant
- Walked along the waterfront on the boardwalk next to our hotel for a few minutes and reached the pier where our ship for the day was to depart
- We were supposed to leave at 9 am but owning to some issue with the onboard toilets, everyone had to switch to a different ship
- Purchased sea sickness tablets for me since the crew advised that we'll be facing choppy waters. The tablets weren't safe for nursing mothers so unfortunately Samia couldn't take them
- We finally left at around 9:45 am and had an extremely rough journey, owing to the strong winds at the ocean. I felt sick and had to go outside for fresh air but that only helped marginally: I vomited twice and felt nauseous throughout the 90 minute ride and had to stay outside. Samia felt sick too but she had no choice but to stay inside with Sereen since I had already left for the lower deck
- Once the rough journey was over, at around 11:15 am, we reached a platform erected in the middle of the ocean that offered numerous activities to see the reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. Platforms like this are called pontoons
- Our platform was at Moore reef which is located on the outer reef. Reef systems that are closer to land are called inner reef but owing to global warming and rising ocean water temperatures, the coral in the inner reef systems have become bleached and started losing color. Reef systems farther away from land are said to be in the outer reef
- At noon, Samia went for a helmet dive in which she was wearing a helmet that had oxygen being pumped into it through a pipe. She walked on the ocean floor and saw the reefs, corals and marine life up close. She also saw a giant resident Maori Wrasse fish and got some very cool photos with it. The fish has an interesting characteristic: all newborns are female but as they reach maturity, the dominant ones turn into males!
- Samia and I had both planned to take turns doing the helmet dive but since I didn't have a great time on the ship, I didn't want to take a chance with the dive
- At the same time when Samia went for her helmet dive, Sereen and I went on a boat that had a glass bottom so we could see the reef below us. If Samia's view was HD, ours was probably the TV quality that existed back in the 1990s 😂
- Around 12:30 pm, all of us were back on the platform and had buffet lunch that was included in the day tour package. For a touristy buffet, the spread and quality of the buffet were very good
- At 1:30 pm, we all went for a third type of activity, the semi-submersible boat. The view was much clearer than the glass bottom boat
- The ocean floor views are spectacular and on all our activities, we got guided tours and got to learn about the different types of corals, reefs and marine life that exists in this ecosystem. The coral close to the Cairns area is blue and green in color whereas the coral near Port Douglas has red colors too
- After getting back on the platform, we spent some leisurely time enjoying the cool ocean breeze on a humid and hot day. Sereen absolutely loved the breeze and had a great time. It has become a theme on this trip: anytime the weather is warm with a cool breeze, Sereen starts giggling and chattering
- We also saw a fish feeding activity and also got another view of a coral garden from an underwater observatory located on the platform
- At 3:30 pm, we got back on the ship and started our return journey. We changed our seats so that we were under an air conditioning vent. We suspected that the lack of air circulation at our previous seats might've contributed to the sickness
- The return journey was smooth and we didn't feel any motion or sea sickness. We reached back Cairns around 5 pm and went back to our hotel room
- Around 7 pm, we walked down to a restaurant located adjacent to our hotel and had Thai curry noodles and fried rice for dinner
- After dinner, we walked along the Esplanade waterfront on the boardwalk for about half an hour and then came back and went to bed around 10 pm
Day 8 - Kuranda Rainforest Village
- Woke up around 6:30 am and had breakfast from the hotel's complimentary buffet
- Went back to our room to get ready for an all day trip of the Australian rainforest
- Tour bus picked us up at around 10 am
- Drive to the sky view cablecar took a little under an hour and we boarded it around 11 am
- First stop of the cable car was after 15 minutes where we got off and did a walking tour with a ranger who walked us through the rainforest and talked about the different types of trees and the nocturnal animals that inhabit the rainforest
- The main theme was that due to the tiny amount of sunlight that is able to filter through to the rainforest floor, plants compete for the sunlight and adapt to get survival advantage
- Some memorable ones included a giant tree that sheds its trunk to get rid of other plants trying to grow on it to get access to sunlight, a plant that grows on the trunk of a host tree and uses it for structural support and plants that grow on trees all the way up to the top to get sunlight
- The ranger told us that in the past, venomous snakes had been spotted on the boardwalk so we became extremely careful. He told us that the specie of snake found in the area is so poisonous that once it bit a man who was agitating the snake and the man died in 10 minutes!
