Sandwiches made and packed, tick, camera’s packed, tick, water bottles filled and packed, tick, suncream applied, tick, and that’s it, up, ready and out for our next trip. We were picked up by Heath, our coach driver at 7.45am, and sat on the front seats, us being the first passengers on board. We were then given a sightseeing tour of hotels in Port Douglas for the next thirty five minutes as we drove round picking everyone else up before finally setting off to Cairns where we were headed for the Skyrail, a gondola trip, up to the village of Kuranda.
We’d set ourselves a challenge today, if fact we set it on Monday but we failed the task that day so thought we’d make another attempt today. So our challenge is to engage in conversation with someone on the excursion. Quite an easy task you’d think, but actually it’s more difficult than you think. Some people go on trips and keep themselves to themselves, like on Monday, so being the cheery souls that we are we said good morning to everyone that got on the coach, just to test the water. We got a fairly good response from them but we soon realised that this is not really a trip, trip, it’s a means of getting from A to B with tickets included. We’d have no chance then!
At the Skyrail Station each ‘gondola’ cabin usually takes six people but today there were just four in ours, me, Maice and these two younger guys. As we were clicking away with our cameras for some reason mine went into 4K burst mode which it seems to do quite often even though I haven’t knowingly fiddled with any knobs, and it‘s so annoying when it does this as I can never remember how to change it. So when it happened the second time one of the guys offered to look at it for me, which he did and within seconds had sorted it out. How’d he do that? It’s taken me weeks to read the instruction manual and I’m only just venturing off AI (automatic intelligence) mode. As we were in ‘challenge’ mode we went straight into conversation with them and gleaned that they are Cory and Sheldon from Vancouver, where at the end of every sentence everything was ‘awesome’. Thankfully Maice, being a fellow Canadian doesn’t end her sentences with ‘awesome’. So, having engaged in conversation with Cory and Sheldon we’re pleased to say we have succeeded in today’s challenge.
There were two stops on the way up to Kuranda, one at Red Peak where we got out and walked around the boardwalk looking at the plants and trees in the rainforest and the second stop was at Barron Falls. We’d seen pictures of these waterfalls and they were mighty impressive but when we got there they were a mere trickle. Okay, maybe more than a trickle, but that’s how it looked from a distance. Our final stop was Kuranda, a quaint aboriginal village in the rainforest, or that’s what we both had in our minds. Of course it was nothing like that, it was a quite a large modern village, not at all aboriginal, with lots of tourist shops and a wildlife sanctuary at the end of the village. The first thing we did on arrival was head to the local chemist. Ever since I boarded the coach my eyes had started to sting and they were getting worse and looking quite puffy. I think it was the Nivea suncream I’d put on my face that was affecting my eyes so I needed to buy some eye makeup remover to cleanse my face. We found a bench on the main street where I sat and removed my make-up, removing all eye mascara and omg, what an instant relief. Of course this meant I was now make-up less, something that never occurs in the world of Angela, especially when close-up photos are imminent!
We headed off to the wildlife sanctuary and up to the Koala gardens. Well, what can I say about Koalas other than they are just the most cutest, the most gorgeous creatures you have even seen. You look at them and your heart melts. You look at them and they pull on your heart string. They are so absolutely gorgeous, in fact they’re ‘awesome’, all you want to do is cuddle them, and that’s exactly what we got to do. What an amazing experience.
Managing to tear ourselves away from these gorgeous Koalas who we had just had the good fortune to be photographed with (even though I was devoid of all make-up) we wandered into the ‘nocturnal wonders’ display and came face to face with the Papuan Frog-Mouthed bird which we’d seen in a tree on the Daintree River cruise on Monday. They’re quite awesome creatures, looking more like an owl than a bird, or a frog! I must say they’re quite a handsome bird. Other creatures we saw today were snakes, crocodiles, lizards, quokkas, which apparently are the happiest animals on earth.....although the ones we saw looked rather grumpy, we’ve seen wombats, wallabies and Roos. All in all we’ve seen all creatures great and small, and cute, omg, oh so cute Koalas.
We were getting the Kuranda Scenic Railway back down to Cairns and whilst waiting on the platform we sat and watched the usual antics of the Chinese taking photos. The problem with the Chinese is a) they completely get in the way b) they take over c) they don’t move out of the way or let others get a photo opportunity until they’ve finished, which can take ages d) they take photos of themselves in the same spot but in different poses e) they have selfie sticks f) they also have top of the range cameras and g) one Chinese guy wore toe socks with his flip-flops.....I kid you not. Whilst waiting for the Chinese to finish their David Bailey workout we took the opportunity to visit the loo. As usual there was a queue for the ladies and whilst queuing the lady behind me let out the biggest, loudest fart you have ever heard. Maice and I couldn’t believe it and being the big kids that we are we found it difficult to suppress our laughter. We had to look away from each before we became hysterical. Ah, the things that amuse us, such playground humour!
The journey down on the train was scenic in parts and even though all the windows were open it was very hot and sweaty. I’d hate to think what it would be like if the train was full, thankfully it wasn’t so we had space to manoeuvre. Ian, our driver was at the bottom to greet us and transport us back to Port Douglas. He was a very happy, cheery driver and you could tell he loved his job.
We got back at 5pm, hot, tired and weary and went straight into our Day 8 Yoga Challenge which thankfully wasn’t as gruelling as the day before and was more about meditation and relaxation. However, Adrienne did throw in a pigeon pose that was a bit of a toughie. We showered and Maice went off to fetch our $5 pizza from Dominoes. We were eating in-fresco tonight, again. Well you see, we hadn’t accounted for the Koala photos which weren’t on ‘the spreadsheet’ so we had to forgo something so eating out went out and in came the take-away. Mind you Maice did get side-tracked in Coles the supermarket and bought two packets of M&M’s. One packet would have done but she was taken in by the ‘buy two’ special offer. So for $6 we got two packets of chocolates which turned out to be more expensive than our one Pizza.....which incidentally was delicious. We also managed to finish our bottle of gin eeking out two G&T’s each.
So that’s it, we’ve had another great day, tick and we’ve cuddled a Koala, tick. What more could we ask for......oh yes, Bed!
See you tomorrow
M&A xx