Australia - Part 2

Kuranda

On our second day in Australia I woke up feeling kind of woozy. We had a delightful breakfast in the open air hotel dining area surrounded by tropical vegetation. Wooziness was banished by a view of the ocean, gentle warm breezes, and pleasing bird calls.

Our agenda today included a trip to Kuranda which began with a ride up mountains on the antique Kuranda Scenic Railway. 

While waiting for the train we noticed a small bird nest in an unlikely location - between two signs attached to the fence.

The train cars were nice but more than 100 years old. Our bus driver effectively warned us beforehand not to use toilets within the train because they were, "squishy"! The long, slow journey up the mountain included 93 curves, 15 tunnels, and waterfalls. 

The locomotives were decorated with aboriginal art.

The rail line brought us to the interesting small town of Kuranda. As we walked up the main street one side was filled with beckoning shops while the opposite side had several buildings devoted to aboriginal concerns, including this beautiful mural.

We wasted no time heading for the Kuranda Koala Gardens because C was hoping to "cuddle a koala". Apparently, we arrived at the right time because C was first in line for koala cuddling.

The word lethargic doesn't begin to describe these animals who can sleep up to 22 hours a day. It seemed like a major accomplishment for them to slowly extend one foot. C was thrilled to actually hold one for a few moments.

C loves to pet furry animals, including this somewhat reluctant wallaby who turned his head away from well meaning affection.

Koala Gardens had lots of other animals to see at close quarters. It was possible to get incredibly close to seemingly tolerant creatures. We saw a sleeping wombat hiding in a hollowed out log, and, pictured below, agile wallabies, a quokka, and a green tree python.

After Koala Gardens we visited the fantastic Australian Butterfly Sanctuary. I give this place 5 stars plus! We entered a somewhat steamy enclosure filled with fluttering butterflies and tropical vegetation. Butterflies were everywhere! They flew overhead and all around, often landing and spreading their colorful wings. The first butterfly below is called an australian lurcher. The second butterfly below is an orange lacewing.

All these butterflies were new to me. The next one is a red lacewing.

This next one is a female cruiser butterfly.

Unlike many wildlife exhibitions, the subjects weren't hiding, or asleep. They were out in the open and easy to see.

I found this common eggfly particularly beautiful.

Look closely underneath the black and white winged butterfly in the picture above. There, near center, you can see a gorgeous green butterfly with wings partially spread. This is a cairns birdwing, probably the biggest butterfly I've ever seen. It rarely spread its wings in a resting position.

I was able to capture green cairns birdwings flapping by on several videos, but when they landed, wings were closed. The next two pictures show a resting cairns birdwing and its colorful wing undersides.

I could have stayed here longer watching the endlessly changing display of beauty.

Butterflies landed everywhere, even on heads and water bottles!

The Butterfly Sanctuary's brochure encouraged visitors to "...watch freshly emerged butterflies from our laboratory ...". C joked this made them sound like "frankenbutterflies"!

After leaving the enclosed area we exited through a hall lined with mounted butterflies from around the world. Below are only two of the many dazzling displays.

Still shaking my head in amazement after butterfly splendor, it was time for lunch. We bought the last two available Cornish pasties (meat pies) at Annabel's Takeaway Pie Shop.

After lunch we strolled through Kuranda and browsed in shops. I was sorely tempted to buy some boulder opal to add to my rock collection. Now I wish I had given in to the temptation.

I bought a wind spinner with zodiac signs around a central yellow glass "sun". We came across an odd shop where everything was Scottish. There was an exhibit of Scottish culture and history. Braveheart was playing on a video screen. In the background bagpipe music was playing. I suddenly realized the bagpipe was playing Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child! That may be one of the strangest things I've ever heard!

Eventually, too soon, it was time to leave the village and return to the mountain base on the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway.

We rode above the rainforest canopy watching white cockatoos flying below us.

At several station stops along the way we walked through the rainforest on boardwalks.

Here's one view into the rainforest itself. It wasn't damp and steamy as I've always imagined rainforests to be. Instead, it was quite dry due to the current Australian drought.

We passed an enormous Queensland Kauri tree. It was more than 400 years old and towered into the sky.

Many trees were supporting brown growths that looked like large bird nests. We learned they were dried out remnants of epiphytic plants, possibly called staghorn ferns.

