February 29 - Another rainy day in Cairns

This morning I woke up to another rainy day in Cairns.  I think that must be the norm here at this time of the year.  Before I get to today I’ll backtrack and tell you that I had a lovely dinner with my new Aussie friends Val and Deon and Helga from the Odyssey.  The restaurant the former had picked was an Italian one not far from the ship so Helga and I walked because the rain had stopped.  I stupidly forgot to get a photo of all of us but we were too busy talking and eating.  After dinner Deon and Val drove us back to the cruise terminal and we said our goodbyes.  I hope one day I can reciprocate if they come to Virginia.

The Seabourn Odyssey at night. I don't often have a chance to get a picture of her then from a dock.

Today I was booked on a tour to go up to a village called Kuranda on a scenic cable car called the Sky Rail.  The Sky Rail is one where you have to change cars at a halfway point up the mountain and it travels over a huge rainforest.  Of course because it was raining and misty visibility wasn’t great. Nonetheless as we rode up the shades of green and the number of little streams that we could see through the breaks in the canopy below were interesting to see.  Just before the halfway point where we had to change to a different cable car I saw an impressive waterfall, Barron Falls. The falls are created by the Barron River descending from the tablelands above Cairns and they are a little over 400 feet high.  There was a boardwalk with a bunch of steps one could take to get close to them, but I wasn’t about to attempt that in the rain.  At the top was the little town of Kuranda.  There were lots of shops with local crafts, jewelry, and a few clothing stores.  I rode up in a gondola with two other ladies named Ann (what a coincidence!) so we three Anns wandered through them.  I didn’t take any pictures because it was drizzling intermittently and I had put my camera into my bag so it wouldn’t get wet.  These are a few pictures I did get and I know they are boring, but I feel a compulsion to put something in.

A very exciting picture of a cable car

A rainy rainforest

Barron Falls 

We took a bus to get back to Cairns.  There is a scenic railway, but it was damaged when a cyclone hit here last December and repairs haven’t been completed yet.  The road we traveled on was quite interesting though.  It too was damaged by landslides and in some places it was just one lane winding down the mountain.  The road was built in 1939 and the stimulus for building it was WWII. There were rumblings of the war to come in the Pacific.  Japan was engaged in China and had shown signs of wanting to expand its reach in the southeast Asia area.  The construction of the road from the coast up into the interior would help with supply issues and if necessary could be an avenue for evacuation of the coastal area around Cairns.  Although I have read about the war in this part of the world, I didn’t realize how close northern Australia is to where intense fighting was going on in New Guinea and the islands to the east of there including Guadalcanal.  We have a retired Royal Australian Navy Captain on as a guest speaker and he has been giving some interesting talks about that.  

Back at the ship the skies really opened up and the sailaway festivities had to be canceled.  Every native Aussie from this part of the country that I’ve spoken with says the same thing – the time to come here is from May to October, their fall and winter.  Unfortunately, cruise lines that we Americans generally sail on don’t come at that time.  We have three sea days coming up now before we make our last stop in Australia, the city of Darwin.  For now that's about it.  No excitement which I guess is a good thing.