River City

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Brisbane is known as "River City" and with good reason. The beautiful Brisbane River is the focus of this cities, transportation, recreation and beauty. Our hotel suite Quay West (pronounced Key West) was a corner unit with a view over the Brisbane River, on one side, overlooking South Bank, a major recreational and restaurant area. The view out the other side was the lush Brisbane Botanical Gardens.

About 9 PM on December 23, the day we arrived, a stunning firworks display was put on to celebrate our arrival, or so we chose to believe (see pic from our balcony). Locals thought the fireworks were put on by Southbank to celebrate Christmas (Talk about self-centred. Really.) There are also photographs of the Gardens from our balcony on the other side.

We had a lovely turkey dinner for Christmas eve (see pic). It was nothing like the dinner we enjoy at home (no stuffing!) but enjoyable nonetheless.

A highlight of our visit to Brisbane was an hour and a half (each way) cruise up the Brisbane River to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the largest koala sanctuary in Australia. We saw koala's, which are not bears but marsupials, throughout the park and all, except Stephen, held one (see pic of Jennifer). Jan and Jennifer hand fed some Kangaroos and we saw a joey (a baby Kangaroo) with his mother. In the wild 80% of joey's die in their first year. We also saw a fresh water crocodile, wombat and snake (see pics).

I also included some photos of houses along the river and the "City Cat" a river-based bus service used by locals to go to and from work and shopping. This reminded me of the Grand Canal in Venice.

Kuranda

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On our second day in Cairns we took the Kuranda Scenic Railway to Kuranda from Cairns and rode the Sky Train, a cable car above the ancient rainforest, back to Cairns.

The railway was originally built in 1886 and took 6 years to complete. It features 15 tunnels and twisting track with numerous trestles, including Horseshoe Bend, with a 180-degree bend. (see pic) The highlight of the train trip is Barron Falls with a drop of 265 meters. (see pic) A dam used to direct water through an underground channel to the Barron Gorge Power Station, which began producing electricity in 1935, generating 60 megawatts, now controls the water flow. The Barron Falls, according to a local Queenslander who traveled with us, is a mere shadow of its former glory due to a lack of rainfall for the last few years.

The highlight of our visit to the town of Kuranda was our visit to the Butterfly Sanctuary with hundreds of butterfly’s the most stunning of which is the Blue Ulysses that is fluorescent. The photos don’t do the brilliance of the Ulysses colour justice. It was very hot and humid in the aviary and I could only stay for about 20 minutes because I was having trouble breathing. So, I went outside to sit on the porch where there was a cool breeze and it was only 32 degrees. (Everything becomes relative.)

It was a five-minute downhill walk from the town to the Sky Train station; still, in the heat it was taxing. No one wanted to stop for the Crocodile pizza on the way. (see pic) The Sky Train has two stations on the trip down; the first stops at Barron Falls where we got to see the falls from the opposite side and a lower vantage point than from the train. The second station is to transfer to a separate cable system for the rest of the journey.

The cable cars were cool, because vents create a flow through breeze from beneath the seats and we had the windows open. The view from the cable car wonderful and the rise is peaceful. There is an amazing variety of plant life and while the rainforest is filled with wildlife the only thing we saw was a parrot.

As we approached the end of the Sky Train ride, Stephen jumped up in the car and pointed to a pond and yelled, “What is pulling those guys?” Men were water skiing around the pond in a circle being pulled by towropes obviously connected to something underwater, as there were not boats in the pond. (see pic)

Great Barrier Reef

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The trip to Australia was long as we expected (28hours total), made longer by an extended wait in Vancouver. I had two upgrade certificates and tried to get Jennifer and Stephen upgraded to business class in Edmonton and Vancouver but was unsuccessful. In Honolulu, however, I was successful and for the longest leg of the flight (10 hours) Jennifer and Stephen had the comfort of the business class seats, which they put to good use. (see pic)

"Someone" misplaced the car rental confirmation for our vehicle in Cairns, so Jennifer watched the baggage and Jan, Stephen and I lined up at different car rental firm counters to find out who had our reservation. The fourth of five car rental firms was the charm and we got the keys to "Big White", our Mitsubishu 4x4 (for luggage room not offroading, which is not allowed).

We were told that the drive to our hotel was only five minutes. Yeah, right. It is very disorienting to drive from the right side of the vehicle and takes a lot of concentration to drive on the left side of the road, especially when making turns and going around traffic circles. Driving alone takes full concentration, never mind trying to figure out directions. With 28 hours of travel just completed everyone was a little punchy. So, when each time I tried to signal and I turned on the windshield wipers instead it was cause for laughter. About the fifth time, all three of my passengers were in hysterics, tears running down their cheeks, gasping for air. Needless to say, the navigation guidance I received was inadequate. So, our trip was extended and we got a somewhat unplanned tour of parts of Cairns. The navigation guidance I received at the first traffic circle was disputed by two passengers, so I went completely around, and a then bit more, confusing the locals. Another challenge of driving from the right is that the passengers on the left continually shout, "you are too close to the line on the left." This can be somewhat frustrating, and some drivers might be moved to shout back and in rare cases even use profanity! We arrived at the Cairns Colonial Club about a half hour after leaving the airport, unharmed and the vehicle intact, but frazzled.

The next day, Jan, Jennifer and Stephen went to the Great Barrier Reef to go snorkling and I stayed back to go driving and become more comfortable because Cairns is the smallest city we will be visiting and I needed to prepare myself to drive with confidence in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia's three largest cities.

At the reef they were required to wear wet suits as a precaution against the possibility of jellyfish, who might sting them, which can be quite serious. (see pic of Jennifer) All three snorklers had put on waterproof sunscreen but had neglected the top of their feet and all three got burned during the instruction lecture on board the boat. (see pic) The snokling was terrific. The water was 27 degrees and there was a magnificient array of coral in a rainbow of muted colours except the blue coral that was quite bright. All saw numerous brilliantly coloured fish and Jennifer and Jan swam with a sea turtle for a while and stephen followed a reef shark, until he questioned his own sanity, something he'd be wise to do more often. They snokled at three different locations and had a really lovely lunch (much better than expectations). The trip to and from the reef was a bit rough and Jennifer and Janet had to take seasickness pills, Stephen had no problem.

Meanwhile, I found driving after a full nights sleep, and without the laughter, tears and shouts much easier. South of Cairns is the small village of Edmonton and further south is the larger centre of Innifail. I had the trick of driving here once I realized it was really just like driving on a one way street and turning onto another one way street as long as you remembered to stay on the left. My improved confidence allowed me to drive for the rest of our visit in Cairns without further incident except for the occassional caution that I was too close to the line on the left.

We enjoyed two meals in downtown Cairns, fresh tiger shrimp (see pic), Cairns is home to the largest shrimp fleet in Australia, and reef fish and chips one night. We all missed seafood cocktail sauce with the peel and eat shrimp and the reef fish were too fishy for all but Larry. (He'll eat anything.) The next night Stephen had Kangaroo cooked rare, Jan and I had a Queensland T-bone steak, Jennifer had a salad with grilled chicken. Jan tasted Stephen's Kangaroo and said it had a distinctive but not unpleasant sweet taste (hurray, I'll have to try some, NOT) and it definitely "didn't taste like chicken." Stephen enjoyed it and said he'd order it again. The steaks were good but not as flavorful as Alberta beef.

In the evening as the sun began to set, the birds sang boisterously, ignoring the singing of the other birds and seemed to try to sing loudly enough to drown out their competitors, not unlike a large playschool group with each child trying to get attention.