Our family of four (kids age 21 & 18) will be spending 19 days in Australia in June. Our final tough decision is where to spend our Great Barrier Reef time -- Cairns or Airlie Beach area? We are
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Cat:Australia and the South PacificForum:0EE6B300
Cat:Australia and the South PacificForum:0EE6B300Discussion:eb32ee80-3d65-4011-b58e-dfc240822f74
Our family of four (kids age 21 & 18) will be spending 19 days in Australia in June. Our final tough decision is where to spend our Great Barrier Reef time -- Cairns or Airlie Beach area? We are looking at 4 nights in one or the other. We are reasonably fit and active -- so interested in snorkeling, hiking, and perhaps helicopter tour. We like wildlife, too, and enjoy good food. This will be near the end of our 19 days, so also a day of relaxing might be welcome! We will be arriving from Sydney and then after 4 days flying back to Brisbane. I have found very nice accommodation in both places, so really a matter of which one might offer the better reef experience (better meaning less crowds and good snorkeling as top priorities). Thanks for any help in deciding!
HHMMM, tough one, both offer good GBR experinece but the cities themselves are very different.
In Cairns there is alot to do nearby, Kuranda, a drive up to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation...very good for hiking, and also there is Hartleys (the croc center). Cairns offers plenty of options GBR trips for diving and/or snorkeling, day trips or liveaboard. When it came to Cairns itself, I didn't really care for it. It wasn't a very "pretty" town. It had more of a small city feel. Now Airlie was much more laid back feel, kinda reminded me of a retirement area (actually I think it is). The hills in around Airlie offer beautiful views of the ocean and of the Whitsundays. Like Cairns, there are also lots of boats, especially sailing boats for trips to GBR and also in and around the islands. The sailing here is so nice and chill. But I didn't think the snorkeling was all that great around the islands themselves. I would be sure next time to take a vessel that makes it all the way out to the GBR. They don't all go out there...I think most are geared toward island sailing. That being said there are plenty of liveaboard options that offer both, nice sailing adventure plus diving/snorkelin in the GBR. Definitely I would opt for that rather than staying too many days in AIrlie beach. As I remember there wasn't alot to do in around Airlie itself. You would want to be on one of the islands hiking or on a sailing boat!
Yikes I hope this helps. If you have more specific questions, let me know...glad to help you out. -Bobbie
Thanks Bobbie, and that does more or less gel with the feeling I've been getting in reading reviews elsewhere. We definitely want to go all the way out to GBR and ideally on a smaller boat with fewer people, if such an option exists from either place. None of us are certified divers and still undecided whether we'd try an introductory dive or not or stick to glass bottom and snorkeling.... so wasn't sure if a liveaboard would be something for us or not. I've picked out a spectacular 2 bedroom apartment option in Airlie Beach, but don't want to be so attached to that at teh expense of better underwater experience in Cairns! Perahps in Cairns we'd stay in Trinity Beach area, do you know anything about that?
Have you checked into Port Douglas?? On our trip we stayed here after we left Cairns. I loved this little fishing town. Kinda reminded me of Key West just more upscale. It still offered trips out to the reef (although we didn't take one). And again there are GBR trip options outside of Port Douglas. We took a day trip up to Cape Tribulation and hiked all day. We had so much fun. We drove by Trinity Beach on our way from Port Douglas from Cairns. It looked very nice but small. Not too much to do outside of the beach activities.
I have to say for a more adventurous trip I would head back up to Cairns/ Port Douglas area. For a chill, laid back trip I would go to Airlie. Honestly, in both areas you will find lots of options for snorkeling at the reef. The only thing I would stress is that if you opt for Airlie make sure the boat trip you choose goes out to GBR and also one that stops by Whitehaven beach (truly one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen).
So many decisions! I may look more into Port Douglas. We have no problem with chill, laid back especially as this will be toward the end of our trip, but do like the idea of hiking and such since the June water may be a little cool for us (we're Floridians) -- so not sure how many days we'd spend on the water. I did read about great hiking on one of the Whitsunday islands, Hamilton, I think. Sounds like we can't go terribly wrong in either case and will definitely follow your advice to make sure any day trips go all the way out to GBR -- that's a must. I had wondered whether the actual reef was closer to land at Cairns or at Airlie, and it looks like maybe Cairns/Port Douglas is the answer to that. Thanks!
