Rainforest and Reef
What must be the shortest bus ride in the past 9 months, 2 hours north of Mission Beach is Cairns. The sky clouds over as we leave and is appropriately raining as we pass through Innisfail, a small village which apparently is the wettest place in all of Australia.
Cairns is a popular town which is completely geared towards tourism, as the main place for exploring the far north of tropical Queensland. The town itself is all low rise, with a long grassy esplanade along the mudflats (no beach here) leading to the swimming lagoon and the pier area with all the million dollar yachts.
On my “to do” list is to see the Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage listed site. I spent a day on the Sunkist with a few other people, wearing our sexy stinger suits (the sea here is a no-go zone November to March due to all the evil jellyfish just waiting to kill you) diving on Moore Reef, swimming through the flat and fern corals, and through all the tropical fishes. I really should pay more attention, as all I can confidently name apart from sharks and bat and humbug fish (it’s obvious, that’s why) is the Nemo fish! Unfortunately, the visibility wasn’t very good as the sea was choppy so although it was a good trip, it wasn’t as stunning as it looks in all the photos. Though our photos from the camera we hired turned out quite well.
North of Cairns is another World Heritage place- the Daintree National Park and Cape Tribulation. Apparently the oldest rainforest in the world. So that will be the second one of those I’ve been to this year! We walked through the coastal mangroves, keeping a beady eye out for the salties that live up here, and from the jungle village we stayed in, along the beach and across the Cape itself. Named by Captain Cook (then Lieutenant) when the Endeavour ran aground on the reef here. After ditching all the ballast and then chopping down the mast, it turned out he just needed to wait for the high tide the float the ship. Not one of his brighter days then?! The coast and forests are stunning, and appropriately it did rain quite a lot!
Safely behind bars, we see a rare cassowary bird. These grow to a couple of metres high, and will happily disembowel you with their claws.
Having walked at ground level and seen the canopy from the wonky canopy walkway in Malaysia, a bunch of us decided to go canopy surfing. This is great fun, and involves a series of zip wires about 60m above the floor, through the distrurbed and undistured forest. Alone and in pairs, sometimes very quickly, and on the last run upside down. Great fun!
After a final night in Cairns, sick of nightbuses, I took a daytime trip down to the coast to Airlie Beach.
Tags: Travel
Nick