Cairns

So far in Cairns we have celebrated Caroline’s 22^nd birthday and had a day tour to Cape Tribulation with various stops on the way which included a wildlife park that had kangaroos, crocodiles, emus and wallabies. They also had a family of kola bears, a tree kangaroo and 2 cassowaries (see the picture below) which are very large endangered birds that are endemic to the region - they have also been responsible for causing a few deaths. Our next stop was a cruise along the Daintree river to spot some wild crocs, or snapper bags as the Aussies call them. Our safety announcement was not to hang limbs over the side of the boat as crocs can jump up and bite them off for din dins. We saw a few small crocs but as the cruise was finishing we saw a large crocodile sunbathing on a sand bank. After lunch we had a guided walk through the rainforest and saw an array of spiders, birds and another endemic species, including the peppermint stick insect – it gets its name from the spray it emits when it feels threatened, which unsurprisingly smells of peppermint. We were also given the opportunity to have some bushtucker, it involved sucking the bottom of an ant to gain a refreshing lime taste - we had only just finished lunched so we passed! 

Our main reason for visiting Cairns (along with everyone else!) was to see the Great Barrier Reef. Each morning from the apartment balcony we could see hoards of people being packed onto boats, some carrying 300 people. We took a day trip, with luckily only about 10 other people, out to the outer reef, roughly an hour and a half offshore. We spent the day snorkelling around a couple of reefs along the outer edge of the site and saw some pretty amazing and colourful fish, including plenty of Nemo’s (clownfish), angel fish and rainbow fish. We also saw massive clams that could fit a human in, and masses of beautiful colourful coral. At the first site we stopped off at we spotted a turtle on the ocean floor in amongst some of the darker coral. After watching it for a few minutes we were lucky enough to see it start to come up to the surface, with it swimming right past us as it broke for air. Its shell was roughly the size of a human body, and it could swim pretty fast. At the second site we stopped at we saw a white tipped reef shark swimming along the ocean floor, it was about 2 meters in length – so a pretty good day all in all!