Start from 36 curated places around Cairns, AU, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Ochre Restaurant
Craig Squire's long-running modern Australian dining room on Marlin Parade — the restaurant that put native ingredients (green ant, lemon myrtle, native pepperberry, crocodile, kangaroo) into the Cairns fine-dining conversation thirty years ago and still does it best.
Salt House
The marina-front dining room and bar at the Cairns Yacht Club end of the Esplanade — Argentinian wood-fired grill, brick-oven pizzas, and the city's most-photographed sunset deck. Doubles as a long lunch venue and a late-night cocktail bar after the kitchen closes.
Trails & outdoors
Red Arrow Circuit, Mt Whitfield
The 1.5km circuit from the Botanic Gardens up Mt Whitfield — over 250 steps each side, a 40-minute lung-buster, and the view at the top spans the Cairns CBD, Trinity Inlet, and the airport runway. The locals' before-work training loop.
Blue Arrow Circuit, Mt Whitfield
The 5.4km extension of the Red Arrow — a rougher, rooted, steeper trail that loops the ridgeline of Mt Whitfield Conservation Park and adds three peaks and 600m of climbing to the day. Two to three hours, recommended only for hikers used to Wet Tropics conditions.
Things to do
Skyrail Rainforest Cableway
The 7.5km cableway from Smithfield up to Kuranda over the Barron Gorge rainforest canopy — two intermediate stations (Red Peak, Barron Falls) with free ranger-guided boardwalks at each, and the most-photographed approach to Kuranda. 90 minutes one-way if you stop at both stations.
Kuranda Scenic Railway
The 1891 heritage railway from Cairns Station up to Kuranda — 37km of switchbacks, 15 tunnels, and the Stoney Creek and Barron Falls viaducts along the way. Two daily departures from Cairns; one-way takes 1h45 and includes a stop at the Barron Falls viewing platform.
Landmarks & sights
Cairns Esplanade Lagoon
The 4,800sqm saltwater swimming lagoon on the Trinity Inlet foreshore — Cairns' answer to having no swimmable beach in the CBD (the muddy inlet is croc territory). Free, lifeguarded, open year-round, and the gravitational centre of the Esplanade boardwalk strip.
Cairns Aquarium
A three-storey aquarium dedicated entirely to the freshwater and marine ecosystems of Tropical North Queensland — the Wet Tropics streams, the mangroves, and the reef in sequence. Opened 2017 and the wet-weather backup for every Cairns trip the reef weather scuttles.