Cairns itself wasn’t necessarily the main focus of our time in Queensland. Instead, we used Cairns as our home base and spent most of our time venturing out on day trips and drive to the surrounding areas before coming back each night.
I’ll put the logistical legwork here: packing, transportation, accommodations, and the general locations we visited. Then link the more specific location guides at the bottom of the post.
- 🌡️ Travel Month – July: “Dry Season”
- 🧳 Packing List
- 📍 Locations
- 🚙 Transportation
- 🏠 Accommodations
- 💭 Final Thoughts
- 🦘 More Cairns Blogs 🐨
So Why Cairns?
Pretty simple: The Great Barrier Reef. Then I started researching and came across the Daintree Rainforest. ‘Nuff said. Just go there yourself.
🌡️ Travel Month – July: “Dry Season”
I put “Dry Season” in quotes purely because it wasn’t. In fact, it was very, very wet. We were caught a little off guard for how wet it was. The locals told us that the Wet Season had been extending further into July in recent years, and apparently, they were just as irritated by it as we were.
We experienced the most consistent rain while we were up in Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest. The rest of our time around Cairns was more scattered, with rain coming and going throughout the day.
The rain at least was pleasant. Temperatures were mostly in the mid 70s, so it wasn’t cold enough to dampen our spirits or stop us from doing anything. In the end, I think the weather worked out pretty well for us. We weren’t too hot, too cold, overly humid, or dealing with too many bugs.
🧳 Packing List
The biggest takeaway from doing multiple water activities is to bring two swimsuits. Being able to alternate between them means you aren’t constantly putting on a wet swimsuit. We brought UPF long sleeve shirts, and I had a cover-up dress that I could throw over my swimsuit.
We packed bug spray and even brought a citronella soap bar, but we ended up not needing the bug spray at all. We purchased reef safe sunscreen locally that we used throughout our trip in other locations.
Even though it was technically Dry Season, we packed raincoats, and I’m very glad we did. Rain was on and off throughout our time in the area, so having a raincoat with us came in handy more than once.
📍 Locations
Main location points: Cape Tribulation, Mossman Gorge, Port Douglas, Swimmings Holes, Atherton Tablelands, and Kuranda.
Click Arrow for Day to Day Itinerary:
Day 1: Drive from Cairns to Cape Tribulation: Rex’s Lookout, Dubuji and Kulki Boardwalk.
Day 2: Jindalba and Madja Boardwalk, Daintree Ice Cream, and Cape Trib Farm – Fruit Tasting.
Day 3: Drive from Cape Tribulation to Cairns: Mount Alexandra Lookout, Mossman Gorge
Day 4: Port Douglas: Snorkel Day Excursion, Trinity Bay Lookout, 4 Mile Beach
Day 5: Swimming Hole: Josephine Falls, Babinda Boulders, Behana Gorge
Day 6: Atherton Tablelands Waterfall Circuit: Millaa Millaa, Zillie, and Ellinjaa Falls. Lake Eacham or Lake Barrine. Gallo Dairyland, Curtain Fig Tree, Mareeba Golf Club.
Day 7: Kuranda.
🚙 Transportation
If you plan on leaving Cairns and exploring the surrounding areas of Queensland, you’ll want a car. There isn’t public transportation that will get you to the places we visited. You could book tours that include transportation and stop at some of these locations, but we didn’t want to be limited by someone else’s schedule. We wanted the flexibility to stay somewhere longer if we were enjoying it, change our plans, or leave whenever we wanted. For us, renting a car for the week was worth the cost.
One thing to keep in mind when driving around this part of Queensland is the impact of Cyclone Jasper, which hit the region in 2023. The cyclone caused major flooding and widespread damage, and some of the effects were still visible during our trip. We encountered several areas of road construction, including sections of the Captain Cook Highway between Cairns and Port Douglas, where traffic was reduced to one lane and controlled by lights.
This is something to keep in mind when planning your drive times. A route that looks straightforward on a map can take longer when you have construction and temporary road closures to navigate.
🏠 Accommodations
We stayed in two places during our trip: a hostel in Cape Tribulation and an Airbnb in Mooroobool, just outside of Cairns. If we hadn’t been traveling with so much luggage and hadn’t changed some of our plans later in the trip, I would have structured our accommodations a little differently.
If I were doing the trip again, I would still spend two nights in Cape Tribulation. From there, I’d continue down toward Mossman Gorge and then spend a night or two near Port Douglas for the snorkeling trip.
After that, I’d work our swimming holes into the route, ending at Josephine Falls. I’d stay somewhere in that area, or somewhere between Josephine Falls and the waterfall circuit, for a night. The following day, I’d do the waterfall circuit and then make my way back to Cairns. That would eliminate some of the back and forth driving we did from Cairns.
I did enjoy the driving, and it was completely doable. However if you want to cut down on the amount of driving and time driving I’d recommend spending a night between the destinations that are farther apart.
💭 Final Thoughts
If our Australia trip had only included Queensland and we had significantly less luggage to lug around, I probably would have planned our route a little differently. That said, I was happy with our decision to spend two nights in Cape Tribulation and use Cairns as our home base for the rest of our adventures. It gave us a good balance of having a place to come back to while still getting out and exploring as much of the surrounding area as possible.
If there’s a next time, I would definitely want to have my scuba certification so we could scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef instead of sticking to snorkeling. I’d even consider renting a 4WD vehicle and continuing past Cape Tribulation toward Cape York, the “tip” of Australia.
And, of course, I’d aim for the Dry Season again. Hopefully, the weather gets the memo.
🦘 More Cairns Blogs 🐨
Just like with my Australia Table of Contents post, the plan is to create more specific blog posts for the individual locations we visited throughout Queensland. Cairns was really our launching point for exploring this part of Australia, so there’s a lot more to cover. Make sure to check back for the individual location guides below.
