Student Tours Cairns

Graced with flowing waterfalls, ancient aboriginal culture, and wildlife found nowhere else on earth, Cairns is the perfect place to encounter the natural world on a student trip.

Cairns is blessed with a superb location between tropical rainforest, classic outback and the Great Barrier Reef. Walk in jungle-draped canyons, meet real cowboys (jackaroos) in red rock country and swim in turquoise underwater universe.

Superb national park trails lead you to swimming holes, Kuku Yalanji aboriginal elders share with you secrets of the rainforest, and kangaroos come out to play. On a student tour with Small World Journeys, you discover why Cairns, with its tropical weather year-round, is the best-loved destination in Australia.

Choose from any of these packages or let us create your perfect custom tour!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choose any of the following activities, or contact us for other options:

Aboriginal Culture& Traditions

Make didgeridoos --that haunting Australian musical instrument--with an aboriginal family or let guides of the Kuku Yalanji tribe help your students find mud crabs, mussels and other "bush tucker" (food) among the mangroves. Learn how to throw spears to catch seafood the traditional way, and cook up what you've caught. This is a great way to learn about resource management from traditional owners.

 

Discover the Daintree Rainforest

Learn from your guide why certain rainforest trees make the best boomerangs, how aboriginal people navigated the rainforest and why the Idiot Fruit was Australia's most important biological find! Learn about this region's important endemic species, the uniqueness of the Daintree and why it is considered the oldest surviving rainforest on the planet.

Hands-On Interpretation at the Great
Barrier Reef

We can arrange a marine biologist to join your group on a day, overnight or even a 3-day trip to the reef to provide on-site lectures and interpretation.

Nocturnal Wildlife & Vertebrate Transects

Explore a rare type of volcanic pipe - a.k.a "the Crater"- and the abundance of nocturnal wildlife that appears in this high-altitude rainforest once the sun goes down. Your naturalist guide will explain how biologists do rainforest transects and will help you look with torches for unique mammals and marsupials like Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroos, Green Ringtail Possums, Gliders, Musky rat-kangaroos and other kangaroo and wallaby species.

Photo credit: Dr. Martin Cohen

Homestay Program

During a stay with a host family, students discover the lives of "regular" Australians, rather than just people working in tourism. Students experience first- hand the similarities and differences that exist between their cultures, which adds depth to their experience of Australia.

Landsliding, Raft Building and Team Games

Participate in fun activities designed to strengthen students your sense of teamwork. Band together in teams to make your way through an army-style obstacle course designed to test your skill and speed or use your intellect and creativity in a raft-building exercise. either way, at the end you can enjoy every student's favourite activity - landsliding!

 

Help Animals & The Environment

Help out at a wildlife refuge where injured, sick or orphaned animals are rehabilitated, plant trees in a damaged riparian zone that supports an endangered species of frogs or assist with seed propogation with local environmentalists. Service projects are a great way to teach your students about giving back.

 

School Visits
A school visit is an immediate chance to connect with local Australian students.Through a "buddy" program and activities such as a cricket game in P.E. class, discovering a SkyLab inflatable planetarium in science or making biscuits in Home Economics, students from overseas also get insight as to what school is like in Queensland's far north.

 

Your Own Custom Educational Tour - Cairns

Through Small World Journeys’ relationships with naturalists, field guide authors, professors, birding experts and zoologists, we can match the educational objectives of any student group. Contact us to learn more about how your students can benefit from one of our Educational Adventures.