Day 14 - Wednesday 13th July

Today we had no commitments and so we were able to sleep in. Once again, we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant on the deck near the bay.


When we'd arrived at the hotel a day or two ago, there was a note say they'd be cleaning the cladding on the outside of the building. They were right. When we got back to our room, there was a man in a fluoro vest with a high-pressure spray gun outside our room spraying next to our room.

In the middle of the day, we set off along the bay to visit the Cairns Aquarium. It lived up to its reputation with very impressive displays of fish, turtles, snakes, frogs, sharks, gropers, rays, eels - you name it. They were visible behind glass panels that made it easy to take photos.


Luckily it wasn't too crowded and so it was easy to see the exhibits. In some places, there were benches where you could stop and admire the various fish.

There are two levels to the aquarium and just when you think you are finished, you go back down to the lower level where you walk through a glass tunnel with sharks and other fish swimming just above you. It reminded me of the aquarium in Darling Harbour in Sydney.

We were glad we went there. I'm sure we could have spent a lot more time there to study the exhibits in more detail.


For lunch, we wandered back along the streets towards the hotel until we found a nice sidewalk cafe near the esplanade. As a bonus, there was live music across the road on the esplanade to entertain us. Just in time - because the cafe was closing by the time we were finished.

It was a pleasant walk back to the hotel along the esplanade past people swimming in the Esplanade Lagoon and people sunning themselves on the lawns nearby. Because it was low tide, the bay wasn't as attractive as yesterday.

For dinner, we'd booked at an Italian restaurant, Vitalia, out on the deck near the hotel and the bay at 6:30pm. The restaurant once again was very popular.

Back in our room we watched the State of Origin on TV. Queensland won. Perhaps we should have been happy because we were in Queensland.

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