Spa pool at Caldwell; Mt Bartle Frere – what’s in a name?; quick side-track to Melbourne; Trinity Beach – two nights, two Italians; Port Douglas – oversold?; one night in Cairns; back to Bris on the splendid Spirit of Queensland; Monday, Monday
Do stop at the spa pool at Cardwell, north of Townsville, said Tracy at our Airlie accommodation. It’s located just two miles from the main highway, it’s a site of spiritual significance for the indigenous community, it’s eerily blue, and it’s well worth the short detour.
Townsville to Cairns
Located 51km south of Cairns, in Wooroonooran National Park, is Queensland’s highest mountain (1,611m): Mt Bartle Frere. I pricked up my ears, having bought my first flat in Frere Road, Durban, which transforms into Bartle Road at one point. Both QLD mountain and Durban roads were named after Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, who – apart from illustrious service in India and elsewhere, served as High Commissioner for Southern Africa from 1877-1880. Those colonial administration chappies certainly got around.
(Don’t bother making a pilgrimage to Frere Road, because you won’t find it. Around ten years ago, the city fathers of Durban (mainly Councillor Michael Sutcliffe, if I remember rightly), saw fit to rename 180-odd roads. Bartle Road may still be Bartle Road, but Frere Road is now Esther Roberts Road. (In spite of my tendency to sneer at attempts to rewrite history, I do like Esther’s credentials.)
Two nights at Trinity Beach
We found ourselves at Trinity Beach by accident – a happy accident, as it turned out, though Roy was a bit sulky for a while.
Looking at a map of what I thought was the Cairns CBD, Trinity had looked to be really close to central Cairns– but of course it’s not. It’s a good 20 minutes north of Cairns CBD and the railway station where we’d be catching the train back to Bris. It’s also 20 minutes from the airport to which we’d have to return the rental car.
Quick sidetrack… sorry!
It’s like looking at a map of Australia and thinking Melbourne would make a nice day trip from Sydney. (It really wouldn’t; the coastal drive is a cool 20 hours and 1,434km). Distances can be deceptive on this vast continent; that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.
Luckily, I was able to reduce our Trinity Beach stay to two nights, and Roy made a booking at The Oaks in Cairns for the third one.
Review: On the Beach Holiday Apartments (49-51 Vasey Esplanade, Trinity Beach)
On the Beach has a great location, is newly refurbished and comes complete with pool, hot tub and laundry facilities. Highly recommended!
Reviews: Two nights, two Italians
We had Italian both nights at Trinity Beach. The super-busy L’Unicos was 100m from our apartment; the more low-key Il Chiosco just 50m in the other direction, and both were jolly good in their own different ways.
At L’Unicos on that first night, we shared the parmiggiana de melanze to start, followed by veal for me and pork belly for Roy.
At Il Chiosco, we shared the bufala with prosciutto and rocket, followed by fresh barramundi and veggies for Roy and, for me, spaghetti di mare, sauced with fresh tomato, clams, mussels, fish, yabbies and what I’m sure were wild-caught local prawns.
Scene at Trinity Beach
Port Douglas
Port Douglas is beautiful, our friends had urged – you could stay there rather than in Cairns. For me, though, the best thing about Port Douglas was the picturesquely winding coastal drive north from Cairns – the Great Barrier Reef Tourist Drive (where the rainforest meets the reef).
As it turned out, Trinity Beach was perfect. Another good choice would have been Palm Cove, just half an hour north from Cairns (and 11 minutes north of Trinity Beach).
Port Douglas is a proper holiday town, the way in lined with fancier resort names on the sea side of route 44 and cheaper accommodation on the other.
At first sight, the town centre is reminiscent of Noosa – until it isn’t. It’s nowhere near as upmarket. And to be honest, its Four Mile Beach is nothing spectacular (apart from being four miles long, of course).
No doubt Covid has hurt the tourism industry here, as it has everywhere, or almost everywhere; you’d never see a Noosa shop sign promising “everything under $22”.
After perusing the bakery, burger, Indian, Thai and Vietnamese options, we settled for a vego frittata lunch at a deeply unpretentious little café at the quieter end of the main drag.
A night in Cairns
They say there’s a fierce rivalry between Cairns and Townsville. I didn’t see enough of Cairns to be able to comment. And we didn’t see Cairns Esplanade at its best – it was nearing the end of a long period of reconstruction, and was swathed in orange netting to stop the traffic; apparently, the coming weekend was going to be a big event to launch the improvements.
