My husband, my teenage son, and I will be spending five nights around Cairns at the beginning of August. We'll be arriving at noon, spending five nights, and leaving at noon. We'll be coming from the US, so will need a little recovery time from a 32 hour trip. My husband wants to dive and my son and I want to snorkel. We also want to visit the Tablelands and the Daintree Rainforest, and maybe drive up to Cape Trib. We will have a rental car. We have enough points for five free nights at a hotel in Cairns, but don't have to stay there the whole time. Can you please advise as to the following itinerary?

July 31: Arrive Cairns airport at noon, zonk out at hotel in Cairns
Aug 1: Visit Tablelands, stay in Yungaberra?
Aug. 2: Explore Tablelands, spend night in Cairns
Aug. 3: Dive and snorkel from Cairns
Aug. 4: Drive up the coast to Daintree Forest, maybe to Cape Trib, back to Cairns
Aug. 5: leave Cairns airport at noon

I've read that you aren't supposed to do the Tablelands right after diving or before flying because of the altitude so have planned accordingly. Does this work? Is it reasonable to think we could do Cairns to Daintree and maybe Cape Trib and back in one day? Should we stay in Port Douglas that night instead? Or should we give Daintree/Cape Trib two days, and do the Tablelands in one day (stay in Cairns, drive up for the day and back)?

I've read every book I can get my hands on, but am having a hard time figuring this out. Your help will be greatly appreciated!

Oh, just for background, we'll be spending most of our vacation in NZ. But my husband is a diver, and he said, "We can't go to NZ, and not go to the Great Barrier Reef, too." "You know," I said, "that Australia is a different country, don't you?" Oh, well! But while there, we want to get a feel for as much as we can. We won't be taking tours, just tooting around on our own.

Personally I'd do the Atherton tablelands as a day trip from Cairns and not bother moving hotels. Leave as early in the day as you can as it will probably be getting dark by about 6 pm and you won't want to be driving on winding country roads in an unfamiliar country.
Alternatively you could do a day tour by taking the vintage train to Kuranda and coming back by Skyrail.
The road trip to Cape Trib is another long day but worth while. You could detour to Mossman Gorge on the way. Port Douglas is very pleasant but my personal favourite is Palm Cove - lovely little seaside village - so pretty.
Hope you enjoy your holiday.

So it would make sense to stay in Cairns every night, and do everything as a day trip?

Hi CindyW - you do have a few options. I agree with Marg above in that you could do the day trip to Cape Trib - which is exactly what we did earlier this month. We drove to Port Douglas, and visited Mossman Gorge and stopped in at Palm Cove on the way back. We went back to Palm Cove next day for lunch - marg is correct a lovely little seaside village. It didn't seem like that big a day's drive to be honest.

Pat and Alan are a wealth of information regarding the Cairns area and hopefully they will pop in with some suggestions and the link below will hook you up with Alan's tours at Yungaburra.

I would have liked to have done the Kuranda railway but needed more RNR than anything else so will save that for next time.


http://www.yungaburra.com/tours/

"I've read that you aren't supposed to do the Tablelands right after diving or before flying because of the altitude so have planned accordingly."

Diving then flying is problematic but not driving up to these altitudes or driving in general. If you are in such poor health that your body cannot adjust to driving up a mountain, then you should not be surfacing after diving which probably means that you should not go down in the first place. We are not so high here, only 750- 1000 metres depending on where you go. Air is a LOT less dense than water.

I would suggest that you do the diving at the beginning of your visit as that give you plenty of time to recover and even change your plans if the weather is unkind. From there head up to the TAblelands, where Yungaburra is a good base and drive up the inland road to Cape Tribulation before taking the coastal route down.

I'm on tour at the moment and not visiting this site often but psot more questions and more info on what you what out of your trip and I'll try and get back to you.

Just a little PS, Kuranda is hardly the Tablelands.

Here's my two cents, for what it's worth (which isn't much these days). It is based solely on what I would do and my own travel preferences. And that tends to be that I don't like to start my day moving to a new location. I like to make my move the night before if I am going to move.

