Rain forest

I've titled this one "rain forest" but it should really be KOALAS, because I finally saw cute fwuffy koalas today hurrah! They're all teddybearish and sleepy and cyooot! Dawwww! Ahem. Anyway. We got up at six effing thirty, on our holidays, to get a tourist bus most of the way back to Cairns to catch the train up to Kuranda in the hills above. The bus was, inevitably, late to the extent that I could've had an extra half an hour in bed, and it filled up with a SAGA group shortly after we got on. There's nothing like a SAGA group getting on the bus to make you determined to book independently in future. I mean, it's not as if they're louts or anything, but it's just the terrible shorts, the M&S polo tops, the sandals with socks and the self-conscious jollity. Shudder. Only 7 years til I qualify... Ooh, saw grey roos on the way to Cairns, but they are officially boring now, because of koalas.




Took the aged train from Freshwater station up the slow but spectacular twisting track through the forest to Kuranda, a journey of about an hour and a half. The line carries on to the Atherton Tableland, where it used to serve the gold-rush mining communities, but the train goes no further these days. Dad said it was steam when he came 12 years ago, but no longer. Kuranda is a pleasant hill station, but inevitably fully dedicated to extracting money from tourists. The most important thing about it is that it has a koala park, which we visited at a cost of $16 or so each. We declined to pay extra for a koala cuddle (I am now 43, after all) so we watched the poor old koalas being cuddled by a coach load of excitable Japanese. The furry lumps took it all in their stride and just went back to sleep when put back on their branch. Apparently they eat gum leaves two hours a day and sleep for the other 22. That's my kind of bear. Also in the park were roos (yawno), wobbelies and some somnolent wombats which were not going to come out of their hollow log for anyone. Now that I've done koalas I want to see a wombat properly, or a platypus. I am still skeptical of the existence of the latter. I require proof.

After the koala excitement we went and bought stuffed koalas (Australian made, no less) and I bought a pressie for C but can't say what it is. All retail requirements are now fulfilled. Had a proper Aussie pie for lunch, went for an hour's walk through the mercifully unrainy and dry jungle, and then got the "Skytrain" i.e. cable car back down the mountain. It takes you over an impressive and interesting tract of proper wet rainforest, and there's a stop halfway where a worryingly over-enthusiastic guide called Phil talked to us about rattan, cassowaries etc. It's the perfect time to visit a rain forest, I reckon - the end of the dry season so there's hardly any rain, it's not soggy and there aren't any bugs or other unpleasant invertebrates waiting too fly/crawl/ooze out of the undergrowth to sting/bite/infect/inhabit people.

At the bottom, while waiting for the granny bus, I read a book in the gift shop about Australia's poisonous creatures. All of the most deadly/disgusting ones live in the sea where I was swimming yesterday. Am going to go in the pool tomorrow.

Location:Park St,Port Douglas,Australia