For our last day in Corlette, we were gifted with morning sun, breakfast from Two Bobs that Thomas had picked up, and… a great Tour de France stage, with an epic one vs. one fight for the yellow jersey.
We dropped Matilda and Alfie at daycare and school. We spent the morning packing and preparing our trip to Sydney.
We left after lunch. Nathalie and Thomas were clearly very sad. So were we, but they will join us in Sydney tomorrow, so we’ll see them soon.
We arrived in Sydney late afternoon. We’re staying in Rozelle suburds, at Chris’ flat. It’s a lively neighbourhood with small shops, restaurants, takeaways, quite nice to walk in these streets on a busy Friday afternoon. We ate at an Italian restaurant nearby – pizza & pasta, what else!
For our last full day in Corlette, we decided to go snorkelling. But first, we had to watch the replay of the Tour de France, with a great finish on the runway of Peyragudes airport (16% climb, 1m up every 6m).
Because of the strong currents where we wanting to dive, we had to wait for high tide, mid-afternoon. In the meantime, we went for a walk at Soldiers Point, a town 10min from Corlette. We saw pelicans there, found a pier where we could take “instagram” pictures, and ate pizza at the marina’s takeaway.
We were on time for the high tide at Fly Point, in Nelson Bay. The water was cold, 16 deg, but ok with wetsuits. However… visibility was an issue. The water was muddy because of the bad weather the last few days. We still saw nice fishes in the shallow waters. But we didn’t hang around for too long, and quickly started thinking that we had deserved a warm shower.
We went home, got that warm shower we deserved. The kids spent the evening playing with costumes. We played baby-foot, bananagrams. Mike was here for dinner, and we said goodbye to him. We’re going to Sydney tomorrow, the last part of our trip… and we’ll be saying goodbye to Corlette.
We got up early, jumped in a taxi to get to the airport. We’re saying goodbye to Cairns, after 3 full days of summer temperatures and activities.
At the airport, we watched the highlights of the Tour de France while waiting for boarding – of course!
We landed in Newcastle early afternoon, went for lunch and shopping before coming home. Hugo, Tim, Alfie and Matilda were happy to see each other again, played with costumes the whole evening, and watched a movie.
Mike came for dinner: bbq and homemade apple cake. We planned our next day – we’re hoping for nice weather, so that we can go snorkelling in Nelson Bay.
We had a good and long night of sleep, exhausted after yesterday’s adventures. As we were taking our time also for breakfast, we started planning the day… and realised we had to rush to the bus! We caught it, and drove to Kuranda, about an hour from Cairns. It’s located in the rainforest, and was highly recommended day-trip when staying at Cairns.
We arrived there late morning, had a coffee at a nice coffee shop in town and went for a hike in the rainforest. We had lunch along the Barron river, and did a bit of souvenir shopping when back in Kuranda.
For the way back, we took the skyrail for a beautiful journey just above the canopy of the rainforest. We stopped at the lookout to Barron Falls, and got a nice ranger guided tour at the next stop, Red Peak. We learnt about sting-trees, the giant Queensland Kauri tree, the back-burning process (prevention of forest fire, among other benefits), and the epiphytes like the basket fern that had puzzled us earlier.
For the last part of the cableway trip, we got the view on the ocean – and what a spectacular view! The skyrail took us down to Smithfield… conveniently located just next to the wake-park. Tim had a go at it, tried wakeboarding this time (successfully). The other went back to Cairns for further souvenir shopping.
We all met at the night market downtown Cairns, bought takeaway food, and had dinner home.
We woke up early, earlier than planned – the excitement maybe – and walked to the wharves to get on a big catamaran. The sea was calm until we passed Fitzroy island, but became quite rough when we entered the open sea. Séverine had bought seasickness pills, it all went smoothly for us… but not for everyone on the boat. 45 min later we arrived at a big pontoon, in the middle of nowhere… or not so much maybe. It was anchored on one of the coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. We got into our wetsuits, were handed buoyancy jackets, snorkel sets and fins, and jumped in the water.
We didn’t even need to jump out of the jumping platform – we were already surrounded by « dory » and her family. Just next to the boat, the coral was quite dull, mostly brown or white. But just a few strokes away, we could see scores of small and big fish, yellow, black, striped, often with patches of iridescent colors. And the coral that looked static to start with, became an animated world always moving, as the waves pass by, and as I was more at ease with the snorkel.
Sun came after lunch, highlighting even more the diversity of colours. I saw completely black fish suddenly showing multitudes of small, bright spots. We also took a tour in a boat with a transparent base – although not as nice as when snorkelling, it was interesting to hear about this reef and where to find nemos (clown fish). Séverine got to see one, I didn’t. However, as I was back to the boat after my 4th and final round, I saw a beautiful turtle, majestically moving along the reef.
My phone is not waterproof so I don’t have any pictures of the corals, only memories.
Our plan today was to get activities booked for tomorrow, then take the skyrail to the rainforest. But as we were walking from the bus stop to the skyrail, we passed by a wake-park. And long story short, this is where we spent most of our day.
Timo, Sarah and I tried kneeboarding for 1 1/2 hour, while Hugo and Sev were at the nearby aqua-park. So a wake-park is a lake with a sort of ski lift that drags the boarders around the lake. Pretty simple, fun and cool. Both Timo and Sarah managed full rounds quite quickly, while I only managed half rounds after 3 failed attempts.
We had lunch there, bought dinner at the nearby mall, and went back to Cairns to try the swimming pool at the Esplanade Lagoon. We had diner at home, and got ready for tomorrow’s adventures.
