Quick stay in Cairns before we head north to Port Douglas. We flew here from Sydney, rented a car and have a great airbnb house with a pool!

House pics:

SUNDAY: It was cloudy, warm and a little rainy. We arrived in Cairns early, but didn’t do too much. Unpacked. Grocery shopped. Swam a little. Recovery from traveling. We are slowing​ down. As we arrive in each new place, it does seem we need to pause and catch our breath. Figure out where we are and what we want to do. The planning for each portion of the trip usually takes place on that first day. I need to see the area before making daily plans. 

MONDAY:  Today was one for the record books. It was our first trip to a Dr/ER since we’ve been here. Also had to call poison control for help. Everyone is okay and that story will come when the time is right. All that drama was over by 9:30am and the rest of the day was great. Amazing weather. We spent the morning swimming at our pool. Then we headed down the the Esplanade to play and splash. The playground was super fun and the lagoon was great.  Carins doesn’t actually have beaches, but the lagoon was perfect and the kids had so much fun. Wes and I spent a good amount of time researching and organizing our reef trip for Tuesday because that’s the reason we came to Cairns. We watched Finding Nemo to prepare for the next day’s adventure.

TUESDAY: This day will 100% be getting its own blog post. We snorkled in The Great Barrier Reef. I wish we had a ton of photos to show you how incredible it was, but we were too busy living it up to take pictures. I still have to go through Wes’ phone and Elle’s underwater camera. It was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. There are no words to describe what we saw and how it felt to see it. The best part of the day was the 20 minutes or so that all 5 of us were out on the reef together. I didn’t think it would happen due to some serious fears, but we did it!!!! It was a bumpy boat ride to get there and I had to “rescue” Mae from a fish attack, but it was worth it…even for my kids who have seen so much and may be unimpressed by nature these days…it blew their minds. I’m so happy they all did it. It was the most exhausting day ever. Must recoup, look at photos and process. Stay tuned for a GBR special edition blog post! For now…here are a few pictures from the day:

Wednesday: Another travel day! Today we drove north an hour to our new house in Cooya Beach, which is just outside of Port Douglas. We had a few hours to kill before we could check in…so we stopped at Palm Cove, which was on the way. So glad we did. It was gorgeous. So was the ride between Cairns and Port Douglas. I, unfortunately, came down with a fever and hoped to sleep in the car, but it was too pretty to sleep. We got to our new house around 2:30pm and now it’s time for our PD adventure! 

Pics from Palm Cove:

​​ We had an eventful few days. Cairns was not my favorite city, but we also weren’t here very long.  Cairns gave us what we needed…access to the Great Barrier Reef. All this moving around is definitely catching up to me. We are staying in such beautiful houses and beautiful places and I want to enjoy them, but it’s time to slow it down a little. We will be in Port Douglas for 5 nights with not alot of big plans. Our house is a good place to reset. The kids can swim. Wes needs to do some work. I need to catch up on laundry and organization. In less than a month we will be back in the USA for our Cape Cod/CT trip. It’s going by so fast!!

“And now I must confess
I could use some rest
I can’t run at this pace very long”.  -JB

*DBM