After the intensity of the Red Centre, Cairns is a complete contrast.  This is tropical Queensland, with parrots, huge fruit bats, lush vegetation and wall to wall sunshine.  It’s also where most people first experience the Great Barrier Reef.  Bars and restaurants line the streets.  Backpacker heaven.  The town is busy and Chinese New Year is a few days away.   China is geographically reasonably close so the Chinese visit Cairns to see the reef and gamble.  Casinos are big business here.  All the signs in public places are in two languages.  I am the only white face in my hotel.  But the pools are nice.

With limited time I have a day to experience the rainforest in nearby Kuranda.  We start at an attraction that is a one-stop for wildlife and indigenous culture.  Alongside wallabies and kangaroos roaming free there are the usual sleepy wombats, comatose koalas and a local specialty, the cassowary.  A big, painted bird, like small emu and quite aggressive.  Glad he’s at a distance.  Even happier that ‘Jack the Ripper’, a huge saltwater crocodile, is kept well below the fence level.  A photograph shows how high he can jump (yes !) to get his food.  I decline the opportunity to have my picture taken with a smaller cousin.  I have more things to see before I die.

A trip through the forest in a DuKW (like the London Duck tours) and it’s off to hear how to play the didgeridoo, throw a spear at a kangaroo (not a real one!) and throw a boomerang.  I discover there are different types of boomerang.  The returning one is peculiar to certain tribes and not universal across Australia.  The rest you have to retrieve.  Of our group of about 12, my returning boomerang is the only one to come back to me.  Our painted host declares me his ‘sister’.  Personally I can’t see the resemblance, but I take the compliment !

The return to Cairns is via a narrow gauge railway.  Walking to the station through Kuranda village it seems the hippies have not really left here.  There is an artsy-crafty vibe left over from the 1960’s, but it’s a pretty place, with great old buildings and I’m disappointed the timetable does not allow longer to linger. 

At the station tropical plants and flowers adorn the platforms like red geraniums do on UK heritage stations.  Disappointingly the engine is a diesel, but brightly painted with Aboriginal art.  We wind through the forest in the heat of the afternoon, hearing how the railway was a major feat of engineering in its’ day, taking the lives of many, largely due to a combination of backbreaking work and disease from the swampy, low-lying land around Cairns.  Hard to imagine nowadays.

My Chinese companions take endless selfies on the journey.  There is much excitement as we stop by a waterfall with no water.  I stay on the train to get some peace and quiet.  Each to his own.