We Heart Cairns!

Cairns is fantastic! We love it here and we think we even want to live here one day. It is gorgeous. We've been anchored just opposite the Marlin Marina and can tie up our dinghy for free. The marina is locked at night, but we've had great luck, someone has always let us in when we've needed to return.

Cairns Highlights

Shopping at Rusty's markets for fresh fruit and veg. These markets are fantastic! They run from Friday till Sunday and have dozens of stall holders all selling quality fresh fruit and veg at bargain prices. I love a good market - this is definitely in my top 5. There's something so uplifting about the colours of a fruit and veg market. Yum!

Big smiles for Rusty's markets - they are the best!!!

Swimming at the amazing Crystal Cascades in freezing cold fresh water surrounded by lush rainforest. I've become a true north Queenslander as I was the first out of the water - it was too cold! We came back to this amazing place for a go at fire twirling one night with Chris, Mel and a few other locals. I was pretty terrible at it but Rene got the hang of it and made some impressive moves.

Swimming at Crystal Cascades

Having a go at fire twirling

Free yoga next to the pool along the esplanade at sunrise. The yoga was slower than I'm accustomed to, but I learnt some new techniques to add to my ever-growing yoga love. Funnily enough, the teacher's name was Allison - another one!

Free Zumba dancing in the park at sunset :)

Free Zumba. We caught up with Jian (my childhood neighbour), laughing through a free Zumba class in the park with hundreds of others. She came over to Ani for dinner and ended up staying the night and sharing her amazing travel tales of South America.
We also enjoyed catching up with Melissa and sharing meals, drinks and games with her. She is one of those amazing people who can rustle up a gourmet meal with a few scraps left in the fridge. It was also lovely to meet Tamsin's parents who are visiting from York. We shared dinner with them at Natalies place and watched the royal wedding. Watching it with people from Europe made it feel more authentic.

Ren zooming up to Ani in the dinghy here in Cairns.

We continued with the boat jobs while anchored here in the creek. Ren fixed the fridge which had broken on the trip up (salt water had splashed in and broken the fuses which run the fan). He also installed the new flexible coupling on the propeller shaft and cleaned up the oil spilt when it leaked into the bilges. Rog helped out by wiring our telstra wireless modem so that it now runs off our 12volt system. I did more sewing. I started with fixing up our privacy curtain, then I "fixed" my stinger suit. When I proudly showed Rene what a great job I'd done at sewing up the big hole it had at the back, he asked how I planned to put it on now? Whoops! 
During the strong winds, my cockpit awning tore itself off. I spent a few hours reinforcing it and sewing up the holes. It should hopefully hold together better now. I've prepared the staysail bag pattern and will attempt to sew a replacement when I can (I have to time my sewing to when it's sunny as the machine uses too much power to use during the night). Rog is now trying to coax our little broken outboard motor to life (I don't hold much hope for it) and Rene is installing a bilge pump.We're really cruising now - boat maintenance in paradise!


We might head out for different waters tomorrow. There's talk of venturing out to the reef or of going to Port Douglas. I'd better get into the boat prep so that things don't fly everywhere while we're sailing. It has been so lovely to stay here in Cairns. I definitely plan on returning here. 

Amazing tropical flowers - this tree grows even crazier fruit!