- It rained on and off during the walking tour so Sereen's stroller's rain cover once again saved her from the rain while we used umbrellas provided by the cablecar company (its called Skyrail)
- Then we got back on the cablecar and rode it for another 15 minutes before getting off at the second station
- This one had views of the Barron Gorge and waterfall from viewing points nestled in the rainforest
- There was also an interpretive center where we found out the reason why animals in Australia are so different from animals found everywhere else on the planet. Thousands of years ago, when Australia broke off from the supercontinent that included all continents that are now in the Southern Hemisphere, it remained isolated from contact from the rest of the world for a very long time during which the terrain changed from primarily rainforest to primarily barren desert. Animals found in the rainforest like the platypus have remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years ago while others like the kangaroo have evolved to cope with the desert terrain of the Australian outback
- After getting back on the cablecar and riding for another 15 minutes, we reached the final station and saw an interesting variety of magnum ice cream at the station souvenir shop and tried red velvet and strawberry
- Then we started walking towards the town center of the village of Kuranda which is a village only in name but is otherwise quite developed and touristy
- We stopped at a cafe and had beef burger and chicken burger for lunch, accompanied by fresh juice that was a combination of mango, pineapple and passion fruit
- Then we checked out a butterfly sanctuary which has a facility to breed various species of butterflies. The guided tour was very informative about the breeding process and the characteristics of butterflies
- We saw the largest butterfly who can sometimes stay in the cocoon for up to two years but when it comes out, it only lives for about 3-4 days and then dies after mating
- We also found out that the butterfly uses its feet to taste flowers and that it sedates its male counterpart during the mating process
- In the main section which is essentially a small covered park, there were hundreds of colorful butterflies of all sizes flying around
- During the tour, Samia had been told that butterflies can see very few colors but her white shirt is very prominent to them. The guide took Samia under a special light to show her how butterflies perceive light and under that special light, Samia looked like a beacon of light in a dark sky! The guide told her that the butterflies would be attracted to the color of her shirt and would come and land on her. After getting that information, she would start getting stressed as soon as any butterfly would come close to her, so we quickly made our way out of the sanctuary
- It was time to head back to catch our return ride on a scenic train so we hurried back, despite the fact that it was raining quite substantially
- We boarded the 3:30 pm train back to the Cairns area and were going to get off at a station just outside of the city
- The train passed through the thick and green rainforest, making its way through numerous tunnels and over several bridges. Sereen loved the fresh air but it was hot and humid so we had to take off her onesie and she enjoyed the ride in just her diaper!
- We took some incredible pictures of some curving bridges and listened to the commentary about the construction of the track from Cairns to Kuranda in the early 1900s
- Sereen had been extremely popular the day before at the Great Barrier Reef tour and several people had interacted with her and said that she is a cute baby. We saw an Indian family again on this day and not only did they say goodbye to her but even requested to pinch her cheek. Some other girls who had been on the Great Barrier Reef tour also waved at her, despite the fact that they we had never talked to them but they recognized Sereen!
- After getting off at our station, our tour bus picked us up and drove us back to our hotel and we were in our room at 6 pm
- Sereen was extremely tired and went to sleep soon afterwards. We didn't want to disturb her so instead of going out for dinner, I walked to the nearby McDonald's around 7 pm and grabbed burgers for dinner
- After dinner, we went to bed around 9:30 pm after setting an alarm for 4:30 am for the next morning to be able to catch our early morning flight to Uluru
- Woke up at 4 am and realized that not having dinner the night before was a mistake since we were famished
- Packed our suitcases and got ready to checkout at 6:25 am but bellboy took a while to come to our room so Samia and Sereen went downstairs for breakfast while I waited in the room
- I only had 10 minutes for breakfast so quickly gulped down some scrambled eggs with toast and a latte that Samia had ordered for me
- We had checked-in for the flight the night before and had the boarding passes on our phone
- Took a taxi to the airport, left hotel at 7 am. Thankfully, morning work traffic hadn't started yet so we reached the airport in about 25 minutes and had ample time to drop off our check-in bags and pass through security
- Flight to Cairns was delayed by about 10 minutes. It was a comfortable 3 hour flight where a complimentary snack comprising yogurt and a muffin was served, in addition to the typical coffee/juice/water
- Virgin Australia is a very impressive airline and even had full entertainment system, albeit through a mobile app but it was surprising since usually that amenity is only found on long haul flights. Samia watched half a movie during the flight
- Sereen had her own seat but we weren't allowed to take our car seat so she slept in it for a little while after we lay down her blanket on it
- After landing in Cairns at about 12:10 pm, we got our bags and took a taxi
- All large taxis in Sydney offer a car seat for babies, perhaps because the legislation in the province of New South Wales requires that. On the other hand, the taxi in Cairns let us hold Sereen in our lap. She loved the freedom and had a great time chattering away during the entire ride
- Our hotel Hilton is located right next to the pier where all cruise ships depart for the Great Barrier Reef
- Cairns is a tropical city which gets a lot of rain and is very humid. It's located in the Queensland province whereas Sydney was located in the New South Wales province
- On our current trip, we'll be visiting 4 cities which are all coincidentally in different provinces with different climate patterns
