Cairns

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Cairns is located in the heart of the World Heritage Rainforests and Sugar Cane Growing on the tropical NE coast of Queensland.

We spent our nights at a nice luxury apartment complex in the town of Palm Cove (20 minutes North of Cairns).

Our first day was spent on a tour of Kuranda and the Rainforestation.  We got to Kuranda via the Sky Rail (we'd highly recommend this).  Due to a tour operator problem, we didn't actually see much of Kuranda, but we did learn quite a bit about the rainforest plants, animals,

and aborigines at the Rainforestation.

Our return from Kuranda was via the Scenic Railroad (which we wouldn't recommend at all).

Our next day in Cairns was spent on a Rainforest and Waterfalls "swimming hole" tour.  This is where we discovered that the flies here bite (in the Northern Territory they were just annoying).  We also discovered that these tropical rainforests are infested with small leeches (it's now a month later and Preston still has leech-marks on his feet).

  • Note Diane and Albert posing in front of Milla Milla Falls.

  • The Curtain Fig tree is a strangler fig (one that germinates high up in a host tree and sends roots down the host to the ground, eventually killing it).  In this case, the host tree died and fell until it was leaning against another tree.  The strangler fig continued to send down roots which became the wide sheet (curtain) that you can see in the photo.