Cairnes and Breat Barrier Reef

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Cairns, North Queensland.

The trip to Cairns almost nearly did not happen. I had booked with JetStar at 0900 hrs from Sydney and being a domestic flight assumed that I have to go to the domestic terminal. Little did I understand that it was a flight to Osaka in Japan. Luckily I had given myself plenty of time that I could take a transfer bus to the international terminal and still make the flight. The Airbus 330-200 was barely half full, I presume they get more passengers from Cairns. The landing was in windy conditions. I hope the wind abates by Tuesday for the trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

After checking into the hotel reconfirmed the tour as required. Took a walk to the quay to familiarise myself as to be in the morning of the tour. There was a free common pool on the Esplanade where anyone can take dip from 0600 hrs to 2100hrs. That left me with one free day, Monday. Looked at different options. Best option seemed to be one that Mick had mentioned, a trip on the hill train returning by cable car (7.5 miles) over the rain forest canopy.

When the booking was done the hotel receptionist did change the itinerary so that I could go up in the Skytrain in the morning at 1000hrs and come back on Sky Rail by 1530. As it turned out that was a better idea as I could walk back to the hotel from the train station. The Skytrain is a cable car system that ran for 7.5 KM over the top of mountains to Kuranda, a village in the mountains. There were two intermediate stations, Red Peak and Barron Falls where you have to get off one system and get on to another. I presume a 7.5Km single rope system could pose a few problems in operation. All along the route the "gondola" was traveling just above tree tops that you could even see little animals and birds in the trees. At the Red Peak station we went on a walk about in the rainforest with a guide who explained a lot of things about the rainforest. There were some displays of the old carriers. They were tiny platforms, later with some protection around, the passengers. It would have been a terrible ordeal to be transported in one of them.

At the Barron Falls there were also a few look out points over the falls. As the rainy season had ended the falls was a ghost of itself, only a tiny ribbon of a waterfall. You could see the glory of the fall on the rocks where it had etched its signature. The hydroelectric dam was storing up all the residual water. Here we also had a conducted tour by an aborigini forest ranger into the forest, he explaining the use and significance of different plants in their culture.

Koranda itself is nice little village, which now exists, it seems, for or because of the tourist. A lot of eateries, fancy item stores, everything catering to the tourist. After wandering an hour in the village and in the rainforest I boarded the Sky Rail to get back down to Cairns. This stretch now is considered as a project of significance by the Australian government. The mountain section which took 4 years to complete, has 15 tunnels in it, the longest being 500m. All were finished with hand tools and explosives. A lot of Italian, Irish and Chinese worked on the project. The bridges over the canyons (think called creeks here) are definitely an achievement in engineering. There are so many twists and turns on the rail you wonder how the wheels stay on the rails. Near one of the waterfalls it turns so much that it must be one of the sharpest turns on railways. While Skytrain skims over the canopy of the rainforest, The Skyrail just bores through it, two different experiences. Some of the carriages, though restored were more than a hundred years old, older than the sky train itself.

Got to the warf E "finger" at 0730hrs for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Cruise. There were some 30 of us on the boat, everybody had to be enrolled and necessary info given. We got a welcome, a cup of coffee and some cakes. Everyone was kitted out with snorkels and gelly fish suites. The Catamaran set off at 0830 and was in Michelmas cay, a tiny sand dune on a coral reef in an hour. It is a protected bird sanctuary and we were allowed only a tiny bit of shore, demarcated, to set foot on. I did not go ashore. Most of us went on snorkling from the boat. After the canoe accident I opted for the use a life jacket while snorkling. This is one of the middle reefs approx 50km from sea shore. The waters were 6m to 7m deep here except where the corals were growing, the top of corals about 3m below sea level. The water was warm (> 20ºC) and everybody seem to be enjoying the experience. We saw a different kinds of beautiful coral fishes including Nemo, giant clams which the guide said could be around 240kg, some large sea fishes, a couple of smaller sharks and a large sea tortoise. The only thing I noticed was the colour of corals were not what I expected it to be, they looked very dull and unhealthy. I suddenly remembered one of my co-travelers in NZ telling me that they are dying and there will be very little left in 15 to 20 years time. We spent about an hour here, then a few people opted to go diving and that took up another half an hour. By this time we were given a good buffet lunch and set on a 30 minute dash to one of the outer reefs (Hastings reef). There was no island here but all went snorkling or diving. The waters were much clearer here and there was hardly any sand between the reefs. Where growing in reef was only 1m below surface so we were kept away from these areas as we could damage the corals with contact and we could also be hurt. Here the reef looked to be in better shape. Where the coral ended it was falling off sharply, I don't know to what depth. We only snorkled for less than an hour here. Then we were taken in a flat glass bottomed boat over the shallow corals and was explained the different aspects of the reef. There in no Great Barrier Reef, only thousands of small "reefets".

Soon it was time for the return journey. The wind was also picking up, but the catamaran just flew through the waves. We were in Cairns before 1630hrs. An excellent experience probably tinged with some apprehension as to the future. All the problems are not human, the torrential rains in Queensland dumping too much nutrients into the see two years ago and cyclones all are contributing to the distruction of the reefs. May those are also caused bu humans-global warming.

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