Cairns
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2005
1
77
158
Trip End
Jul 21, 2007
Cairns,
Australia
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Once we were past Townsville the scenery started to become more interesting and the flat dusty expanses were replaced by forest covered mountains and there were some superb lookouts from the top of the hilly roads across the lush tropical landscape along the way. Cairns itself is nothing to look at. It's an urban sprawl of hotels, motels, and tat shops. Even the mainstay of the seaside resort, a beach, is missing and poorly made up for by a man made lagoon.
As you drive through and to the north joining the Captain Cook Highway the situation improves dramatically. The rainforest comes closer to the sea and there are lovely beaches all up the coast. We were staying in Palm Cove as Kerry's mum had a hotel already booked in the small bay. Lined with a range of fairly upmarket hotels and restaurants you look out onto offshore islands at each end and we stayed the first night at a tidy campsite, my dad booking into the hotel 'Paradise on the Beach' which was slap bang in the centre of the bay and very handy for all the conveniences.
We went to meet Kerry's mum and Tom the next morning at the airport and it was a joyful and tearful reunion for the both of them.
k and m in the semi sub
So all excited we returned to Palm Cove and as Mary and Tom started to deal with their jetlag, we all began to plan our five days.The first day we decided to go on the 'Skyrail' which is a cable car that takes the passengers away from the shore, up the escarpment and over the top of the rainforest canopy. Once you crest the initial ridge and the sea dissapears behind, you see the immensity of the forest. The dense tangle of lush green vegetation stretches to the horizon in all directions, rising and falling in an incredibly complex tapestry of diversity in life and colour. We all gazed away in rapt silence as our eyes and brains slowly consumed and digested the scene. The route passes over a rock strewn gorge with a lazy, croc infested river at the bottom. There are several stations along the long route and it takes about an hour to reach the end of the line, where there is a village called Kuranda which has sprung up in the mountains sheltered by the forest. As you would expect the place is full of tourists and tourist related shops and they have a native animal sanctuary there so we got the chance to have a cuddle with a cute Koala. We grabbed a pie each and got back on the cable car, stopping off at the three stations on the way back to enjoy the short boardwalks that have been built over the rainforest floor and give you chance to see the forest from close up. We were lucky enough to have a learned guide for a while and he pointed out a number of interesting trees and plants, the most memorable being the 'wait-a-while' creeper which clings to the trees with it's omni-directional thorns and pulls itself steadily towards the precious sunlight.
ooorrrr!
The name comes from the fact that if while walking along you go too near to a strand and it catches your clothing or skin, it doesn't let go too easily and the more you pull the more it rips. He also taught us a little about the sinister Strangler Fig tree which we had already encountered at the temples of Angkor, where it is slowly and inexorably overcoming the temple walls. The trees inception takes place in the canopy itself where a bird or bat drops a seed and it becomes lodged in the foliage of a large tree. The shoots then take off downwards along the length of the trunk to the forest floor and begin to surround it. Over the next few hundred years the strangler will squeeze the life out of the host tree and once it dies and rots away, the fig will stand up on it's own. The guide also mentioned with pride that he had taken the Queen around this part of the forest too. Bully for him. The next day we rode the 30km out to the barrier reef and got dropped off at a pontoon that has been moored nearby. We spent the next few hours snorkelling in the clear waters and buzzing off the kaleidoscopic colours of the reef and abundant fish. Every time you turned around there were new kinds of fush floating around the reef. I suddenly saw a school of huge hump headed parrot fish, i'm talking 4ft long and 2ft high and theres five of em floating right next to you. Slightly unnerving. We also went out in a semi-submersible where you could view the reef from a dry seat. I think we all had a very enjoyable day and returned to the hotel ready for bed.
The next day we drove up the coast another 150km to Cape Tribulation.
