Where reef meets rainforest
Your host meets you at arrivals in Cairns. You drive into town, check in, take a quick shower, and meet the other Pioneers (a small group, usually 8-12 people) for a first drink before heading out for dinner. It's the first meal together. Nobody knows each other yet, but that changes fast. Within an hour you're hearing about someone's ceramics studio back home and why another person finally left their job last spring. Cairns itself sits in tropical North Queensland—Australia's gateway to the Great Barrier Reef—hot, humid, entry point to reef and rainforest. The reef's dying but it's still worth seeing—boats leave daily, you'll snorkel over coral, see tropical fish, understand what climate change actually means. Daintree is the world's oldest rainforest—135 million years, walk the canopy boardwalks at your own pace, swim in Mossman Gorge if the crocodiles aren't around. The esplanade has a lagoon because the ocean has box jellyfish October-May (they'll kill you). Cairns runs hot—30+ degrees, humid, you'll sweat just standing still. Night markets, decent food, backpacker energy even though you're not backpackers anymore.
What We Do Together
You'll be the first through. We're still building this part—that's half the appeal.
It'll be something like: Night wildlife spotting—spot possums, tree kangaroos, pythons, cassowaries (rare but dangerous), guide with torch
Packing Up & Moving On
Drive - 12 hours split over 2-3 days. Cairns to Airlie Beach—coastal Queensland, sugar cane fields stretch forever, small towns every hour, roadhouses with meat pies, cassowaries crossing signs (they're real and dangerous).