Life in Cairns (Part One)

It has been five months since my last post here. Five months since we first pulled into Yorkeys Knob marina in Cairns and tied up to our new home. Five months of life on land. Apart from a quick trip back home to Melbourne over Christmas, we’ve spent those months living as Cairns locals. We bought a car and I got a job. Back to reality!

Once the school term began, we quickly fell into a routine and a rhythm. Matt would drop me at school, always aiming to leave Yorkeys before 7am to beat the traffic. (If you thought Melbourne trafic was bad, it’s got nothing on the northern beaches of Cairns!) He’d be back anywhere between 3pm and 5pm to pick me up, we’d stop by the shops to get groceries and then home for dinner. Meanwhile, while I was at work, Matt would do jobs around the boat, go mountain biking or drink beer and talk with the retired guys at the marina. Marina life seemed to be to his liking!

I worked full time as a classroom teacher for Term 1 at Cairns State Special School. The staff there are an absolutely fantastic bunch of people; really friendly and supportive and I made a lot of new friends. It was quite an adjustment not just to be back in full time work, but also to be in a different school in a different state. I discovered that students are the same wherever you go, but policies and procedures can be very different! It was interesting to gain an insight into how other schools and systems work, after having taught only at the one school for the last ten years. Some of the differences blew my mind and had me scratching my head, but there were a few positive differences.

The reason we decided to pause our trip and stay in Cairns so long was to wait out the cyclone season. The coastline is much less populated north of Cairns, with fewer safe places in case of cyclones. Being southerners, the thought of a cyclone terrified us, especially in a boat, so we decided to play it safe and remain in Cairns, and also experience our first ‘wet’ season. What we didn’t expect, was that except for a few periods when a low came over, the weather was beautiful and calm, perfect for cruising. Consequently, we were often able to venture out to some nearby reefs and islands for day trips or overnighters. There wasn’t even that much rain, not what we’d expected for a wet season anyway. The locals were saying how it hadn’t been much of a ‘wet’ and then in the last two weeks before we left, it absolutely poured down. And I mean poured down! It pretty much didn’t stop raining for eight days, with 500mL falling in the first three days, and Melbourne’s annual rainfall falling over the eight days. Roads were flooded and bridges were submerged.

In terms of the cyclone season, we got lucky. Super lucky! A La Nina was called with up to eight cyclones forecast as possible over the season. Eight! Naturally we were a little apprehensive, however, after talking to locals, discovered there wasn’t too much to be concerned about, that there would usually be plenty of warning and preparation time. And as it turned out, I think there were only two named cyclones to come close to Cairns this season. In fact, the storm that caused the most damage, mostly in southern Cairns, wasn’t even classified a cyclone.

There was one instance in which we had to strip the boat, tie everything down, and evacuate. We were on a road trip up in the Atherton Tablelands in January when we got a call from Don, commodore of the marina, telling us that a Category 2 cyclone had been called and that we should come straight back to prepare our boat. We drove the two hours home in nervous anticipation and arrived to find the marina bustling with people, all readying their boats. We’d never seen so much activity there. The sky was dark and foreboding and there was a sense of urgency about. We immediately set to work securing the boat, pulling down the dodger and bimini and doubling all the lines. I packed bags with our valuables and electronics plus some clothes and food, while Matt took photos for the insurance company.

We’d previously decided that we wouldn’t stay on the boat in the event of a cyclone, and so had been in touch with my friend Liv, who offered for us to come and stay with them. This turned out to be a wise decision, because at about midnight we would have been forced to evacuate the boat by marina management. Huge thanks to Liv, Matt, Freddy and Ralphie who all moved into one bedroom so that we could have the other room. We spent two days with them, enjoying the novelty of air conditioning and playing laser tag with the boys. Thankfully the cyclone moved offshore and no damage was done to any boats or properties.

