We arrived in Cairns on Wednesday. The hot tropical weather and scenery as well as the 3 hour flight made us feel like we were in a different country. Cairns is quite a pretty city but undeniably carved out for tourism with hundreds of gift shops, restaurants, numerous hotels, holiday accommodation etc. We stayed in Cairns 2 nights, spending the only full day on a tour to Green Island and the Great Barrier Reef. Green Island was quite sweet but 2 hours was plenty to explore it, you can go round it in as little as 20 minutes. Then another boat trip to the Reef - the water was so choppy that Vicky thought she will have her first ever sea sickness! But luckily we arrived at the pontoon before we managed to feed fish J. Next we changed into sexy blue full body stinger suits. After laughing at each other for a while we finally were ready for snorkelling. It was absolutely amazing! No surprise it is one of the wonders of the world.

After our 2 nights in Cairns were over, we picked up our rental car which Mark absolutely loves but Vicky is scared of. We went for the cheapest car - our booking said cheapie/compact. It was more than a surprise to get massive and almost brand new Toyota Camry. As Mark loves it so much, he can drive it while Vicky is sleeping in the passenger seat!

After we got our car we were ready to leave for Port Douglas but first we decided to catch the Sky Rail on the outskirts of Cairns. The Sky Rail is a 7.5 km long cable car and would take us to small town called Kuranda. It was a pretty amazing trip - being so high in the skies, looking down on the rolling hills of rainforest, sea, river and even waterfalls. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to spare in Kuranda, so we just wandered around and had nice lunch in the local cafe before travelling back.