- Cairns is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, the largest Reef system on earth which is also the largest living organism on earth and can be seen from the moon
- We reached our hotel at 1 pm and checked-in but our room wasn't going to be ready till 3 pm so we decided to book our tours for the following 2 days with the tour booking desk next to the reception
- By the time we changed Sereen's diaper and waited for the tour booking lady to become available to book our tours, it was 3 pm so Sereen and Samia went up to the room while I walked to McDonald's to grab a quick lunch
- After having lunch, video chatting with Sarim and relaxing for a little while, we decided to take a nap around 6 pm thinking that we'll get up for dinner but that was a bad idea since the next time I woke up, the time was 11:40 pm. I went back to sleep till 1:30 am
- Samia woke up at 11 pm and then Sereen woke up at 1:30 am and needed a diaper change so we changed her
- Sereen played for a couple of hours before going back to sleep at 3 am which is when we went back to sleep too after scheduling an alarm for 5:30 am in the morning
Day 7 - Great Barrier Reef
- Woke up at 5:30 am with our alarm and got ready for the day
- Went down at 7 am to have complimentary breakfast in the hotel restaurant
- Walked along the waterfront on the boardwalk next to our hotel for a few minutes and reached the pier where our ship for the day was to depart
- We were supposed to leave at 9 am but owning to some issue with the onboard toilets, everyone had to switch to a different ship
- Purchased sea sickness tablets for me since the crew advised that we'll be facing choppy waters. The tablets weren't safe for nursing mothers so unfortunately Samia couldn't take them
- We finally left at around 9:45 am and had an extremely rough journey, owing to the strong winds at the ocean. I felt sick and had to go outside for fresh air but that only helped marginally: I vomited twice and felt nauseous throughout the 90 minute ride and had to stay outside. Samia felt sick too but she had no choice but to stay inside with Sereen since I had already left for the lower deck
- Once the rough journey was over, at around 11:15 am, we reached a platform erected in the middle of the ocean that offered numerous activities to see the reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. Platforms like this are called pontoons
- Our platform was at Moore reef which is located on the outer reef. Reef systems that are closer to land are called inner reef but owing to global warming and rising ocean water temperatures, the coral in the inner reef systems have become bleached and started losing color. Reef systems farther away from land are said to be in the outer reef
- At noon, Samia went for a helmet dive in which she was wearing a helmet that had oxygen being pumped into it through a pipe. She walked on the ocean floor and saw the reefs, corals and marine life up close. She also saw a giant resident Maori Wrasse fish and got some very cool photos with it. The fish has an interesting characteristic: all newborns are female but as they reach maturity, the dominant ones turn into males!
- Samia and I had both planned to take turns doing the helmet dive but since I didn't have a great time on the ship, I didn't want to take a chance with the dive
- At the same time when Samia went for her helmet dive, Sereen and I went on a boat that had a glass bottom so we could see the reef below us. If Samia's view was HD, ours was probably the TV quality that existed back in the 1990s 😂
- Around 12:30 pm, all of us were back on the platform and had buffet lunch that was included in the day tour package. For a touristy buffet, the spread and quality of the buffet were very good
- At 1:30 pm, we all went for a third type of activity, the semi-submersible boat. The view was much clearer than the glass bottom boat
- The ocean floor views are spectacular and on all our activities, we got guided tours and got to learn about the different types of corals, reefs and marine life that exists in this ecosystem. The coral close to the Cairns area is blue and green in color whereas the coral near Port Douglas has red colors too
- After getting back on the platform, we spent some leisurely time enjoying the cool ocean breeze on a humid and hot day. Sereen absolutely loved the breeze and had a great time. It has become a theme on this trip: anytime the weather is warm with a cool breeze, Sereen starts giggling and chattering
- We also saw a fish feeding activity and also got another view of a coral garden from an underwater observatory located on the platform
- At 3:30 pm, we got back on the ship and started our return journey. We changed our seats so that we were under an air conditioning vent. We suspected that the lack of air circulation at our previous seats might've contributed to the sickness
- The return journey was smooth and we didn't feel any motion or sea sickness. We reached back Cairns around 5 pm and went back to our hotel room
- Around 7 pm, we walked down to a restaurant located adjacent to our hotel and had Thai curry noodles and fried rice for dinner
- After dinner, we walked along the Esplanade waterfront on the boardwalk for about half an hour and then came back and went to bed around 10 pm
Day 8 - Kuranda Rainforest Village
- Woke up around 6:30 am and had breakfast from the hotel's complimentary buffet
- Went back to our room to get ready for an all day trip of the Australian rainforest
- Tour bus picked us up at around 10 am
- Drive to the sky view cablecar took a little under an hour and we boarded it around 11 am
- First stop of the cable car was after 15 minutes where we got off and did a walking tour with a ranger who walked us through the rainforest and talked about the different types of trees and the nocturnal animals that inhabit the rainforest
- The main theme was that due to the tiny amount of sunlight that is able to filter through to the rainforest floor, plants compete for the sunlight and adapt to get survival advantage
- Some memorable ones included a giant tree that sheds its trunk to get rid of other plants trying to grow on it to get access to sunlight, a plant that grows on the trunk of a host tree and uses it for structural support and plants that grow on trees all the way up to the top to get sunlight
- The ranger told us that in the past, venomous snakes had been spotted on the boardwalk so we became extremely careful. He told us that the specie of snake found in the area is so poisonous that once it bit a man who was agitating the snake and the man died in 10 minutes!
