Marg came with us to Kuranda on the Scenic Railway, which is a lovely trip through rainforest and steep hills with outstanding views of the Cairns area and several waterfalls. Kuranda itself is a tourist town- I think you could probably go there before 10 am or after 3 pm on any day and not see a soul. Between those hours, especially around lunchtime, it's packed with eager shoppers buying various tourist kitsch. Japanese girls love wearing shorts, black stockings and ugg boots. At 29 degrees! Akubra hats are popular, and we actually saw someone wearing one of those hats with dangly corks (to keep the flies off). He was an Aussie boy, not a foreigner- he won't be troubled by flies anyway. Neither are the rest of us because flies aren't a problem, at this time of year at least.
Our train crossing Stony Ck Bridge- there's a waterfall there.
On the Skyrail back to the coastal plain (spectacular views) we met a honeymoon couple from Bowral. Their choice of honeymoon souvenirs floored us- a stuffed cane toad and a crocodile head!
Green Island turned on the sun for us, luckily because it was still damp and cloudy back in Cairns. We'd already snorkelled on the Whitsundays so this time we tried the glass bottom boat, and found it really interesting. Lots of biggish fish, especially when the driver threw some food overboard, we witnessed a feeding frenzy attended by gulls as well as various fish almost leaping out of the water.
The water round the island is a beautiful blue and the beaches are sandy. Quite a beautiful place. We found an empty clamshell which was an awesome size- not the giant ones, but big just the same. The animal who used to live in it must have made a good feed for someone.
Back in Cairns after our half-day trip, we caught up with my sister and several other relatives, took Ben to the airport and visited another relative in hospital. (Ben's plane was delayed two hours so he was not happy).
John and Marg have moved on so we're on our own now, and looking forward to doing our own thing. Today (Sunday 15th) we've come to Mareeba- we'd planned to stay at the rodeo grounds but picked the wrong weekend- the rodeo's on. Hundreds of people camped there, all using the same amenities blocks, queues of people waiting for showers or to clean their teeth- no thanks. We've moved on to Granite Gorge, which is a fairly basic caravan park but with pleasant surrounds and several bushwalks. It started to rain just as we set up so we haven't tried the walks yet, but it's fairly light rain so we'll probably brave it after lunch.
Later- the granite around here is awesome. The word "boulder" doesn't cover it, they are enormous. A creek tumbles down through the boulders- you can hear it chuckling but much of the time you can't actually see it without scaling a big rock. Rock wallabies live on the rocks, scrambling around like mountain goats. I saw one who was seemingly hanging onto the side of a rock, nibbling- I got Chris to take a photo of him. A moment later, his lower leg, which I thought was holding him onto the rock, came up and he casually scratched behind his ear, hanging on with only his upper leg and his little paws.
Some German kids were thrilled to be able to hand-feed the wallabies, who would come right up and eat literally out of their hands. Such excitement! I saw one woman exchange kisses with one of the wallabies. I have never seen them so tame. The male wallabies are feeling amorous but the females are not interested at the moment.
A big Thanksgiving turkey is gobbling outside the van, which is a change from all the scrub turkeys we've seen. His mate is with him- we've seen them wherever we've been in this park so perhaps there's more than one pair.
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