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Published: August 20th 2008
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Sorry for the long gap between blogs! Finding affordable internet and a computer that reads my camera card has been hard recently! But I've finally found one so here's the first of two new entries for you! Enjoy...
We arrived in Cairns after a luxury Business Class train journey where our seats were huge and had their own personal televisions in them, just like on an airplane! Although Cairns served as a base for the following week, we actually saw very little beyond the train station and the youth hostel as we were only there at night!
On our first morning we caught the free hostel shuttle bus up to Port Douglas where we were to spend three days and nights. Port Douglas is a small town north of Cairns and is home to Four Mile beach: a long stretch (I'm not convinced it is actually four miles though) of white sand fringed with palm trees! We spent our three days relaxing and exploring the small town centre. On the Sunday there was a large market held by the water's edge where it was easy to while away a few hours at the different artsy stalls. The hostel had
a good bar area that showed the olympics in the evening so we enjoyed a glass of wine there each night.
Feeling thoughouly relaxed we were dropped off by the shuttle bus on Monday morning at one end of the 7.5km Cable Car that goes over the rainforest canopy to Kuranda. The "Skyrail" has two stops along the way where we could get off. The first had a small rasinforest walkway with panels explaining about different aspects of the plants and trees around us. The second had two lookouts over the Baron Falls which were still quite impressive, despite it being the dry season. We had three and a half hours in Kuranda itself and that was all we needed as it is a very small village. We wandered around its famous markets and sampled Tropical fruit wines at two different stalls - the Passionfruit was a favourite! To get back to Cairns we caught the Scenic Railway which takes around an hour and three quarters and snakes along the edge of different gorges and past waterfalls on its way down. The views were at times absolutely breathtaking and the drop at the edge of the tracks a bit
steep and long!
After a second night in Cairns we were up early to meet our "Daintree Discovery" tour bus. The tour is essentially a one day tour but we had it split up with two nights in the heart of the Daintree Rainforest. On the first day we went to Mossman Gorge which is beautiful (if a little full of people). We then went on a Daintree River cruise where we spotted about eight crocodiles of varying sizes on the banks of the Daintree. Unfortunately it was a little too late in the day to see any snakes. We then went to a really nice hotel where we had a buffet lunch provided - needless to say we ate plenty so we definitely were getting our money's worth! After lunch we went up to Cape Tribulation where we spotted a huge bright blue Ulysses Butterfly, before being dropped of at our Hostel in Cow Bay, Crocodylus Village. We spent the afternoon doing the Hostel's own "Orange Rope Walk" which follows an orange rope through the rainforest for about 45 mins. It was a bit difficult at times as there were a few fallen trees which need scrambling over
or crawling under! On the first night we went on a guided night walk through the rainforest with a guide called "Possum"! He was really knowledgable and we saw lots of different spiders and a Green-eyed Tree Frog. He also told us lots about the trees and vines. After the walk I spotted a Bandicoot next to our tent/hut.
The next day we hired bicycles (I know, me on a bike!) and cycled the 3.5 km to Cow Bay. The beach was really nice and almost deserted! We then cycled back to the hostel and beyond about another 4km the other side to the Daintree Tropical Fruit Farm where they turn their tropical fruit into ice cream! A well deserved treat after all the cycling but of course we had to cycle 4km back again! Needless to say, my bum hurt afterwards! In the evening we worked for our dinner by helping out in the Hostel restaurant (Kelly served, I washed up) and were rewarded with a Chicken Parmy followed by Apricot Crumble.
Unfortunately that night saw the onset of a tummy bug for me so I couldn't join Kelly horseriding the next day and I felt generally
awful for the rest of our tour with the bus which included the Rainforest Discovery Centre which has a tower with various platforms to view the different levels of the rainforest. We had another night in Cairns followed by an early start to catch a plane to Ayers Rock.
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