Our stopover in Cairns was also a time to do maintenance and repairs on the boat, as well as the additional preparations needed for heading north. This was mainly Matt’s department and he ticked off a pretty long list of jobs. He replaced the fridge seals and replaced the transducer, put new anodes and a new cutlasss bearing on the prop shaft, upgraded the wiring on the freezer, installed a new battery charger for the bow thruster, serviced all the winches, scrubbed and stained all the teak, had the engine serviced, had both sails repaired, replaced the joker valve in the toilet, installed a new main halyard and new headsail sheets, as well as a new block for the main halyard and a new gooseneck for the boom. He also polished the entire outside of the boat and the cockpit. A lot of polishing, but I suspect more drinking than polishing was done!

In March we pulled Cool Change out onto a hard stand and Matt sanded her bottom and then repainted on the anti-foul. A messy messy job! While this was occurring we stayed in a little apartment near the city and enjoyed novelties like Netflix, a proper bathroom and air conditioning. Absolute luxuries to us!!!

We added a boat collar to the tinny and bought oars for it. We bought a number of jerry cans, for carrying extra diesel and unleaded, and Matt did runs to the servo in the car to fill them all up. I emptied, vacuumed and cleaned every single cupboard, scrubbed away mould, vacuum sealed our winter clothes and bedding away, and shopped and shopped for provisions for the next leg of the trip.

But in no way was it all work and no play! We found lots of time to be tourists too. We were fortunate enough to have some friends from Melbourne living up here; Matt’s friend Dave and his wife Judi had moved to Cairns several years ago, and my friend Liv was currently living up here with her two boys while her partner Matt was a FIFO worker. They gave us the low down on places to go, things to see and good restaurants to eat at. It was so lovely to see some familiar and friendly faces and we really enjoyed hanging out with them. We’ll miss you, guys.

Our five months in Cairns was in no way enough time to see all the sights in this incredible area, but we sure gave it a good bash. We did a weekend trip to Cooktown, day trips to Port Douglas, the Daintree and Mossman Gorge, and lots of afternoon excursions seeking out waterholes; Crystal Cascades, Stoney Creek Falls, Josephine Falls, Babinda Boulders. There are heaps of beautiful hikes up here and we managed to do a few of them; Walsh’s pyramid, Mindin Falls, Nandroya Falls, Wallaman Falls, Yellow Arrow and the nearby Earl Hill.

We did a number of road trips, filling our trusty little Astra with our camping equipment. We ventured south via Crowley Beach, Mission Beach, Tully, Cardwell and Townsville and out west to Porcupine Gorge. We headed up into the Atherton tablelands and did the waterfall circuit. We joined Fraser and Rach to explore Cape Tribulation and the Daintree.

Taking friends out to the reef, either for a day trip or overnight, was one of our favourite things to do. Fitzroy Island and Michaelmas Cay became our go-to destinations to take our visitors. Crystal clear water, incredible corals, amazingly coloured tropical fish and green sea turtles. What’s not to love?! Heaven on earth!

We were finally able to have some visitors from Victoria, although the powers that be didn’t make it easy, and we were always on edge with the possibility of ridiculous snap lockdowns and border closures being called. Still, my Mum managed to come up for my birthday, my friend Ange fit in an amazing flying visit and my nephew Lucas, my sister Nicole and her friend Karen came up for a whirlwind week of sightseeing. Unfortunately, Matt’s brother Trev and his wife Kate, had to cancel their planned visit in April. Whilst it was incredibly disappointing, especially for Matt, and we were so looking forward to seeing them, we completely understand why they didn’t come. Australia is one single country and we need to start acting like it. We should never have any obstacles or restrictions to travelling around our own country.

So life was busy in Cairns and the months flew by. Before we knew it, our time here was over. Thanks for everything Cairns, it’s been amazing!!

Here are a few random pics from our months in Cairns. I’ll post another blog with photos and descriptions of our road trips and our adventures out to the reefs.

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We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.

Anonymous