North Queensland

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We flew into Cairns on December 7, where it went to a serious temperature difference with the humidity! How warm is it in Canada these days??! Because in Cairns it was usually around 31 degrees!
We spent a week in Malanda on the Tablelands with Vicki and Allan. It rained most of the time we were there (bloody rainforest!). Did a little touring around and saw some of the tablelands, but mostly relaxed!
We spent the last 4 days of our time in Australia in Cairns. We played tourists again, had a paddle around on the Great Barrier Reef one day, then did a train ride up a mountain and back down it in a Skyrail Gondola and also went to Hartley’s Croc Farm. The reef was really good saw lots of different fish, of many shapes and colours. Did come back with some colour ourselves especially Dave. The train ride went up the MacAllister Ranges and the railway was built in the late 1800s and is considered to be an engineering marvel. All 16 tunnels, and 32 bridges were built by hand and it takes you through 2 gorges and 2 waterfalls. The Skyrail is 7.5km of cable that carries you over the tops of the rainforest and allows a view all the way to the Great Barrier Reef when coming back into Cairns. Hartley’s Croc Farm was 40 mins out of Cairns and is more then just a croc farm; they also had other native animals, but the main focus of the crocodiles. They had over 2500 crocs on the farm included those on the farm and the ones that are part of the zoo. They have a wetland that does boat cruises and is where the female lays her eggs. They have 25 crocs in there and the driver feed the crocs chicken heads off the side of the boat. We got some great pictures and videos of the jaws snapping and the crocodiles propelling themselves out of the water. There was also a Croc Attack show that demonstrated the death roll and head thrashing the crocs use to break there food into edible sizes.
We flew out of Cairns on December 19th.

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Photos

Vicki & Allan
The crater on their farm

Train Ride
View from our window of the front of the train.

View from Skyrail
Rainforest and ocean as far as you could see.

Croc Farm
Croc going after some food could be the chicken or the person