Deja vu In many ways, Cairns is a more lively version of Townsville, with the small exception that you are warned not to swim at the city front beaches because of Crocodiles. Other than that, the two places are eerily similar. Both locations have a long strand of beach property, with a small riparian buffer separating the beaches from downtown. Each city has a James Cook University Campus, and both were hosting a cultural festival on the same weekend. The main reason Josh and I were visiting Cairns was for the 60th annual Fulbright Symposium which was themed "Sustainability in the Tropics". In the typical Australian fashion, there was an eclectic mix of participants, from the U.S. Ambassador to Australia, to world famous tropical forest biologists, virus specialist, and a host of other interesting scientists
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