To make life even more confusing, have you thought about Cape Tribulation?
Cape Tribulation combines CHILL (beautiful, empty beaches -- but not for swimming, reason under "adventure"; numerous hikes through the Daintree Rainforest, kayaking, local watering holes for swimming, sampling locally-grown exotic fruit) and ADVENTURE (the most amazing zipline we have ever done; crocodile sightings, reef trip, hike up Mt. Sorrow). The GBR is the closest to land (100 ft off?) at Cape Tribulation so you could rent kayaks and snorkel off shore, or you could take the small boat trip to get further out.
It's a stunning three-hour drive from Cairns, which is worth it for the drive alone. We spent three nights there and wish we had stayed longer to enjoy an overnight kayak trip and a night-time rainforest walk. Our best snorkel trip (of three) was the Cape Tribulation one. Strange, too, but even though Cape Trib is isolated, we had good food options, including gourmet.
My family agrees that two of the most "chill" experiences we have ever had is sitting on the porch of our cabin watching the clouds move in and out over Mt. Sorrow while enjoying a bottle of wine and lying on our backs gazing at the Milky Way, which seemed close enough to grab one of the frequent shooting stars.
Port Douglas is great, too, but really more of a resort town. We loved it, though.
Cairns, I would skip. It really is a city. Most of the GBR boats out of Cairns accommodate you and 400 of your closest friends.
My husband has work that takes him -- and us -- to Australia every two or three years; Cape Trib is the place that we always talk about. (Okay, Sydney's Luna Park is the place my daughter always talks about, but then Cape Trib's crocodiles are next.) If he has another trip to Cairns, we will head straight to Cape Tribulation afterwards.
We landed in Cairns & drove directly up to Cape Trib for 2 days. It is beautiful. We then stayed in Cairns for another 4 days but ended up driving to Port Douglas several of the days. The better snorkeling boats leave out of Port Douglas. If you stay in Cairns they do have shuttles that will pick you up. Port Douglas had a festival going on while we were there which was a lot of fun. There were millions of bats that came in at night & were in the trees over our heads which was an amazing sight. I would definitely spend more time in the Cape Trib & Port Douglas area than Cairnes.
OK, so I think I have ruled out Cairns, other than flying into there to drive to Port Douglas. After all, we'll get better city attractions in both Sydney and Melbourne. Still have not completely ruled out Airlie Beach, (partly because I'm so in love with the Pinnacles Resort) but so far I do seem to be finding more intimate boat trips out to the reef that don't involve 400 of my closest friends!! That is a priority for us. Now maybe I will look at bit at Cape Trib....
Hi Cindy, I was in the same situation, could not decide so I ended up by going to both places. Airlie is a very laid back village where every other door front is a travel agency. At least this is how it was in Jan 2007. At the airport there was no luggage conveyor, they brought all the luggage outside on some carts and then everybody jumped on to get theirs. It was worth waching, every bit of it. I loved Airlie! this is the best place for a sailing trip, there are lots of them, I took one, 2 days one night (slept on the boat), we went to Whitehaven beach, make sure you take pills 30 min before the boat sets sail if you suffer from seasickness, you can buy pills in any pharmacy there. I arranged the trip through the local HI (hostelling international). Cairns is the mecca for trips to the barrier reef, look no further. Have a look on a map, Cairns is the closest to the great barrier reef of all the cities in Queensland. There are tens of trips departing from Cairns harbour every day and going to the reef, you won't be disapointed. And they are much shorter from Cairns due to the proximity to the reef. I ended up on a liveabord for 3 days, 2 nights, they had introductory scuba diving lessons, including a night dive, what can I say more? the boat had cabins with air conditioning but many slept on the deck. I hope this helps,
George, I am laughing out loud -- but am so far resisting the urge to make 2 stops in theGBR area only because we already have Melbourne, Yarra valley, and Sydney, plus will have two nights in Brisbane before flying back to the U.S., so the GBR makes five places which I feel is the limit! Iloved the idea of the islands around Airlie, but also like the fact that the reef is closer to land further north and the rainforest is closer, too if we end up north of Cairns. How were the introductory scuba dives? Easy? not very deep? None of us are divers, but what a place to try!
