"Palm Cove: Heaven or at least a tropical... " a Cairns Travel Page by SPW

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Looking towards the Palm Cove Beach

Buyer Beware

We booked our acommodation, an apartment privately owned within a large resort, from a newspaper advertisement in Melbourne's weekend paper and were sorely disappointed.
We had taken particular care to check that it was close to the village and beach but the short stroll turned out to be a brisk 20 minute walk from the unit, far too much for my friend with mobility problems. And while hiring a car might have been an expensive solution to this , no one had warned us that we were only a few metres from the main Cairns - Port Douglas Road with heavy trucks from the early morning.
Having walked down to the village at Palm Cove we decided to try for accommodation down there. The first apartment block we tried was ideal: third storey beach front room (with a lift), bedroom at the back and lounge/dining area at the front, with a seaview from the balcony, and costing very little more than the apartment at the resort.
We had fallen on our feet.

Palm Cove is a lovely quiet town north of Cairns, at the end of the local bus route. It's main street where traffic is resticted to walking speed, is shaded by palms and melaleucas (paperbarks) withthe beachon one side and apartments/resorts to 3 or 4 storeys on the other.
There is a small cluster of shops with convenience store, post offie and tourist office both with public internet access, a few eating places and some resort shop/galleries about half way along .
There are many bars, cafes and restaurants, some takeaway food establishments all cateing to the very laidback atmosphere.
The main activity, apart from going on tours to the rainforest or reef seems to be the walk up and down the street with refreshment on the way.
The beach is excellent, patrolled by lifesavers,and in the stinger season part is netted for safer swimming. During this time, November to May, it is really foolish to swim anywhere but within the netted enclosureor a hotel swimming pool.

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Some people shouldn't have wine at lunch

Relaxation and activity

The main aimof our holiday was relaxation but we enjoysnorkelling so we took advantage of being near the wonderful reef.
We also went on the Skyrail to Kuranda, magnificent views outover the beachesin the first section and then the rainforest, with two interesting stopstolearn a little more about what we were seeing. The Barron Falls were a magnificent drop of water: it must have been terrifying crossing them by cable.
We returned from Kuranda, which we didn't see at its most touristyas it was shutting down, by the $1 AUD community bus.
Our only other outing was to hire a car and drive to port Douglas for the market and to Silky Oaks near Mossman for lunch.
It was an excellent balance of activities.