We later found a smaller version of this plant growing on one of the palm trees right outside our hotel room.

Cablecar stations along the way contained several exhibits about rainforest wildlife, including this realistic life-sized cassowary. Our tour guide said she had actually encountered wild cassowaries while hiking. We saw a few roadside signs warning of cassowary crossings. This is a BIG bird - a scary dinosaur-like bird with a head casque looking like a pterodactyl's crest.

After our Kuranda tour we headed back to Palm Cove for an outdoor pizza dinner in perfect evening weather.
  

Australia - Part 1

Lovely Palm Cove

Before our recent trip to Australia I had never been south of the equator. When an astronomy themed Australian tour became available it was a good opportunity to visit a new continent. I was hoping to see lots of new things, including celestial objects in the southern skies not visible from home.

It was a long journey across the globe, even longer than our previous grueling trips to South Korea. It took four different flights and three layovers to reach our destination.

We crossed several time zones, the equator, and the International Dateline.

The last flight finally took us from Brisbane to Cairns, arriving more than 35 hours after leaving home. (Cairns is pronounced, Ken's by Australians.) Our plane for the long Pacific Ocean flight was a Boeing 787-9 seen below in the Brisbane airport.

It was a relief to arrive at the Cairns airport and anticipate immediate escape from airplane/airport madness. While waiting for our luggage we saw this exhibit of an amazing decorated triathlon bike.

At last we stepped outside into warm, sunny, Australian weather where we met our tour director and some fellow tourists.

Soon we were driving to our hotel in Palm Cove. I was delighted to see this sign along the way.

We passed several fields of sugar cane near Cairns as we drove along. The harvested sugar cane was transported on dedicated, very narrow gauge rail lines running along the field edges. The tiny width between rails reminded me of miniature toy railroads I rode as a kid.

It wasn't long before we arrived at our hotel, The Reef House, in Palm Cove. The front entrance is seen below.

What a lovely place this was! The tour was off to a great start as we left luggage in our nice room.

Here are views from our back patio looking out at a central courtyard with a walkway in back.

A swimming pool was centered in the inner courtyard.

The Reef House had a beautiful lounge area with games, books, videos, and paintings.

The hotel had an open front and dining area where mild, fresh breezes gently blew.

Huge old paperbark gum trees lined the hotel entrance. They were said to have been there since the time of Captain Cook in 1770!

The interesting bark could be peeled off and used in the past as bedding, or, soaked in water to become a food wrap for cooking.

This beautiful beach was directly in front of the hotel.

A gorgeous palm-lined sidewalk was wonderful for slowly strolling along the shoreline.

Along with beauty came possible hazards: dangerous stinging jellyfish and some reptiles.

Dangers were easily avoided. We were intoxicated by tropical beauty greeting us each morning. Elusive colorful birds flashed by making unfamiliar calls.

We passed by this scene each morning as we left the hotel.

On the evening of our arrival we traveled to the Thala resort for dinner and possible stargazing. A non-ideal viewing site and partly cloudy skies made stargazing disappointing. Instead of being located on high ground with clear views of the surrounding horizon, the viewing site was on lower ground surrounded by high trees. The Moon wasn't yet bright enough to overwhelm the Milky Way, but trees blocked the brightest parts, and clouds kept interfering. I could see the Small Magellanic Cloud in binoculars, but my phone camera couldn't capture it in a 10-second exposure. I did see globular cluster 47 Tucanae in the telescope provided. Only two of my phone images were marginally worthwhile. I removed color from the images and processed them to show one bright Milky Way section near Sagittarius. This bright area is just below and left of center in the next picture. The dark shapes across the bottom are trees.

Sagittarius was higher above the horizon than at home and oriented differently. Corona Australis, visible as a curved, upside down arc of stars left of center is visible in both pictures. In the second picture, taken a little later than the first, bright Jupiter appeared through a gap in the trees below center. Saturn is also visible higher up above the glow in Sagittarius.

I'm very disappointed in these images. My phone camera obviously isn't the best instrument for capturing dark sky details, but I expected better results. The constant march of clouds and unfortunate background lighting didn't help. Nevertheless, I was happy to see two southern hemisphere celestial sights I had never seen before.

After the stargazing we drove back to Palm Cove anticipating adventures the next day.