Review: The Oaks, Cairns
It was even difficult getting into The Oaks, where $210 got us an “insider room”. Roy thought the term referred to us getting an insider’s rate, as our property in Queenstown NZ is managed by The Oaks group and we get membership benefits. Unfortunately, it was the going rate for small and poky room with no outlook. Even worse, it was hot, and impossible to turn down the temperature on the aircon control.
On the plus side, The Oaks has a lovely rooftop lounge and bar where we could hang out for a couple of hours, enjoying the sweeping sea view. Then we had a drink before a quick walk around the nearby Night Market, which was the closest thing I’ve seen to an Asian market outside of Asia: massage parlours and tourist tat of all descriptions.
Oh, and we did a recce of the railway station we’d be leaving from the next morning; and then a tour of Central Cairns shopping mall, right next to the station. We could have been back home in Joondalup: from Jamaica Blue coffee, Bed Bath & Table and Goldmark to Valley Girl, Rip Curl, Forever New – not to mention Myer department store, it’s just another of those generic assortments of retailers. (Now, if there’d only been a Zara…)
Having dropped the Avis car off at Cairns airport, a quick and convenient 6km from the CBD, we were looking forward to the 25-hour train journey that would take us back to Brissy.
We’d be departing Cairns at 8.35am and arriving at Roma Street station, Brisbane, at 9.20am the following morning. (And that’s exactly how it turned out, despite the gloomy predictions of one fellow passenger on the platform at Cairns – the train always runs late, he said, and we’d be lucky to get in by noon.)
Back to Bris on the Spirit of Queensland
We had called Queensland Rail a month or so before the travel date and managed to book two of the last three available Railbed sleepers on the Spirit of Queensland.
“The train is fun only if you go First Class,” our friend Max had said. Well, Spirit of Queensland doesn’t call it First Class – maybe for socio-political correctness in egalitarian Oz – but their Railbed accommodation, the two front carriages of the train, certainly looks, feels and smells like First Class.
It has a 2-1 configuration; we had two single seats on the right. It also has showers, and you get a little bag of toiletries and a full-sized towel. And, if you’re very lucky, you may get the ever-solicitous Steve to look after you.
What’s not to love about a train journey? Your time is your own to do exactly as you please. You don’t have to feed anyone; you can’t exercise or do housework; and, given a comfortable enough seat and someone bringing you drinks and meals at proper intervals, you can read, write, or watch whatever you like. It’s like a very long-haul flight (in Business Class, at least), but without the crampedness, poor air quality and other discomforts of flying.
Railbeds make reasonably comfy seats in the daytime, equipped with an electrical socket, a USB charger, and a fairly big screen in the back of the seat in front of you. The leg-room is phenomenal – more First Class than Business.
Meals on Wheels
You get one complimentary drink with lunch and dinner, and the food – a choice of two mains (one vegetarian) and two desserts – was outstanding.
The veggie filo pastry stuffed with butternut, feta and more came with salad; so substantial that the sticky date pudding / cheesecake was actually too much. (Still had them, though.) For dinner, the slow-braised beef cheeks with jus, mash, carrots and Brussels sprouts were so delicious I almost wept as I licked the melamine clean.
After dinner, someone comes around to convert your seat into a bed, using a fancy plug-in device to operate the hydraulics. With a bottom sheet, a couple of pillows and a fluffy doona (Oz-speak for duvet), together with a glass or two of vino under the belt, I was out for the count.
All the pics above were taken through my windowpane.
It was fun coming back the way we’d driven, and with absolutely no effort on our part – much better than driving. I highly recommend it. The cost? Well worth it – less than $800 for the two of us, both for the experience and the convenience – and the joy of not flying.
Travel Advisory
Well, that’s it for our Queensland adventure. I don’t see any major travel in my immediate future, unfortunately. Oz authorities are apparently still at a dithering loss as to how to move through, let alone beyond, the epidemic. Then there’s my husband’s reluctance to move far from the building site* (500m down the road) that may one day be transformed into our new home.
*Quick update on the house-building front: Phenomenally rainy weather here in WA has further put back the already delayed building of our house on Burns Beach Road. But we’re told the brickies may be on site on Monday.
(Mondays are also a good time to start a diet; if not this Monday, then the next. Or the one after that. Holding one’s breath could be dangerous.)
