Oct 24, 2026 · 13 min · 8 segments
This is the Two Ticks Town Talk on Cairns, Queensland from the 22 Oct 2026 full episode of 'Australia Talks' with your hosts DK and Ardeet. Sources…
Many people, especially international tourists, love to go to Cairns because it's absolutely stunning and they like to often undertake the Cairns to Port Douglas Drive along, I would argue, probably one of the top five most spectacular highways in Certainly in the country, possibly even in the world, the Captain Cook Highway up the coast from Cairns to Port Douglas is absolutely stunning along the beach.
It's not a particularly long drive.
And on a clear day, the ocean can look like glass if you've got a nice calm day.
But basically, you'll duck in and out of rainforests and in between little beachside towns and settlements.
And of course...
There are also plenty of outlooks that you can stop and take some photos, take in the view, maybe grab a coffee, one of these little portable coffee vans as well.
So beautiful, picturesque palm trees, beautiful azure water, you know, delicious.
My favorite.
But about 30 minutes outside of Cairns, heading north, about five minutes north of the small town of Alice Beach, you will find a little place known locally to the locals as Gats Rock Piles.
And unlike pretty much every other one of our talks that are focused on some incredible place, some amazing natural rock formation, pink lakes, you know, you name it, we've been everywhere.
These rock piles are man-made, and you can go there and participate in this thing that I'm about to tell you.
Okay.
No one knows exactly when this all started, but local legend states that it all took place when some people were on a drive from Cairns to Port Douglas, or possibly the reverse, where they pulled over and they noticed that there were a lot of large Essentially what we would know as like smooth river stones sitting on and in and around the beach.
These lovely, nice sort of oval-ish shaped river stones.
And there was a particular attraction to stone stacking before.
particularly about 15 years ago in the early 2010s, became very, very common.
And a lot of people liked to take nice photos for new social media and things like that.
Basically, this is when this started cropping up.
And ever since, it's just been a continuation.
Many people, especially international tourists, love to go to Cairns because it's absolutely stunning and they like to often undertake the Cairns to Port Douglas Drive along, I would argue, probably one of the top five most spectacular highways in Certainly in the country, possibly even in the world, the Captain Cook Highway up the coast from Cairns to Port Douglas is absolutely stunning along the beach.
It's not a particularly long drive.
And on a clear day, the ocean can look like glass if you've got a nice calm day.
But basically, you'll duck in and out of rainforests and in between little beachside towns and settlements.
And of course...
There are also plenty of outlooks that you can stop and take some photos, take in the view, maybe grab a coffee, one of these little portable coffee vans as well.
So beautiful, picturesque palm trees, beautiful azure water, you know, delicious.
My favorite.
But about 30 minutes outside of Cairns, heading north, about five minutes north of the small town of Alice Beach, you will find a little place known locally to the locals as Gats Rock Piles.
And unlike pretty much every other one of our talks that are focused on some incredible place, some amazing natural rock formation, pink lakes, you know, you name it, we've been everywhere.
These rock piles are man-made, and you can go there and participate in this thing that I'm about to tell you.
Okay.
No one knows exactly when this all started, but local legend states that it all took place when some people were on a drive from Cairns to Port Douglas, or possibly the reverse, where they pulled over and they noticed that there were a lot of large Essentially what we would know as like smooth river stones sitting on and in and around the beach.
These lovely, nice sort of oval-ish shaped river stones.
And there was a particular attraction to stone stacking before.
particularly about 15 years ago in the early 2010s, became very, very common.
And a lot of people liked to take nice photos for new social media and things like that.
Basically, this is when this started cropping up.
And ever since, it's just been a continuation.
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