A FRUITFUL TIME IN CAIRNS

Strangler fig in action: The strangler fig does just as its name suggests: uses nearby trees as a trellis to start climbing and eventually strangle its host. The tree on the left will be swallowed. Picture by Andrew McKenna

The first thing I noticed when we flew into Cairns were the trees. The hills around town are cloaked in rainforest, and the Daintree is the oldest in the world, predating the Amazon by 40 million years, give or take. We got into that up close, but first things first.

Cairns' style is broad streets in an easy-to-navigate grid, studded with Queenslander houses on stilts and colonial-era buildings such as the old public curator's building, now converted into a gallery featuring indigenous and South Sea Islander artworks, and the old courthouse, also now an art gallery.

A short way out of town, say Manutuke distance, thick fields of sugar cane jostle the roads, although suburbs to the north keep popping their heads up above the green.

While the northern beaches are stretches of white sand bordered by cafes, coconut palms and houses, swimming is not recommended, especially in summer when stingers are active. And anywhere near a rivermouth is suspect because that's where the crocs are meant to congregate.

It's not as if crocodiles are thick on the ground, though, and a sighting close to town would be front page news, but a couple of netted beaches mean you can swim without having to think about looking over your shoulder.

Coconuts lie on the beach for the taking unless a giant (up to 1kg) white-tailed rat beats you to it. They specialise in boring a neat hole though the husk, drinking the water and leaving nothing but a memento for beachcombers.

A free swimming pool, the Cairns Lagoon, lies at the beachfront in the centre of town, conveniently next to the Esplanade, itself crowded with places to eat or sit and watch.

The Night Market is an arcade with an expanse of shops selling everything from the useful (beer stubby holders) to the touristy (beer stubby holders), and you can even pay to get your toes gnawed by fish. It didn't grab me but the people doing it showed faces ranging from rapture and delight to shock and fear.

The best market is Rusty's in the centre of town. Taking almost a whole block, it sells nearly every sort of fruit and veg you can imagine, from apples, strawberries and other temperate fruit grown in the nearby Atherton Tablelands through to tropical rarities such as sapote and chocolate pudding fruit (yes it does). Galangal, ginger and fresh turmeric are everywhere, and massive boxes of jackfruit and watermelons in the middle of (the northern) winter tell you this place really is different.

The prepared food section is a snapshot of an Asian street market, with Thai curries, kebabs, Vietnamese spring rolls, coconut yoghurt with fresh fruit, patisseries and choice coffee. At least two coffee plantations in the northern Tablelands supply Rusty's and beyond with locally grown and roasted beans, and the coffee is good.

The Nerada tea plantation is up there as well and worth a visit, with its expanses of neatly clipped tea plants and a tearoom, specialising in scones, and of course, tea.

The Tablelands are an oddity in the tropics. While Cairns was enjoying 26-28-degree days, at altitude they had morning frosts. The highest point is 752m, and despite the craziest road I have ever driven on —counting the Waioeka Gorge — it is worth a day or two of exploring.

The soils are a deep volcanic red and you could drop a dead stick and it will grow. The towns are blink-and-you-miss-them, but locally made icecreams and cheese, waterfalls, banana plantations, swimming holes and massive curtain and strangler figs make the trip worthwhile. The strangler does just what its name suggests: sends out tendrils to embrace nearby trees and gradually engulf the hosts to take over. Big ones are truly massive, and one of the best places to see them is in the Daintree.

We took the Kuranda Scenic Railway into the rainforest, a trip of around two hours over rattletrap bridges, through tunnels carved into hillsides and sidling past waterfalls. The town of Kuranda at the far end is a market town catering to the thousands of tourists who flock there weekly. Impressive curtain figs line the main street but the journey there is more about the trip through and over the forest. We took the skyrail back down, over the top of the trees, with a couple of stopovers at interpretation centres. “Awesome” is overused but there you have it.

The Daintree is promoted as the place where the rainforest meets the reef, and we took ferries out to Green and Fitzroy islands to get amongst it. Green Island has been more trodden and the coral shows it. In places it was worn down, but was still home to groups of dashing parrotfish and the occasional turtle. The crocodile farm on the island houses Cassius, the largest captive croc in the world. I'm told.

At Fitzroy the coral was less disturbed, with exquisite gorges plunging down into chasms of deep clear nothingness, shoals of luminescent fish and the odd turtle fluttering by. Swimming among corals is indescribable — you have to do it to believe something could naturally be that extravagant.

And if extravagant is not for you, the Cairns Botanic Gardens are a cool oasis just north of town, with a showcase of exotics from around the world, magnificent paperbarks, and the Tanks Arts Centre (converted from a World War 2 fuel storage depot).

And yet another cafe with that choice coffee.

Bring your mozzie repellent — nowhere's perfect.