Brief Encounters | What to do in Cairns – a weekend getaway to the Great Barrier Reef and Australia’s natural wonders
- The city in tropical Queensland is surrounded by beautiful beaches, crystalline waters and mountainous rainforest
- For a taste of the region, try locally grown produce fresh from the barbecue
Some way southeast of Hong Kong, Cairns is Instant Australia – and as it’s just two hours ahead, it is only a complete and utter wuss who’s going to get jet lag heading there or back home. Stepping outside after landing in Cairns is a bit like the scene in a film when the hero emerges into the sunlight after a long hard-won struggle and the orchestra begins to play. Vast skies, fresh air, those wide open spaces – and a slight sense of unreality. Cairns plays the great Australian outdoors to the hilt, never more so than in the winter months, between May and September, when migrating whales start steaming past. Elemental, or what?
Where to stay
As is only to be expected in a premier coastal resort, Shangri-La, Pullman, Hilton and other members of the bed brigade are all well represented here. Aussie property Riley – looking a bit like a glassy Olympic torch – wins the architectural oddity award. For a step into the outfield, a Queensland homestay is something to ponder: balance the lack of facilities that would be available in a regular hotel with being (almost) a part of an Australian family, reasonable rates and no bothersome other guests.
Stay in a Queenslander, the state’s distinctive residence with a wide, shady veranda – an aesthetically pleasing and environmentally logical design that predates “egg nishners”.
Where to shop
Sidestep the big brands and the – um – retail experience at the main malls and suchlike and dive down Oceana Walk, the sort of place that is sufficiently entertaining to levy an admission charge but, of course, is far too nice to do so. Besides the obligatory vinyl store – ditto scooter shack – there’s fashion, vintage stuff, a shop whose eco-friendly Toys really Are Us, and Jo’s Scissors of Gold, which notched up half a century of hairdressing in 2017.
North of the city, there’s no disputing Kuranda’s tagline – The Village in the Rainforest. Plenty of Aboriginal arts and crafts on sale, and coming here is a good excuse to hop aboard the treetop-skimming 7.5km Skyrail, conceived and built – over a period of 14 years – by that very determined Queensland squillionaire George Chapman.
What to eat
If Cairns ever decides to rebrand, Cornucopia should be No 1 on the shortlist of new names. At the gateway to the tropical north, and on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef, fresh, natural produce practically walks into town and lays itself down for consumption. Fruit, reef fish, wild-caught prawns, nuts from the rainforest, coffee and tea from the Atherton tablelands, biodynamic milk, cheese and yogurt and so on and so deliciously forth. A stroll round Rusty’s Markets (Friday to Sunday, from – strewth – 5am) is 100 per cent organic food porn.
