Cairns – A Special Reunion
16°46′30″ S 145°44′37″ E

Today our ship moored in the bay facing Cairns. We were very much looking forward to this port as we were going to catch up with two women we met last year when we were on our trip to Nepal.

November 2018 – Homestay Reception Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Louise & Judi – Nepal November 2018

Louise & Judi are from Australia & are lucky enough to live in Cairns. What a spectacular place to be! They have both been to Canada before & Louise actually lived & worked as a school teacher in Barrie, Ontario for a couple of years.

We had a really nice time with them when we were in Nepal. Last August when we initially decided to take this cruise it was a great coincidence that one of the scheduled stops was Cairns. Once we booked the cruise we sent Louise & Judi an email with the details of our itinerary & made tentative arrangements for a brief get together 4 months later!

We took a late morning tender to shore & waited for Louise & Judi at the Yorkeys Knob Boating Club adjacent to the water shuttle dock.

We enjoyed looking at all the boats in the marina and spotted a large ocean capable trawler called “Last Mango” from Wilmington, Delaware, USA. (with tan-coloured sun screens below)

Cath warned me that if sailing Santosha across the oceans is on my bucket list, she will fly to Cairns to meet me! I think Santosha is a great little boat but if I was going to try to cross an ocean I would much prefer to do it aboard Ananda.

Louise and Judi found us and took us for a brief driving tour of the immediate area & then we went to their condo for refreshments & a visit.

They pointed out many of the flowering trees and showed us some wallabies in a public park. What a pleasant reunion!

They got us back to the shuttle in good time as they like to be early like us! However, I would have not been at all disappointed if we missed catching the last tender back to the cruise ship & had to spend 2-3 weeks (or months?) here sorting things out.

Now it’s their turn to come & visit us in Canada!

We would have liked to have visited in Cairns longer but the ship would be leaving soon & the tenders would get very busy for the last hour or so.

We were glad to be back on the ship and in the air conditioning as it was 30+C with high humidity in Cairns (pronounced “cans”).

We enjoyed a nice drink on our balcony while watching the sunset over Cairns & Yorkeys Knob.

After that we had a delicious meal in the dining room and a good chat with our dining mates from Canberra, Peter and Vicky who are patiently answering our questions, sharing stories about kangaroos hopping down their street and people finding snakes in their baby’s cots and giving us recipes for Australian dishes (no kangaroo – yet).

We completed the evening by going to a live show in the Princess Theatre – a song & dance review of the music of Motown. It was really well done – one of the best we have seen on any cruise we’ve been on.

Tomorrow we are moored at Port Douglas – our last port of call before returning to Sydney.

Cheers!