- It rained on and off during the walking tour so Sereen's stroller's rain cover once again saved her from the rain while we used umbrellas provided by the cablecar company (its called Skyrail)
- Then we got back on the cablecar and rode it for another 15 minutes before getting off at the second station
- This one had views of the Barron Gorge and waterfall from viewing points nestled in the rainforest
- There was also an interpretive center where we found out the reason why animals in Australia are so different from animals found everywhere else on the planet. Thousands of years ago, when Australia broke off from the supercontinent that included all continents that are now in the Southern Hemisphere, it remained isolated from contact from the rest of the world for a very long time during which the terrain changed from primarily rainforest to primarily barren desert. Animals found in the rainforest like the platypus have remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years ago while others like the kangaroo have evolved to cope with the desert terrain of the Australian outback
- After getting back on the cablecar and riding for another 15 minutes, we reached the final station and saw an interesting variety of magnum ice cream at the station souvenir shop and tried red velvet and strawberry
- Then we started walking towards the town center of the village of Kuranda which is a village only in name but is otherwise quite developed and touristy
- We stopped at a cafe and had beef burger and chicken burger for lunch, accompanied by fresh juice that was a combination of mango, pineapple and passion fruit
- Then we checked out a butterfly sanctuary which has a facility to breed various species of butterflies. The guided tour was very informative about the breeding process and the characteristics of butterflies
- We saw the largest butterfly who can sometimes stay in the cocoon for up to two years but when it comes out, it only lives for about 3-4 days and then dies after mating
- We also found out that the butterfly uses its feet to taste flowers and that it sedates its male counterpart during the mating process
- In the main section which is essentially a small covered park, there were hundreds of colorful butterflies of all sizes flying around
- During the tour, Samia had been told that butterflies can see very few colors but her white shirt is very prominent to them. The guide took Samia under a special light to show her how butterflies perceive light and under that special light, Samia looked like a beacon of light in a dark sky! The guide told her that the butterflies would be attracted to the color of her shirt and would come and land on her. After getting that information, she would start getting stressed as soon as any butterfly would come close to her, so we quickly made our way out of the sanctuary
- It was time to head back to catch our return ride on a scenic train so we hurried back, despite the fact that it was raining quite substantially
- We boarded the 3:30 pm train back to the Cairns area and were going to get off at a station just outside of the city
- The train passed through the thick and green rainforest, making its way through numerous tunnels and over several bridges. Sereen loved the fresh air but it was hot and humid so we had to take off her onesie and she enjoyed the ride in just her diaper!
- We took some incredible pictures of some curving bridges and listened to the commentary about the construction of the track from Cairns to Kuranda in the early 1900s
- Sereen had been extremely popular the day before at the Great Barrier Reef tour and several people had interacted with her and said that she is a cute baby. We saw an Indian family again on this day and not only did they say goodbye to her but even requested to pinch her cheek. Some other girls who had been on the Great Barrier Reef tour also waved at her, despite the fact that they we had never talked to them but they recognized Sereen!
- After getting off at our station, our tour bus picked us up and drove us back to our hotel and we were in our room at 6 pm
- Sereen was extremely tired and went to sleep soon afterwards. We didn't want to disturb her so instead of going out for dinner, I walked to the nearby McDonald's around 7 pm and grabbed burgers for dinner
- After dinner, we went to bed around 9:30 pm after setting an alarm for 4:30 am for the next morning to be able to catch our early morning flight to Uluru
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