Frommer's Australia from $50 a Day 13th Edition - To Parent Directory

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CHAPTER 6 . QUEENSLAND & THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
EXPLORING THE QUEENSLAND COAST
Without a doubt your itinerary will include at least one trip to the Great Barrier
Reef. The Reef starts around Bundaberg and runs up the Queensland coast to
New Guinea, so you have lots of departure points from which to explore. Don’t
think you have to go through Cairns or Port Douglas; the reef is as accessible
and magnificent from the Whitsundays, Townsville, Gladstone, and Bundaberg.
Cairns has the advantage of good flight connections from Melbourne, Sydney,
and Brisbane.
VISITOR INFORMATION The Queensland Travel Centre is a great
resource on traveling and touring the state, including the Great Barrier Reef.
Visit the Destination Queensland website at www.destinationqueensland.com
or call & 13 88 33 in Australia. Tourism Queensland has offices in the United
States and the United Kingdom—see “Visitor Information” in chapter 2.
Cheap Thrills: What to See & Do for Free
(or Almost) in Queensland
• Breathing in the sea air on a stroll along The Esplanade in Cairns.
Watch the cruise boats pull in during the late afternoon, and at
night join the throngs of people enjoying a cheap feed at the
hordes of fish and chips shops, hamburger joints, and pizzerias lining
the strip.
• Strolling the Flecker Botanic Gardens. Located 3km (1 3 ⁄4 miles)
northwest of Cairns, the walking tracks, gardens, ferns, wetlands,
and orchids are blissful in the summer heat and relaxing anytime.
• Exploring the Wet Tropics rainforests at Mission Beach. The Daintree
Rainforest north of Cairns is best explored on a commercial
4WD safari, but the even denser Wet Tropics rainforests at Mission
Beach, a 90-minute drive south of Cairns, can be explored on foot
for nothing. You may even spot a cassowary, a giant ostrich-like bird
with a blue horny head like a dinosaur!
• Hitting the beach! Beaches are always free in Oz, and Queensland
has hundreds of them. Park your towel on any of Cairns’s pretty
palm-lined crescents, such as Palm Cove or Trinity Beach, or head
south to the almost deserted, incandescently beautiful Mission
Beach, which is bordered by thick jungle and has magical views
across to Dunk Island.
• Checking out a koala colony. You don’t have to pay admission to a
wildlife park to see koalas. Likely spots to find them in the wild
include Noosa National Park, just a stroll from the main shopping
strip on Hastings Street in Noosa Heads. Say hello to the koalas, then
carry on around the headland along the park’s network of trails.
Park entry is free.
• Feeding the birds at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Guesthouse in the Gold
Coast hinterland. Brilliant black and gold Regent bowerbirds, crimson
and cobalt rosellas, and a flurry of other wild birds wait to be
fed every morning. You will gasp with delight when they land on
your hands to eat.