Yesterday we visited a local crocodile park. Crocodiles were litterally everywhere, even on the restaurant menu.
We did a boat ride through "crocodile infested" water (NB: the little bit in the water in the front left corner of the photo above is one), saw a lot of grown-up ones from a safe distance, petted a little baby croc and enjoyed a rather daring show which was properly called "crocodile attack" show, ...well, these Aussies they really know how to catch your interest...
Our favourite moment was at the end of the show when the audience was invited to ask questions. A local guy a few rows ahead of us asked (...and I am not making this up) "whether it is true that crocodiles prefer to eat Germans?!". Lots of laughter (including some rather nervous laughter from us). The crocodile expert who was slightly baffled by this question confirmed that crocodiles don't really differentiate between different nationalities. Well, thank God for that then!!!
After all the excitement of the crocodile park we needed something to calm our nerves. Relief came when we surprisingly discovered a German cafe on the way home. Their home-made apple pie really hit the spot...
There is so much to see up here in Northern Queensland that we decided to make a change to our initially planned route. Rather than driving down to Brisbane (which would have meant many, many hours in the car) we decided to spend another week up here around Cairns and fly down to Brisbane in a week's time. Well, travelling is all about being flexible...
Today we relocated and moved to another place, where we are now staying for the next 7 days. Based on a tip from locals, we literally moved two beaches on to a place called Clifton Beach - here is the view down one side:
(NB: If you go the the German blog entry from today, you'll see the corresponding view towards the other side.) It's very quiet and residential here. Our place has a view straight onto the beach from the front of the building and in the backgarden of the house are kangaroos and wallabies (something like kangaroos, just smaller).
Today we spent the morning on our new local beach, where Lucy and I perfected our surfing skills. (Ok, on a boogie board.) In the afternoon we drove up into the mountains. Only about 30 minutes from the coast and you are up in a tropical rainforest. Quite incredible to see how lush the vegetation is up here. The secret of it all? Well, as the name suggests (and as we learned this afternoon): Rain!
We went to a place call Kuranda, which has positioned itself as "the village in the rainforest" and seems to be quite a big hit with tourists. It has an old railway station which is about a 100 years old and looks like straight out of an old Hemingway novel.
Also close by is the impressive Barron River Gorge and a lovely elevated walkway through the rainforest.
Though what Lucy and Fiona will especially remember about this village is that this was the place where they got to - finally - cuddle a koala and where they got close to some kangaroos, too.
Tomorrow we are planning - weather permitting - to take a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef for some serious snorkelling...
No comments:
Post a Comment