Here's your original suggestion:

July 31: Arrive Cairns airport at noon, zonk out at hotel in Cairns
Aug 1: Visit Tablelands, stay in Yungaberra?
Aug. 2: Explore Tablelands, spend night in Cairns
Aug. 3: Dive and snorkel from Cairns
Aug. 4: Drive up the coast to Daintree Forest, maybe to Cape Trib, back to Cairns
Aug. 5: leave Cairns airport at noon

I would do this:

July 31: Arrive Cairns airport at noon, stay in Cairns
Aug 1: Dive and snorkel from Cairns. Drive to Yungaberra. Stay in Yungaberra
Aug. 2: Explore Tablelands, spend night in Yungaberra
Aug. 3: Explore Tablelands, Drive to Daintree Village via Mareeba (visit Mareeba wetlands) Mossman Village and Mossman Gorge. Stay in Daintree Village.(Red Mill House is where I would stay there)
Aug. 4: Now you can wake up and do one of the Daintree River Tours followed by the ferry trip (which is right there) across the river and up into the Daintree. Back to Daintree Village, staying again at Red Mill House (or drive back to Cairns but I don't think you need to)
Aug. 5: Drive to to Cairns, plenty of time to arrive in order to leave Cairns airport at noon. We didn't even move back to Cairns the night before flying out mid day. We just drove down that am. Even had a little time to visit the Esplanade.

Hope I'm not stating the bleeding obvious, but I don't know that such a detailed plan is such a good idea when a reef trip is involved. All reef trips are weather dependent, August can be very windy and I think you need more "wriggle" room in case your planned date for reef trip does not work out weather-wise.

So, to be more flexible I'd be checking weather reports, fairly accurate up to 3 days out, picking the best reef day and work the other trips around that. All easy to do. As Alan has mentioned the altitude of Tablelands is nowhere near high enough to have any adverse affect after diving.

Today, for instance, in late May when reef conditions are usually good was atrocious, reef trips out of Cairns were cancelled as was the Kuranda Train, which is bad news for tourists who have only left themselves one day.

I think it was mentioned up thread Pat, but well worth mentioning again, especially (as I understand it) as their primary reason for going to Cairns is the reef trip.

I would suggest that having Toucan2's plan in the head would be a wonderful idea but with the ability to change if the weather does not suit. I was on Magnetic Island yesterday and we could not even get the kids snorkeling on an inshore reef. It is best to have some flexibility as not all the party are divers who can get below the wave action. Even then there is the issue of getting to and from the reef.

Hey CindyW! I'm in Cairns right now with my fiance and it's great. We haven't done all the exploring we want to yet so I can't give too much advice on that, but from being here, I can tell you that renting a car is a great idea. We're thinking of doing the same because it's the cheapest and easiest way to see all the sites.

Here are the places we've been told are must sees:
Mossman Gorge
Barron Falls
Lake Placid
Barron Gorge
Copperlode
Kuranda

We've only been in Cairns for a few days and we've really just been laying by the pool and going to the beach and enjoying the warm weather (because we were previously traveling further south and it's freezing down there in comparison!).

We haven't actually stayed in Cairns city yet but we will go there for a few days. We really wanted to be near a beach and the city centre doesn't actually have one so we're staying in a small city north of Cairns city where they have a gorgeous beach. That's something to think about because a lot of people don't realize Cairns city doesn't actually have a beach (they have a lagoon, which I've heard is also awesome).

As for your activities, I'm with you, I'm not much of a tour person either. But some things you have to book in advance, like a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. You can just book a trip on a big boat and they provide snorkel gear for free, but your husband will have to pay extra to go scuba diving (I'm a snorkeler and my fiance wants to dive).

We haven't booked anything yet because we're still comparing every possible company and price! But we've had a lot of help from the guy who owns the hotel we're staying at because he also runs a tour company. He gave us all the pamphlets to look through and will help us book everything when we decide what we want and he'll try to get us deals. I'm pretty sure you can book stuff on his tour site, but we haven't because we've just been chatting directly with him. It's http://cairnsdiscounttours.com.au

Good luck with your planning!

Welcome to Fodors, EmmyKaye. A shame that you are only being told about things which are almost in Cairns. When you do decide to get out of the pool I hope you'll travel a bit further afield. Chillagoe and Undara are great and the Atherton Tablelands is a beautiful place. I saw a Lumholtz's Tree-Kangaroo by Malanda Falls this afternoon on my way home from work. How cool is that!

and that tree kangaroo is off telling his mates..."Guess who I saw this arvo, while I was hanging out by the falls?....."

This girl will feature in a documentary to be released next year about Australian wildlife. A German film crew captured here and her daughter in some great interaction last year

That should have been "her and her daughter" of course.