Day 2: Make Like a Fish, Make Like a Bird
The SeaQuest ADV Discover Diving Program takes beginners and experienced divers to the Outer Barrier Reef sixty-three kilometres (forty miles) from Cairns for a daylong PADI-certificate course over the remarkable reef. Snorkelers are welcome too and there’s a smorgasbord lunch included. The Osprey V is a speedy vessel and guarantees small-group diving and snorkeling tours to the Outer Barrier Reef.
A hot air ballooning and Barron River rafting package takes up most of the day, but gives you a unique double perspective on this naturally beautiful region. Vertigo sufferers can opt out of ballooning and do the white-water rafting on either the Tully River for a full day or the Barron River for a half day.
If that’s too sedate, try the Tarzan-inspired Minjin Jungle Swing or (you know you want to?) bungee jump off a fifty meter (164 feet) tower? Photos and DVDs can be purchased to show your friends what fear and trembling looks like on your face.
Are you just too tough for bungee jumping? Does white-water rafting make you yawn? Try firing yourself out of a canon or, better, skydiving. This tour combines solo and tandem skydives with lunch (not simultaneously) and later snorkeling and reef-viewing in a glass-bottom boat.
Once your pulse has normalized and the burnt-orange hues of day’s end begin to glow in the late-afternoon sky, it’s time to think about dinner. How about a four-course dinner cruise on the Ocean Spirit IV in placid Trinity Inlet? With a gentle sea breeze, a rainforest mountain backdrop, and a glass of champagne, the setting is perfect for a gourmet meal and a twirl on the rosewood dance floor.
Day 3: Oh My Aching Head? And Body!
So you’ve played hard during the day and partied hard at night, and now you need a more restful day. Cairns has a lovely foreshore pedestrian promenade and a 4800-sq-kilometre saltwater swimming lagoon. There are some terrific museums like Cairns Museum, and galleries like the Tanks Arts Centre, Cairns Regional Gallery and Centre of Contemporary Arts, cafés and restaurants, and botanical gardens and walking trails.
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