We arrived at 3:10 pm local time (12:10 am March 23 in Toronto). We were 2 very knackered (tired) travellers.  At first I thought we'd landed in the wrong place because we were greeted with "Welcome to Kenz" (with a drawn out "e").   Apparently not, however.   We, also, heard the name pronounced "Cans" (with the a sounding like the a sound in baa) as well, very similar to the pronunciation of Cannes in France. The city is also named after Governor Cairns, who pronounced his name 'CANS' (like two cans of coke), not after a cairn. So I guess we arrived exactly where we were supposed to and we'll figure out what to call this place after we've been here for a while.

It is autumn in Australia and it was a hot (30) & humid overcast day. It's the end of the rainy season but the cabby said they hadn't had much rain so maybe we're in store for some over the next few days. Cairns is the main centre of Northern Queensland. It has a beachfront esplanade but instead of sandy beaches there are mud flats rife with birds. This is where most people come to explore the Great Barrier Reef.

We got settled in our hotel (right by the esplanade overlooking the Coral Sea), had a much needed shower and went out to familiarize ourselves with the city and grab a great seafood dinner. After dinner we were stuffed (no, not full. This means tired) so we had an early night. It was getting really hard to keep our eyes open. By early I mean we were in bed and asleep by 8:00 pm. We have a whole day tomorrow before our tour meeting so we wanted to see what fun we could have.

The city is quite nice. Even though it has a "beach" town feel it gives off a city atmosphere.  It feels like a tropical destination. There were lots of people walking about on the Esplanade. The Esplanade is 2 km's of landscaped parkland, a busy thoroughfare, a restaurant strip on one side and a natural harbour on the other. It looked like there was a huge swimming pool right on the ocean front. The rain hampered further exploration of that. It's on our list for tomorrow.

Cairns is in Queensland, which is Australia's second largest state and is the country's most popular tourist destination, after Sydney. The southern coastline is a haven for surfers and has a real beach culture. Maybe we'll see some surfers guys and gals tomorrow but I don't think Cairns is a surfers paradise. In the northern part, where Cairns is, the big tourist attraction is the Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders of the world and a wet tropics rainforest, another World Heritage site. It covers 2,000 km from Bundagberg to the tip of Cape York and an area of about 350,000 sq km. Between the outer edges of the reef and the mainland, there are more than 2,000 islands and almost 3,000 separate reefs of differing types. We hear the best coral is on the outer reef so we may try to get out there at some point. We do get to snorkel parts of the reef on the tour but likely not the outer reef. And Vic really wants to scuba as well.

I didn't get many pictures due to the weather. I'll try to post motor in future blogs.