Astra Blog Whitsundays to Cairns
Astra
Jeremy & Sally Paul
Sun 28 Jun 2009 18:31
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After saying goodbye to Annabel and Oakley, we
decide to hot foot it to Cairns (250nm). We had discovered quite a large problem
with the engine. Well two really. The engine had been drinking oil, 14
litres on the trip from NZ to Aus. Not good, so when Jeremy discovered that the
oil level was going up, he realised that diesel was getting in with oil, which
can lead to the engine continually running and not stopping until it blows up.
Handy. So because we had some decent wind we decided to sail to Cairns. As it
turned out we had a lovely sail and only had to put the engine on for parking in
the marina at Cairns. Luckily we found a very good but incredibly expensive
engineer, who fixed most of the problems with the engine.
Cairns is an up and coming city, with a lovely
marina and lots to do. Sally hit the shops,whilst Jeremy had his head in the
engine room. Though in the evenings they hit the restaurants and had a few
beverages. Once the engine was fixed we went for a trip on the cable car that
heads up over the Rainforest canopy from Cairns to the village of Kuranda. We
didn't see much in the way of wildlife on the way up the mountain, but as we
approached Kuranda there we crossed over a big river, that Sally decided must
have crocs in it, and so we decided to do the nature walk for 3Km around the
forest and along the river bank.
Very pleasant until we got to the bit along the
river bank when Sally's imagination kicked in, and she decided we were in
imminent danger of being munched by crocs so we had to sprint all the way
back to safety...!
As you can see from the pictures, this stretch of
coast has some lovely beaches, however we are still a bit timid as every beach
has huge warning signs about Jelly fish that can kill, Sharks, and
Crocodiles...
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