Cairns library

Had a bit of time to spare before our flight home, (and it was raining), so what better place to go than the local library...again.

I liked their drive-through book return chute.

But also the spacious foyer.

And the inlaid children's book excerpts in the pathway.

One of the library's best features is the building itself, with its high ceilings, large windows & spacious "rooms", all set in a garden of giant fig trees & other tropical plants. And the staff of course were very friendly, & happy for us to take the photos!

Catana Wetlands & Yorkey's Knob, 23 July

Today was a bit quieter for us. Drove a short distance to a lovely new wetlands area called "Catana", about 20km north of Cairns, and then on to the Beach & headland known as Yorkey's Knob.
The Catana area was previously a sand? mining area, and quite degraded, until the local council & other government bodies redeveloped the very large piece of land into a sizeable lake, with many tree & shrub plantings, lovely walkways, including a boardwalk through rainforest vegetation, and good signposting & information displays.

It took us about an hour to walk around the track, taking a few photos as we went. A nice feature are the bird "hides", where you can observe & photograph the wildlife on the lake without disturbing them. If I had a good camera, the pictures would appear here. I'll upload what I've got shortly.

Flying home tomorrow!

Cairns Library, & Kuranda - 22 years later

The Reference room (left) at Cairns Library - a beautiful old building in excellent condition gives this library a very spacious, light-filled feel, and seems to be well used, judging by the number of people browsing, borrowing & studying. Nice to visit.

(Above) Part of the interesting archeological display we also saw in Kuranda.

(Below) The old Kuranda markets

Kuranda Railway

The last time I was in Kuranda was at least 22 years ago, bwfore our first child was born. Now he's 21, and we've finally returned to this small highland town about 27km out of Cairns. Last time we were here, the town seemed to be overrun with alternative lifestyle people, many living in very simple accomodation in the forest. They were selling beads, necklaces & other trinkets to passers-by. I distinctly remember one man who had hair about two feet long, all bunched up in a big burr, that I guess was very cool.

Well, twenty two years later, the hippies seem to have become shop owners, tidied up their hair & taken on a more conventional lifestyle. There is a section of the town called the "Heritage Markets", with old-style shops, mostly vacant on the day we visited. I saw one lady hanging around the small library who looked a bit like a person from that previous era, but not much else.

The Butterfly Sanctuary was excellent, the largest in Australia.

The price of a coffee was about $4, so i guessed the town has become commercialised, and not a lot different to any other tourist site up here.

Kuranda was a great place to visit. Glad we went, the highlight being a wonderful museum of archeological artifacts & replicas, which cut against the general trend, by asking only for a donation....

Happily, we arrived in Kuranda just as the special narrow-gauge tourist train was arriving, so we got a few snaps at the station. (But not a steamer unfortunately).

Great Barrier Reef

Hey, probably the best thing we've done on this trip, but the one with the least number of photos taken (no underwater camera!). The photo above left, was taken underwater by the guy on the boat, and this is a quick copy of the print, taken with my camera.

Got collected by the Quicksilver coach at 8:15 for a ride to Port Douglas, where we boarded a big ferry for the trip to Agincourt reef, on the outer edge of the Great Barrier reef. Enjoyed demonstrations, videos & talks by the marine biologist as we went. The weather was cloudy, but not too hot at about 26, as we swam off the huge floating pontoon into the tropical water. Immediately saw lots of fish, swimming at a fairly deep area with sparse coral (it has been largely trampled & destroyed by other visitors...). Swam around for while searching for better sights & finally discovered a large, shallower area a long way out from the pontoon & boat, where the coral was extensive, colourful & teeming with fish of all sizes, colours & shapes. Just about everything we have ever seen in books or on TV, only better! The fish came up to us when we were still, sometimes right up to our faces! Beautiful striped, spotted, colourful fish, some with elongated, some with flat bodies. I'll never forget it.

But one highlight of the day was before we even got to the reef - we spotted an albino (white) humpback whale! Flippers coming up out of the water, and finally, a huge breaching leap up & over, only a few hundred meters away!

Breathtaking stuff for everyone on board.

What a day!

Palm Cove, the Tropical Zoo & another rainforest!

Spent the morning swimming, walking & eating at Palm Cove, a northern Cairns beach. After lunch visited the Tropical Zoo for hours, looking at all sorts of interesting creatures, then back to a rainforest walk of about 4km before pizza down on the promenade. I'm starting to get tired, (Sam's already asleep)...

Atherton

More driving today, checking out the Atherton tablelands, a visit to an old work friend, and more photos!

Daintree rainforest

Had a great day yesterday walking around the Daintree rainforest. Wonderful natural forest, full of huge trees, vines, flowers, birds - beautiful.

Green Island

Andrew & Sam's Excellent Tropical Adventure

Google Docs

Google Docs is an interesting application for sharing document editing over the web. It seems to have most things you would want - only it appears to be dreadfully slow to do anything. Takes a long time to open & close documents, and I can't find a "save" button anywhere - I guess it just saves automatically. Great idea, just not sure if the technology is up to it yet. Strange, because it is just word processing, you wouldn't think it would take much grunt for this to work?
I enjoyed saving a fairly short diary of my holiday adventures on Google Docs. It was easy & simple to use in the end. So I guess now I have yet another handy option for word processing on the road!