Mt. Bartle Frere
(Double click on any photos to enlarge them to full size)
We risked not being able to turn the caravan round at Josephine Falls only to discover that it had a great turn-around and picnic point close to a set of quite accessible falls where I tried out the ‘sports’ setting on the new camera. (Double click on any photos to enlarge them to full size)
The trek up to the falls is lush, even in the dry season
Josephine Falls late in the dry season - would be marvellous to see them in the wet
Upper reaches of Josephine Falls
Couple of teenagers couldn't resist the slide down the last part of the falls
We took the side trip to the Babina Boulders just outside the town with the Queensland record for rain (somewhere over six meters last year).
Babina Boulders - again how great it would be to see theses in the wet.
The best flow at Babina Boulders in the dry
Chrystal clear waters at the Babina Boulders swimming hole
The Cairns Coconut Holiday Resort - Big4 Caravan Park - was, by far the most well equipped park we have stayed in ever. Part of the book-in procedure is a guided tour in a golf cart that takes in all the features and rolls past your site so you can decide if you want it or another. The Park is a resort with a choice of pools and daily free activities including free movies. The young bloke who was delegated to assist us to park the van offered to put it onto the site himself – he made it look so easy it was embarrassing (almost). We wandered back to the reception to book some tourist tours. Anne here: due to the limited time we had here this was the most effective tway to see the things we wanted to see.
We chose to do the Kuranda rail trip made famous in the family by Josh and Jess appearing on TV in Good Morning. The trip takes us up to a small tourist town that wakes up about 10am as the tourists arrive and closes down about 3.30pm when the last of them leave.
Kuranda includes lots of markets, an Indigenous culture centre, the Australian Butterfly Santuary, a huge butterfly house, Birdworld, a much bigger bird enclosure, Kuranda Koala Gardens, plus more markets. The visit to the Butterflies included a very good and enthusiastic guided tour in the main cage and then through the breeding labs.
On the way up to Kuranda on the scenic railway
Stony Creek Falls cascading only metres from the train
Barron Falls from the train
Barron Falls seem to go down forever
Imagine Barron Falls in full flow during the wet!
These falls and gorge are huge!
Blue Ulysses butterfly feeding - very difficult to capture on film due to the speed at which it flaps its wings and then closes them almost immediately as it alights on something to avoid capture. Guide at the Butterfly House told us to use sports mode and shoot shots randomly to catch them on film
Green Lace Wing butterfly
In Birdworld the birds had a warning to remove watches, earrings etc as the birds could damage them. The bloody blue Macaw wandered over stood on my shoe and proceeded to eat the aglets off my laces. This bird is waiting on unsuspecting visitors so we later saw a keeper rescue a rather bent earring and warn another patron to remove his watch while it still had a winder. The other birds were much better behaved. 
Blue McCaw totally destroys plastic ends of Jim's shoe laces
The usual suspect talking with one of his new friends
Koala doing what they do best!
After all that excitement we had lunch at the markets which had some beautiful clothes and tons of tourist souvenirs. The highlight of lunch was the Rum and Raisin ice-cream that our driver advised we should try (partly because he is not allowed to have it when he is driving). It is home made to a recipe that involves chopped raisons and 42% Bundaberg rum – yeah, good 42 is ‘the meaning of life, the universe and everything’ after all!!!After a huge day of photographing we were whisked down the mountain by Skyrail cable car. The Skyrail is long and the heights are enormous. It has to change direction at one point so everyone has to disembark at the second of the two intermediate stations to get onto the cars going down the next leg. Near the bottom, on the way down, we watched a water-skier going round and over jumps in a Cairns water-ski park where the skier holds onto a rope that is suspended from gantries that hang over the water – no boat required!
View of Cairns on a very hazy day during the descent on skyrail cable car
We rose early on the next morning for another trip round the backpacker accommodations to pick up a busload of passengers for the tour to the Daintree. We were the first on (and last off) so we got to sit directly behind the driver who gave us a bit more conversation than he put over the speaker. He took us North to the Habitat House at Port Douglas and left us while he picked up the last couple of passengers in Port Douglas. This Habitat House provided lots more opportunities to photograph birds, reptiles and other fauna. We got to see a blue-tailed kookaburra and owls plus the only breeding pair of Black Necked Storks in captivity in the world. These birds were very pleased with themselves as they stood on either side of the nest and broke into a song and dance routine every few minutes.
The reptiles included both sorts of crocs and the lovely amethyst python. Yes, they had both kinds of crocodiles there too!
Blue tailed kookaburra
Lesser Sooty Owl
Tawny Frog-Mouth
Red-tailed black cockatoo
Black necked storks go through their dance routine
Red-legged Pademelon
The roo population was well represented including a Lumholtz’stree kangaroo in action with its own habitat food.
Salt water croc
We had a good look at the Mossman George and its lovely waterfalls among the boulders. I managed to hear most of what another tour guide was telling his clients and have him point out the lizard (brown skink) he had spotted for his group – so a free guided tour.
Creek in Mossman Gorge
Lush even in dry season
Brown skink in Mossman Gorge
Then it was on, by ferry, across the Daintree River to lunch at the Beach House resort on Cape Tribulation Beach where we had some free time to enjoy the beach. Several of the younger ones stripped off but were not willing to go out far enough in the very low tide to get wet. Anne had a paddle and declared the water temperature to her liking.
Paddling at The Beach House, Cape Tribulation
Tiny crabs making marbles at Cape Tribulation
On the return journey the driver/guide took us into the rainforest on a very informative tour on Marrdja Botanical Broadwalk and displayed an unexpected knowledge of rainforest flora and fauna. A brief stop at Rex Lookout showed that Green Island was getting a bit too blurry for a good shot but the coast trip in a bus was a great relaxing way to see a very picturesque coastline, colourful ocean and distant islands.
Strangler Fig has completely surrounded and overtaken this tree so that it is now completely hollow inside.
Palms lining the Marrdja Botanical Broadwalk
On the return trip we had an hour boat cruise of the Daintree River to spot a couple of crocs of significant size plus one smaller one and a snake.
Salt water croc on the Daintree River estuary
The snake was in a hollow limb of a tree from which hung an empty nest of a Yellow Bellied Sunbird, prey to the snake no doubt. The tour guide provided a lot of general and specific information about the crocs in this part of the Daintree. This cruise saved us the return ferry ride as the boat dropped us on the other side of the river where our bus was waiting to bring us back to Cairns.
Our last day in Cairns was a bit of a rest day as we had a lot of housekeeping to catch up on. It also included some pre booking of the next leg of our trip.
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