Our life in Tropical North Queensland

Hi ! This is Steve’s niece, Estelle and her friend from France, Joanna. We’ve just spent a week in Cairns with Steve and Maria, and to sum it up … we had a blast !!!

Day 1: Diving on the Great Barrier Reef. This is an experience of a lifetime. The whole day was extraordinary! We discovered 2 different reef locations. At the first location, we were already in the water, diving (after brief but clear instructions). I can tell you my friend, it’s like entering a whole new world, discovering spectacular views and sensations of the marine life!!!

At the second location, we could snorkel as much as we liked, tan on the boat, or just chill out and meet other people. The crew was awesome and the food was too !   

Day 2: With Steve and Nico, we went to Cape Tribulation, stopping by Mossman Gorge on the way, a well-preserved water-hole.
  

The river cruise on the Daintree River was our next activity. While enjoying the boat trip, a friendly guide gave us an informative tour of the surrounding wildlife, such as birds, snakes, mangroves, crabs, and of course the famous crocodiles! We got to follow a 2-meter long croc from close-up, and even spotted a baby.

Next, we went to Cape Tribulation to jungle-surf! If you don’t know the concept, basically it’s a fun flying-fox group adventure … only what makes it all the more unique is it’s location in the oldest rainforest in the world! A great way to ally excitement, spectacular scenery and general knowledge. For those who felt adventurous, we even got to lick a green-ant’s bum!
  

Day 3: We went to watch the bungy jumping. People seemed to be having lots of fun, but we didn’t get the courage!! However, I got persuaded to try out the minjin swing, the world’s fastest jungle swing in the world. There’s not much to say, except that It’s a one-in-a-lifetime sensation, and that it just makes you want to experience it all over again! The view at the highest point is a bonus ! There can be up to 3 people at a time, so it’s something that can be shared with friends and fam… sometimes, it just needs a bit of convincing!

Day 4: This was our White Water Rafting day. The travelling was quite long, because we went all the way to the little town called Tully. The team was energetic, and though we started off quite skeptic at the riskiness of this activity (and our beginner’s level), we were soon put in small groups with a team-leader who reassuringly knows his stuff! And yes, the thrill of going through the rapids is definitely worth it!

The surroundings were mind-blowing, and there are moments of ‘quiet’ paddling to let it all sink in. Honestly, getting to watch the other boats on these natural roller-coasters was sometimes just as fun as going down them ourselves! A day full of laughter, team-work and adrenaline: a real memory-maker. Of course, there was an aussie bbq lunch. If we were given a chance to do it all over again, we most definitely would ! I would just like to say that my Uncle Steve is the kindest, funniest, coolest, smartest, most handsome guy in the world. Sometimes I don’t believe how so much awesome can be wrapped in in one man.

It’s been three weeks now since Tropical Cyclone Yasi had us all quivering in our boots. Although the cleanup is still ongoing around some regions of the Cassowary Coast, here in Cairns you would barely know that Australia’s largest cyclone in living memory had made landfall just a short distance south of our tropical city. We have been enjoying glorious weather and idyllic reef conditions for the past week or two, and customers have been returning from the Great Barrier Reef with terrific photos from our Digital Underwater Cameras.

Maria and I have been too busy to visit the reef this year so far, but our little boy Nicholas does give us a good excuse to hit the pool several times a day. He’s a real water baby… the first photo below is in our home pool, the other two are from Cairns’ lovely lagoon on the Esplanade…

Would you believe it if you were diving on the Great Barrier Reef and suddenly you found yourself surrounded by Minke Whales? That’s what happened to some divers off the coast of Cairns yesterday. So the whale watching season in Cairns has started just on time.

And in Kuranda, west of Cairns, three adults cassowaries and a juvenile one have been spotted, giving us all hope for this endangered species.

Meanwhile, we are working hard from our office overlooking the Coral Sea, keeping up with our Cairns Unlimited site, both in Spanish and in English, our Cairns Digital site renting underwater cameras and finalising the last steps before we launch our next enterprise, very early next month.

And our baby Nicholas is getting bigger and bigger, already four months old yesterday.

As you can see, there is no time for boredom in our lives!!!