Cairns 19th-29th November 2006

In Darwin and Alice Springs the aborigines are quite problematic; they all seem to be drunk, and to be screaming and shouting. In Cairns they have had longer to adapt to white culture and we haven't seen any causing any trouble.

We visited the Cairn's wildlife dome, perched on top of the casino, and held two cockatoos. We also took a day trip to Green Island - along with about 100 Japanese tourists! Whilst there we took our first snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef, which was very picturesque.

Taking Steve and Karen's advice we took a day trip to Kuranda. We took the Skyrail there, which is a cable car ride for 4.7 miles with great views over the Coral Sea, and then the rainforest and Barron Falls. In Kuranda we visited the Butterfly Santuary. There we saw the Cairn's Birdwing and the beautiful, but elusive, Ulysses butterfly; we had seen one of these flying over the rainforest from our cable car.

On the way back we took the Kuranda scenic railway - the views were fantastic, with waterfalls all along the way and almost sheer drops.

A couple of days later we dived the Great Barrier Reef. The boat trip was a bit dodgy but the visability was really good and we saw a white tip reef shark, large cod and giant wrasse.

Some great photographers have galleries here; check out Ric Steiningers website : www.steiningger.com.au or Pete Lik : http://www.peterlik.com.au/bestofcollection.php

We stayed at a really good backpackers called Global Palace, which included a meal at the irish pub around the corner called P J O'Brrien's.