Stephens Family Vacation - Australia 2025: 2025-04-13: Palm Cove with Stephens Family
| Travel | ||||||||
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| Type | Name | Service Provider | Origin | Destination | Cost | Notes | ||
| Other | Transport TBD | Cairns Airport | Palm Cove | $0.00 | Rhonda: How are we going to get from Cairns to Palm Cove? Brent: - Jayride runs a shuttle Cairns Airport to Palm Cove ~$25 - Also Exemplar Coach & Limousine ~ $40 I need to call the hotel to see if they have a recommendation. | |||
| Accommodation | |||||||
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| Type | Name | Service Provider | Location | Cost | Notes | ||
| Hotel | Drift Palm Cove | Hotels.com | Palm Cove Australia | $1,347.42 | +61 7 4055 3999 | ||
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| Type | Name | Description | Service Provider | Cost | Notes | ||
| General Info | Advice from WikiVoyage | Palm Cove is a tourist oriented, beach town - just north of Cairns. | $0.00 | Palm Cove is newly developed cluster of hotels, modern apartments and restaurants, on the beach about 30 minutes drive north of Cairns, set on a sandy beach. It could almost be seen as the northern limit of suburban Cairns. It avoids the crowds and some higher-density development that is Port Douglas, its northern neighbour. From Cairns it is a half hour taxi ride to Palm Cove. The Cairns local bus service runs to the town surprisingly frequently, every half an hour or so. Palm Cove is easy to walk around. There is a walking/cycling track to Clifton Beach that will take around half an hour. Ignore the nice \"rainforest walk\" map distributed around town, which is a 20 metre walk designed to take you to the newer apartment developments. Head the opposite direction, south, along the beach for much better bush, beach, and walking opportunities. Supermarkets in Palm Cove are small and expensive. Souvenir shops abound. Neighbouring Clifton Beach offers non-tourist oriented shops and prices. Palm Cove lines the beach, with wide choice of dining. Go for a wander and take your pick, even in high season you are unlikely to miss out on a table. If you are on a budget, there are a few take-away and cheaper choices as well. Pete's Place, 73 Williams Espl, ? +61 7 4055 3088. 6:30AM–7:30PM. | |||
| General Info | Kuranda Scenic Railway | Cairns Train Stations | $0.00 | The Kuranda Scenic Railway, also operated by Queensland Rail, runs from Cairns to Kuranda, stopping over the majestic Barron Gorge to allow passengers to leave the train and enjoy the beautiful view over the water. Trains depart Cairns at 8:30AM and 9:30AM daily arriving at Kuranda at 10:15AM and 11:15AM. Catch the bus back to Cairns and then catch the train from Cairns. https://www.ksr.com.au/stations/pages/cairns.aspx You may have to make an early start from Palm Cove. When you have come back down to Smithfield after a day at Kuranda, it is a short 11km back to PC. You could get a bus but a taxi won't cost all that much | |||
| General Info | Palm Cove Jetty | $0.00 | The Palm Cove Jetty was originally built as a departure platform for Great Barrier Reef snorkelling tours. The government hoped it would become an alternative launching point for visitors staying in Palm Cove so they didn't have to travel to Cairns or Port Douglas to go out to the reef. However, the constant southeast swells battering against the jetty has forced the cruise companies to change their plans and offer bus transfers for Great Barrier Reef Cruises rather than Palm Cove Jetty transfers. Locals quickly took advantage of the long jetty that rarely had vessels tied to it and used the jetty as a prime fishing platform. Local politicians jokingly described the jetty as the most expensive fishing platform in the world! The main function of the Palm Cove Jetty is still for fishing. On any day, at any time, you can find Cairns locals casting a line into the deep blue waters trying to catch Spanish and School Mackerel, small stripeys, grunter and whiting. Fish weighing over 50lbs have been caught from the jetty. Other than fishing from Palm Cove jetty, the best way to go fishing from Palm Cove is to charter a boat from Cairns or Port Douglas and head out to the outer Great Barrier Reef and enjoy a fishing adventure of a lifetime. | ||||
| Blog Entries | ||
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| Arrived Palm Cove: Qantas from Brisbane to Cairns. Qantas sure does nicer free snacks than Canadian airlines do. We were going to have to wait two hours for a shuttle to Palm Cove but we discovered that a taxi cost the same as two adult shuttle tickets, so taxi we did. Palm Cove first impressions: \n Our first stop in Palm Cove was to niece Nicole’s place. She, her husband Brion and their son, Levi, were there, along with Brent’s brother Doug and his daughter, Lisa, and the other Australian niece, Stephanie, with her husband, Diego, and their two kids, Jack and Zaya. We had a great visit with them all, and it’s so great to see how well all three nieces are doing. \n\n After a couple of hours, exhaustion pushed us on and we stopped in at the nearby convenience store (with Lisa) to provision up and then went for Thai dinner. \n\n The photos are: the view from our hotel room, the cockatoo on the tree outside of Nicole and Brion’s, Lisa posing with the camel balls, some cool spooky trees and the Thai restaurant.
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