More Cairns

Well, I spoke too soon. We have been without internet service again for the last four or five days. So, I'm way behind on my postings. Nevertheless, here goes. I think it was on March 14th or 15th--our second day in Cairns. While the first was an exceedingly rainy day, this day was a beautiful sunny day. Margaret had scheduled a ride on Skyrail over the rainforest with a train ride back. (You can read more about Skyrail by clicking here.) Having previously crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and continuing north, we were more and more in actual rainforest. I thought I had an understanding of rainforest, but it is so much more beautiful and complex than I ever imagined. There are unimaginable numbers of plants, and the ways in which they coexist, live off each other parasitically, or simply "use" each other in epiphytical ways. Looking down on one rainforest from above was fascinating. Here are M&M shortly after our car departed the first station.

Views at higher elevations are always great.

Looking up as a descending car approaches.

This is a look straight down. You really couldn't see the forest floor most of the time, but there were all kinds of amazing trees, ferns riding up on trees, vines, and on and on.

The ride was in three separate segments (three separate cable loops). At each of the two station stops, we had the chance to walk around the forest floor on boardwalks. Many of the trees we saw this day and on other days as well were enormous. Most are very tall, very straight trees. I saw many that correspond to woods I like to use: rosewood, bloodwood, mahoganies, others.

This is a basket fern, which is an epiphytic plant. It does not hurt its host but merely catches a ride up to the sunlight it wants. It captures leaves, which decay in its basket to nourish the ferns, and it captures its own rainwater as well, taking nothing from its host.

As we approached the end of the Skyrail trip, we were treated to views of this large, thundering waterfall system.

At the end of the Skyrail portion of the trip is the the community of Kuranda. Here we are departing the third Skyrail segment to spend some time there.

Lots of the things available in Kuranda are associated with the local aboriginal community. There were street artists and musicians, including this man playing a didgeridoo. I have been completely fascinated with these very old instruments and have almost purchased one to be shipped home. Many of the ones available to us tourists are works of art with intricate carvings and paintings on them. To play one properly, you have to learn to simultaneously breath in while blowing out. I have a little booklet that describes this, but I don't know if I could learn to do it or not.

Kathie saw a shop that did henna tattoos. She had been thinking about a small tattoo on one of her fingers--something like a ring. So she did it!

It wasn't dry at this point, but it looked pretty nice. It was supposed to last three weeks, but as I write this it isn't clear that will happen. The design is aboriginal.

Instead of taking the Skyrail in a round trip, we took a train back along the opposite side of the gorge through which the falls and river run.

At a brief stopping point, we got to see the falls again. I also snapped this shot of my traveling companions.

I leaned out the window to get this shot of the train rounding a bend over a trestle with a different, smaller waterfall to the side.

At the end of the day, we attended a show and dinner put on by a local aboriginal group. These are the Tjapukai. You can read more about their show by clicking here.

For the opening ceremony, they painted all of our faces.

After the dinner, they performed a number of dances for us and explained a bit about the culture of the tribe in this area of Queensland. Decades ago, there were something like 260 distinct aboriginal tribes all around Australia. Because the terrain and living conditions and available resources varied so much, the tribes tend to vary too in terms of customs, art, foods, and in many other ways. All of this reminded me again and again of parallels with our own Native American history.

The performers were kind enough to allow this photo with Kathie and me.