Queensland Archives – All Things Cruise

Australia’s island retreat for lizards and wealthy sailors

March 28, 2014 by David Molyneaux

Fourth and last in a series from Queensland, Australia Lizard Island, a beachy piece of the 1,200-mile Great Barrier Reef, is named for its primary inhabitants. They are joined, especially in Australia’s winter, by sailors, fishermen, campers, and other world travelers drawn by the reef’s bounty. Most of Lizard Island is a national park. Swimmers and sunbathers head to secluded beaches, divers to the inner and outer reefs. The island’s Cod Hole is a dive site known for …

From Daintree to Cooktown, Australia’s history and tropical treasures

June 11, 2014March 24, 2014 by David Molyneaux

third in a series from Queensland, Australia Daintree National Park in Queensland, Australia, is a world treasure. Most of the huge park is tropical rainforest, some of which has existed continuously for more than 110 million years. It may be the oldest rainforest on Earth. Some plant and animal species have been found nowhere else on the planet. You can book a ride (or rental car) into Daintree from Port Douglas, north of Cairns, but you won’t get …

Cairns, Australia, where crocs keep the beaches empty

June 11, 2014March 21, 2014 by David Molyneaux

second in a series from Queensland, Australia Much of what is accessible to travelers in northern Queensland, Australia, lies between Cairns and Cooktown. From Sydney, I flew into Cairns, then made my way north through Daintree National Park. The primary reason to go to Cairns is to book a snorkeling or diving boat to the Great Barrier Reef, either out of Cairns or nearby Port Douglas to the north, where I ate my first spangled emperor for dinner (look …

Reef, Queensland’s history, lure cruisers north in Australia

June 11, 2014March 20, 2014 by David Molyneaux

First in series from Queensland, Australia A giant clam, which is a mollusk as big as a bear, opens wide to catch the sunlight. It sits on the shallow ocean floor at the Great Barrier Reef, where famed explorer Captain Cook scraped some serious wood off the bottom of his ship, the Endeavour, trying to squeeze through the coral in 1770. Nearby, along the coast of Queensland, Australia’s northeastern state, rain drips from the fronds of prehistoric …