Barb's Travel Journal: Australia, Page 2

Kuranda and the Daintree Rain Forrest, Queensland

The Daintree Rain Forrest is just north of Cairns, about 60 miles. We stopped in Daintree village and lunched on a local reef fish, barramundi, which is similar to grouper. We took an afternoon river cruise on the Daintree River and Barrat River. We saw only two crocodiles. One was a juvenile, about 2 feet long, the other was a full grown adult of about 12 feet. They were in the river near the shore, resting in the cool shade. We mostly saw birds along the river and, of course, a variety of trees and plants.

Cairn's Bird Wing

Kuranda is an aboriginal village in the Daintree Rain Forrest. It is very touristy, but still interesting and fun. We visited the local butterfly sanctuary. We walked among a large variety of butterflies, including the iridescent blue Ulysses butterfly. The Cairns bird wing butterfly is magnificent at nearly eight inches wing-tip to wing-tip. Butterflies have very short life spans and at the sanctuary the visitor has the opportunity to view the various stages of the butterfly lifecycle.

To listen, save file and play with mplayer.exe
Another "must see" at Kuranda is the Tjapukai (pronounced Ja-bu-guy) aboriginal dance and instrumental troop. This all male, all aboriginal group performs traditional and original dance and music about their heritage and current lifestyle. The dance is mostly narrated and the audience learns much about the language, tools and weapons of the aborigines. The music includes performances on the didgeridoo, an aborigine instrument that is a long wooden tube that is played by continuously blowing in one end. The pitch is altered by the player changing mouth, tongue and lip shape. Continuous sound is achieved through something called circular breathing. It's fascinating! I should mention that the Tjapukai dance troop has a very nice gift shop adjoining their theater. It has a huge variety of items decorated with aboriginal art.

Barron River Falls

The scenic railway ride between Cairns and Kuranda is fun and offers some nice views, including two waterfalls along the Barron River. While I was there they were constructing a skyway cable car to transport tourists from Cairns to Kuranda. The cars pass above the rain forest canopy, this would probably offer the rider some wonderful views.

The Atherton Tablelands

We did a tour with a company called AWT. It was a very small group, just us, a young Japanese couple and the guide. It was terrific. We saw a large variety of wildlife and trees and plants. The guide was very knowledgeable and entertained us with local folklore. I think the highlight was viewing a group of unadorned wallabies. These creatures are shy but easily made friends with by offering them some oatmeal. After dark, we fed peanuts to a tree possum. These nocturnal creatures have sweet faces and soft fur. They reminded me nothing of our North American opossums. I've long been interested in bats and was thrilled to see large groups of flying foxes. They are a variety of fruit eating bat, we saw them at twilight flying to the mango groves. If you are interested in learning more about the flying foxes of Australia and what you can do to protect them as a species, click here.
 

Unadorned Wallaby	Tree Possum	Flying Fox Bat

Bird's Nest Fern

Besides these native mammals, we saw two variety of lizard, skink and tree leaf gecko, several types of birds and mound building, grass eating termites! Our guide took us to a spot to watch for platypus, but we did not see them. Among the trees and plants we saw two variety of symbiotic plants, several specimen of bird's nest ferns and some curtain figs.

Mossman's Gorge vista

Mossman's Gorge

We spent an afternoon hiking Mossman's Gorge to view the waterfalls and swim in the creek. This hike offered some beautiful scenery. Again, we viewed many specimen of bird nest fern on the trail.

Resources  -  Birds  -  Reef  -   Photos