After catching a coach transfer at 7:30AM from just outside Yang’s guesthouse we got to the Skyrail terminal at the foot of the mountain we were about to ecologically ascend. Once we had our tickets we browsed the Skyrail shop which had a nice selection of dead spiders and lizard T-shirts with glow in the dark tongues.
The cable cars look like this.
As the car climbed up the mountain the view got better and better.
Yang was unimpressed though. He said that it looked like a calendar and he started pointing out all the different months around us. I knew what he was saying; it's like when you look at people’s holiday snaps of a country you have never been to they often just look like you would expect them too. What with all the images and videos around today sometimes you can feel like you have seen it all before. However, being there is very different to just looking at a picture, you have to pay more for one. I asked him not to look at any calendars of the UK.
We had a stow away.
At the first station, if that is the word, we got off and walked around the boardwalk that goes around some trees and back again.
I have no idea why Yang took this picture.
But then he probably had no idea why I took this one. 
I took this picture of him, but he didn’t like it because of armpit hair.
Refusing to delete it, he demanded compensation. So he took this picture of me.
There was a caterpillar wriggling on the thread of a broken spider’s web. We spent a while taking pictures of it.
As we were doing this a large group of Japanese tourists following a guide came our way. The guide said, “Ohh” and pointed out the caterpillar we were photographing. A queue of people started to build up behind us so we decided to leave. Only days later did it actually occur to me that the caterpillar probably quite wanted to be rescued. Unluckily for it the combination of itself and the almost invisible spider’s web floating in the air was much too aesthetic for anyone to think about morals. All it wanted was for someone to pick it up, not for its image to be digitally captured forever in multi mega pixel digital JPGs. Having said that, here’s another picture.
Another cable car took us to the next station, passing this river as it did so.
That was nothing compared to the waterfall that followed.
The next station had a viewing platform right over the waterfall. It also had this strangely placed sign.
The final cable car led to the town of Kuranda. I am not sure what this place was like before the cable car came but it now certainly has a touristy feel. I mean look at this map, it looks just like a theme park.
There were shops selling over-priced koala bride and groom effigies (£15 each) along with all manner of kangaroo things, boomerangs, pencils, pens, posters, artwork, magnets etc etc. There was also an abundance of cake and snack shops, all charging the kind of prices that people only pay when they know they can’t escape. Having said that it was here that Yang ate his first pasty. It was some kind of meat and meat pasty that he started off enthusiastically eating but he gradually got slower until he gave up and threw it away.
We had some time to kill before we went on the next bit of our trip, Rainforestation, a whole menagerie of things rainforesty. Walking around a bit we found a bat sanctuary for injured fruit bats. It was a very small place that you go into and immediately find yourself standing with a whole load of other people in awkward silence staring at some bats. There was a guide making conversation with some people but the problem was it was a charity thing. You feel bad for leaving too soon because its charity and protection, but then you don’t really want to get involved in a long convesation because you are not really that interested. It’s a hard situation. I had a question though, because there was a weird sound and I couldn’t work out which bat was making it.
“No that’s a rooster. It’s over there somewhere,” said the guard pointing into the trees. Ahh that explains it I thought.
Rainforestion began with a guided tour around a zoo. It was a small zoo but the guide was brilliant. To give an example of her briliance, when we got to the kangaroos she said, “These are kangaroos,” and carried on walking. Everything she said sounded as if she had said it a thousand times before; she was knowledgeable and interesting but her delivery made it all sound extremely dull and like she hated her job. She also kept saying things like, “This is the blue tongued lizard. You can probably tell why it’s got that name, it’s because it has a long fleshy blue tongue.” “This is the wallaby, but you can’t see it now because it’s asleep.”
Here are some pictures.
After that it was time for a trip around part of the rainforest in an old World War II amphibious vehicle, or “Duck” as they called it. It was big and slow but could carry about 20 people or so. At the start of the journey the guide/driver stopped the duck to talk about this termite’s nest.
At the same time it looked like God was reaching out to one of the passengers.
This guide was much more enthusiastic and pointed out all manner of interesting things. Like these big leaves.
Red bananas.
Then we drove into a lake and saw some lizards.
Along the way there was also the pencil tree, “This is the pencil tree. You can probably tell why its got that name, it’s because the leaves look like pencils.” Then the paper tree, “This is the paper tree. You can probably tell why its got that name, it’s because the bark looks like paper.” Yes, the rainforest can supply all your stationary needs.
After that there was a performance by an Aboriginal dance group. The performance took place on a stage that looked like it was under a big leaf.
The stage itself was at the head of a big snake.
Which was also a no smoking area.
The performance was good but it had that terrible touristy feeling that it was going to turn into them saying, “Ok we need volunteers.” That was exactly what happened. The three volunteers were a really reluctant woman, an enthusiastic Australian guy and a fun Japanese guy. The fun Japanese guy was wearing a great mock Puma T-shirt, I managed to get a picture of it on the way out.
Kuma means bear in Japanese. After the performance there was free time before the coach took us back to Kuranda. People could learn to throw the boomerang, or wander around looking at the animals again. Me and Yang found this bird.
Which was ironically sitting under the sign pointing to the amphibious vehicles.
We were taking pictures of the bird when it said something. “Did it just say hello?” we asked each other. In an effort to get the bird to say it again we started making conversation with it.
Eventually it did say, “Hello” again and Yang got a video of it but sadly I don’t yet have a copy. Here, however, is a picture of Yang taking the video.
Inevitably a queue to this particular attraction started building up behind us.
There were also some rare fruits.
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