24 hours in Cairns •

25/10/2018

I recently was asked to travel back to Tropical North Queensland to stay in Cairns for two nights. Whilst doing a job there, I had a full day to kill. I lived up there for the first 4 years of my Aussie life and I was really torn between spending my time either on the water or heading inland. After searching around the web for ideas for what would best fit my 24 hours, I came across greenisland.com. They have multiple Full & Half Day tours that you can choose from on their website. I decided to choose the Cairns Hot Air ballooning and Green Island combo. This combo was exactly what I wanted to do. It required an early wake up call, but totally worth it! They picked me up at the hotel I was staying at, which was fantastic because I didn’t hire a car. The first part of the tour was a morning balloon flight over the Atherton Tablelands. We started flying during the first hour of light, the colours were magical. Once we landed and finished packing up, we had a delicious Aussie Hot & Cold breakfast with champagne. After the Hot Air Ballooning tour we went back to our hotel to relax for an hour before we had to get on the boat. I really enjoyed having that down time in the middle of trips. I was able to have something to eat and edit a few photos.

To get to Green Island it only took roughly 40 minutes with the Big Cat vessel. The island is small but there is SO much to do. We went on a glass bottom boat to see the fish in the reef without getting wet then we decided to actually get wet and went snorkelling. SO many sea turtles. The water was so clear and the turtles were so beautiful. We had 4 hrs on the Island, which was the perfect amount of time. We were back on the mainland just in time for dinner.