January 7, 2002
Cairns is soooo HOT. The further north you go, the hotter it gets - that's what happens on this side of the equator! In just two days, Kim and I have an unbelievable lot to tell you. This morning we headed up to the Kuranda Scenic Railway built a hundred years ago through the Atherton Tablelands from Cairns to Kuranda, a small village that is inhabited by many aborigines. The railway went by Creek, and Barron Falls, but unfortunately the waterfalls were not falling because of the drought in recent months - 60mm of rain instead of their usual 600 at this time of year! We spent time at the Heritage market and the Butterfly Sanctuary and wandered through town before taking the SkyRail back to town where we went to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Park. There, Kim and I both tried playing the didgeridus and practiced throwing boomerangs, and Kim even practiced throwing spears. Interestingly, the targets are kangaroo silhouettes in lieu of America's typical human target. We got back to the hotel where we had to prepare our bags for our big rainforest hike tomorrow where we'll be camping at the top of another waterfall.
Yesterday, we flew in over the Great Barrier Reef (magnificent from the airplane) and into Cairns. We dumped our things at our hotel and headed out for our half day tour on the reef. We started in the "yellow submarine" - a really touristy sub type thing with glass below and to the sides. We got some great views of the reef at Green Island and Kim even got a cool video with her new digital camera (go mom! we said). Looking like funny frogs, we got our snorkeling gear on and went snorkeling in the reef - Kim saw a shark and we high-tailed it back to the shore. After mustering up a bit more courage (and getting used to breathing through our mouths and not our noses), Kim and I headed back out in the water and managed to finally get the hang of snorkeling (saw a parafish and others) by the time we had to leave.
Back on the hydrofoil, Kim had a canned rum and cola - recommended by Todd, one of our skippers - and I had the lemon lime with vodka premixed in a can as well. Good ideas, we thought and not bad, either!
So it's time to stop as we're running out of time. There was much more to blog about but we'll get to it later as we're both being eaten by bugs. (p.s. I had a Morton Bay Bug last night. You will have to wait till we get back from the rainforest to find out what that is).
Hani & Kim.
