15 to 19 November – Cairns (Australia)

I did not know anything about an eclipse before leaving Moresby but was told of one on the flight to Cairns only to be too late arriving in Cairns to view the eclipse in one of the places people had gone specially for the view.

The eclipse

 

Part of the Barrier Reef from the air

It seems that watchers one kilometre apart either saw a good eclipse or the view was obstructed by cloud so for some the trip to Cairns was wasted to some extent. According to the local people 10,000 others had come to Cairns for the eclipse and most stayed for a week or more to enjoy North Queensland. I had arranged accommodation in ‘Jacks,’ a hostel in the centre of Cairns where the four bunk room was full the whole time I was there. As part of the cost an evening meal was thrown in from the pub next door but this was not a pub meal but a cheap pasta or rice specially cooked for the backpackers staying in the hostel. It was a not so subtle way of having the backpackers stay around to buy drink during the evening.

Cairns from the air

Boats in the harbour

Jack's Hostel

A Cairns street

A Cairns street

A Cairns street

The swimming area near the esplanade

Cairns was very clean and more than obvious after the filth of PNG. Even with the influx of tourists there was plenty of space though some tours were fully booked until after the weekend. I did manage to visit Kuranda up on the Atherton Tablelands where there was a koala zoo of sorts, Birdworld and a butterfly garden. There were two noticeable changes from when I had gone there more than twenty years ago. One was that there was a choice of getting to and from Kuranda either by bus, train or cable car, with the cable car being fairly new. This was 7.5 kilometres long, starting from the plain and going up over the mountains with stopping places along the way so that people may walk through the rain forest and see different birds and animals that live there. The second difference was the number of stalls and shops selling trendy and ethnic things, a much more formal structure than in the past. I did visit the koala park and the butterfly gardens then returned to Cairns on the train.

The cable car

The Barron River

The Kuranda train

The Barron River Falls

Crocodiles

Stuck in the trees

Lizard

Koala

Cuddling a koala

A cassowary

Butterflies in the park

Engine painted as an aboriginal snake