The Detour Diary

Once we landed in Cairns, we went north to go south. That makes sense, right? It shouldn’t really. Basically, we decided to take a slight 2 hour northern detour to visit the Daintree Rainforest before heading south on our way to Brisbane.

Daintree is the only place in the world where two World Heritage Sites exist side by side; the ancient tropical rainforests of the Daintree meet the beaches and clear waters of the Great Barrier Reef. So really, how could we not take a slight detour to see that, right?

We landed in Cairns in the afternoon and by the time we got our rental car and were headed to Daintree it was that dusky part of the afternoon that just makes everything look beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off the scenery as we drove along the coastline, it was stunning! I’m sure Matt and Jack got sick of hearing, “Wow, look at that! No, look at that!”

Just before mile marker 228 (I’m guessing they do not call them mile markers here!) we passed an amazing little area with a small beach where there were thousands of rock stacks people had made. We pulled over to take a look. It was such a calm, serene experience to just sit there, listen to the waves lapping at the shore and take it all in. It was like every breath unwound one more little knot of stress from the last few years.

Jack decided to get in on the action and made his own stack with the help of Matt. He dedicated it to his Grammy. It was a pretty amazing little stop off or “DETOUR!” as we all like to shout in the car…