Oct 3 – Rainforest Experience with heaps of … rain

(click for pics - i have decided to only include one per entry now because of limited internet availability)

Per mum’s request, today was rainforest day. We got picked up from the resort around

8:30am and were dropped off at the Cairns railway station to catch the Kurunda train. That rainforest also meant a day of rain wasn’t in my plan but I had to just accept the fact that today I was going to get soaked to the skin. The train ride to Kurunda was rather boring as far as I was concerned and slept pretty much all the way. Kurunda is a complete tourist trap. We walked around the tourist stores without buying much and went to the venom zoo – yet another tourist trap. I thought I’d get to hold a tarantula but no, the only interesting thing was a wall dedicated to the king of killer animal tamers, Steve Irwin, who ironically got killed in 2006 by a sting ray. I loved Steve but spending $15 to see a wall dedication and get a tarantula sticker was just a bit off the track. To make up for it we spent another $15 each for the Koala gardens. Fair enough, we saw more animals and my sister, for an additional … you may guess it …. $15 was allowed to hold one. We stood by and watched before taking a family picture with the fluffy bear Hogan. After petting the kangaroos, we walked some more, saw a few aborigine stores but I couldn’t find a painting I liked well enough to spend a couple hundred dollars on.  Instead I bought some opals, only triplets but they certainly looked nice.

8:30am and were dropped off at the Cairns railway station to catch the Kurunda train. That rainforest also meant a day of rain wasn’t in my plan but I had to just accept the fact that today I was going to get soaked to the skin. The train ride to Kurunda was rather boring as far as I was concerned and slept pretty much all the way. Kurunda is a complete tourist trap. We walked around the tourist stores without buying much and went to the venom zoo – yet another tourist trap. I thought I’d get to hold a tarantula but no, the only interesting thing was a wall dedicated to the king of killer animal tamers, Steve Irwin, who ironically got killed in 2006 by a sting ray. I loved Steve but spending $15 to see a wall dedication and get a tarantula sticker was just a bit off the track. To make up for it we spent another $15 each for the Koala gardens. Fair enough, we saw more animals and my sister, for an additional … you may guess it …. $15 was allowed to hold one. We stood by and watched before taking a family picture with the fluffy bear Hogan. After petting the kangaroos, we walked some more, saw a few aborigine stores but I couldn’t find a painting I liked well enough to spend a couple hundred dollars on.  Instead I bought some opals, only triplets but they certainly looked nice.

 

 

 

Instead of taking the dead boring train back, we took the skyrail. That was awesome. As there was quite a lot of wind blowing, our skyrail carriage was swinging in the wind above the massive trees of the rain forest. The rain forest looked awesome and I would have loved to just be dropped off somewhere in the middle of it and fight my way through. It just looked so beautiful. We had done a walk through the forest earlier but on solid wooden panels.

 

Back at the camper van we had a quiet night with spaghetti, heaps of red wine and chocolate port and mapping out our drive for tomorrow.

 

My dive stuff, which I had brought with me was still not dry much to the demise of my mum who was by then tired of the smelly stuff in our little bathroom. In hindsight I have to admit that bringing my own gear, through awesome to use, is a little over the top for the little diving I actually did. So next time … I’ll just dive more!!!