TWO MORE STOPS IN AUSTRALIA:

BRISBANE AND CAIRNS

Saying goodbye to Sydney :

After a day at sea : 

Brisbane, 

founded as a penal colony in 1823 on the banks of the wide meandering Brisbane River. 

It has a warmer climate than Sydney and is filled with beautiful jacaranda flame trees and Bougainville.  It is the capital of the State of Queensland, and is rapidly growing.  

Anči and her new friend Suzan visited 

a wonderful animal park and held a Koala Bear up close and personal.  

The kangaroos were also amazingly close and entertaining.  Other animals were the Tasmanian devil, platypus, dingo, and fascinating flying-foxes bats.  It was a park, not a zoo although most birds and animal were caged.

The Brisbane visit was followed thy 2 more days at sea, sailing due north to Cairns, a small (150,000) city on the northern coast of Australia.  It is the main jumping off point for touring in the wild north Queensland where intense heat and wildlife rule.  Saltwater crocodiles, poisonous snakes, and jelly fish so deadly that they keep the beaches empty half of the year.   (Including the box jellyfish  http://www.health.qld.gov.au/goodhealthintnq/topics/jellyfish.asp) 

                   Sea day formal night - always fun

Cairns is also the launching site for easy trips to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).  The reef is the only living thing on earth that is visible from space.  It is said that prior to his death, the King of Tonga held this honor!

The GBR is the largest living structure on earth made of living organisms. We boarded a large catamaran to the reef about 30 miles away from where the ship docked.  

 Anči went scuba diving, unfortunately not a great spot and bad dive master, a most disappointing and well below expectation dive. Jost went snorkeling which seems acceptable. The reef is not doing well for whatever reasons, human activity, age etc. Very disappointing dive.
                                           

On day two in Cairns, we rode the Kuranda Scenic Railway, an almost 2 hour ascent through a beautiful rain forest and 15 hand dug tunnels to Kuranda Village.  

                                  
                                 
                                                             
                                     

The railroad was built in the 1860’s using Irish men as laborers with 30 deaths.  The tracks go along and around beautiful gorges,  180◦ curves.  We sat in Pullman type cars (2 cars in a 20 car train), 16 guests per car in beautiful chair.  We had waitresses serving food and drinks. 

We arrived in Kuranda and Anči and I spent 1 ½ hours in a Butterfly sanctuary – beautiful.

It is very hard to take pictures of flying butterflies, but two of them did follow Anci.  Either on her cap or on her folded raincoat.

We boarded the skyrail Rainforest cable car for a 5 miles journey again through the Rainforest this time riding over it.  The canopy was awesome even with the tropical rain and mist.

And that night we sailed to Papua New Guinea......

see our  next blog ! soon