Cairns is famous for being backpackers capital, and judging from the accents I could hear down the road I would say Irish backpackers capital (with Donegal people appearing to be the majority). Irish ex-pats even have a magazine around here adeptly named: What's the Craic! Cairns though is also the place where you have two World Heritage areas side by side: the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rainforest. Not being a water man I stayed away from the sea, but managed to make the most of the land rainforest related activites.
First one was going up on the village of Kuranda by a scenic train, and down by the Skyrail Cablecar.
The village itself is an ex-hippie community famous for its market, but is now extremely touristic, with some shops having only Japanese speaking staff to attract rich Japanese tourist (they wont even talk to anyone else!).The cablecar though goes down for 7,5 kms on a spectacular ride on top of the rainforest, giving you also the opportunity to stop and get out for a closer look.
The rainforest is really an amazing wonder to contemplate. It has been there for more than 400 million years; you have around 3000 plant species and a third of all Australia mammals live here, not considering all plant and animal species that are found only here. You can really understand here the meaning of ecosystem; plants and animals relying on each other and beautifully working together.
Plants that rely on birds to spread their seeds, vines engaging in races to reach the light using trees as support, plants using trees as pots and wait for them to grow to go to the top. We are kind of used to see animals fighting for survival, but it was amazing to see plants and trees literally fighting with each other. Each animal or plant has a purpose; and really makes you wonder what's man purpose here. On a lighter note, the best part was seeing drunk birds!! Yes they eat berries that fermented in the sun, so you have really strange sounds and flight patterns!!I liked the rainforest so much that I decided to go on a full day & night spotting tour. Well I've never seen so many animals and plants I've never seen before in a day.
From platypus to bandicoots, from wallabies to Northern Leaf-tailed Geckos, from whait-a-while vines that will stick to your clothes (or face) to gympie gympie, a plant that when touched procures a burning pain that lasts for months! The best part though was seeing a rare Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo. Imagine a small roo, but that jumps up and live on trees!Of course I went to see koalas and crocodiles, pythons, etc in various zoo-type farms, but seeing all those animals in the wild, while walking through the rainforest with just some torchlight was def the best and more authentic part.
