Cairns Esplanade & The Fig Tree Playground

Cairns was lovely.  The weather was perfect.  A tropical paradise to us Victorians.  They even have a free swimming lagoon which we had to visit.  We started all the way at one end of the esplanade.  Because we also had to visit the fig tree playground.  A playground built around a huge tree?  Definitely worth a visit. Some perspective.  See that bit of yellow and red and blue?  That’s my kids. There.  There they are. Heaps of playing and climbing and exploring to be done. TurboBug was not convinced he wanted to go down this slide.  It was long enough to be dark inside.  Once he did, of course, there was no stopping him. Way up here in far north Queensland you don’t meet as many footy fans.  It’s all about the rugby here.  I saw a couple of boys wearing footy hats; one Blues and one Bombers.  I laughed to the mum about it, since we have four different teams in our family.  I’m officially neutral but I’m often tempted to choose a fifth team just to drive my kids crazy. Then we started our walk toward the lagoon.   Have I mentioned Cairns is lovely? The lagoon was a bit of a strange experience.  There were people everywhere, but very few in the water.  Many sunbathers who seemed university aged.  But the strange part was how quiet it was with that many people around.  It seemed that everyone was gathered to watch each other rather than swim.  Not many families. I was a little grossed out by the sand in and around the lagoon.  Sand in a swimming pool feels strange.  It didn’t feel like beach sand and it didn’t seem that clean around the pool.  So we stayed for awhile but then walked down to Muddy’s Playground.  We’d heard it was an interactive water playground, so we were thinking water park.  We walked and walked and walked.  We hadn’t realised how far it would be.  It turned out to be much more playground than water park.   The kids loved it anyway, there were several play structures to choose from.  And then poor Dad had to walk all the way back to the car by himself and bring it closer.  Dads are great that way, aren’t they? I have pictures of this little guy but not much else since the others had run off to play.  We watched a baby crawling around in the water and pushing himself up to take some steps.  So cute. As we walked up the boardwalk from one end of the esplanade to the other I wondered why no one was at the beach.  There are stingers in the water here, but since it is winter there aren’t as many so you’d think some of those sunbathers would choose the beach rather than the lagoon.  Then as we got closer I saw croc warning signs which said no one was allowed on the beach.  The entire walkway was a raised boardwalk, so it was safe.  Not exactly a sunbathing beach! And then, when we were walking to our car, I looked up and saw this.  It looks so soft and fuzzy.   I just wanted to climb the tree and touch them.  Did I mention Cairns is lovely?