I pride myself on being spontaneous; capable of landing in a foreign country with no plan or pre-travel knowledge. So when I randomly decided to move from Sydney to Cairns in January, I had no idea what to expect. Cairns was a tropical oasis from what I'd heard, and I was excited to spend my days baking in the sun. Immediately after I'd booked flights, I began to get the response "Cairns in the WET season?! You are crazy." Okay, so perhaps I should have looked into that one before booking flights and therefore leaving it set in stone. Oh well, I thought, the rain will be a nice relief from the +40 heat.
I arrived in Cairns on January 11, and the moment I stepped out of the plane I felt a rush of humidity and intense heat. I was in love with the place from that moment. I spent the first 2 weeks of my time in Cairns lying by the giant man made lagoon (the ocean is full of crocodiles and therefore no swim-land) soaking up the sun, swimming, and overall living the dream. This rain that everybody had spoke of seemed non-existent.
One day in February, it started raining. By raining, I mean pouring, and by pouring, I mean flash floods, wicked lightning shows, and general cyclone-ish weather. I would soon come to the harsh reality that the wet season had officially arrived.
It seemed as though it would never end. It was hard to believe that only weeks before, there was not a cloud to be seen. It stayed hot. Going outside was often a better plan than relying on the hostel showers for warm water. I invested in an umbrella, which did little to shield me from the constant water pouring from the sky. Cairns became some what of a ghost town, inhabited by locals and other insane backpackers such as myself. At the time, I was working, so the rain didn't bother me all that much. In fact, had the sun been shining every day I think going to work would have been a lot harder, considering the bar I worked at was along the main town strip, where everybody walked down en route to the lagoon. About once every 2 weeks, the skies would clear and the sun would peak out for an afternoon, only to shatter our hopes by disappearing for another 14 days. I saw many weary tourists pass through during my time in Cairns, disappointed about the visabilty on the Great Barrier Reef, or upset that their skydiving trip had been postponed. One week the town was cut off to the outside world. The roads surrounding it were flooded and inaccessabile. You could neither leave, nor enter.
It wasn't all bad, I must add. I learnt to enjoy, or at least deal with the wet season, and make the most of it. There is nothing quite like dancing in the warm rain. Not to mention the white water rafting. The flooding and constant flow of water had rendered the rapids on the Tully River as class 5. I spent a day riding down the river, flying through the rapids and underneath waterfalls in a deep valley surrounded by limestone cliffs. One of the first things our guide said, after introducing herself was "People have died on this river in similar circumstances". It didn't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but at the end of the day I was glad I'd decided to go through with it. It rained constantly for nearly 2 months. We'd go swimming in our clothes that were already soaked, playing in the streets where the water reached our knees, and fall asleep to the sound of rain pounding on the tin roof. It became a part of our life, and although I missed the lazy lagoon days, the hot days in the rain beat the bitter cold winter I'd left behind.
Would I do things differently on my next trip?? Absolutely. I'd soak up all of the sun I could and plot out where to go based on the climate for that time of year. That said, I don't regret spending the summer in Cairns. I met amazing friends, made amazing memories, and I'm proud to say that I survived the North Queensland wet season... not many non-locals can say that.
Rafting In The Rain - Tully, Australia
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