July

Another photo shoot.

This was the best that I got.

Cairns, Skyrail and Kuranda

Just north of Babinda, there is this huge rock with my name painted on it. I assume Sheralee lives on that property. It's been there for a few years now.

This is on the Esplanade at Cairns. There is no nice beach here so they have made an open swimming pool and the locals seem to make use of it. You need to visit beaches out of the city to get to the nice ones.

There are lots of eating places along the Esplanade.

This is from the balcony of our room, it was quite nice, we got to watch all the boats come in that had been out to the reef.

We took the Skyrail up to Kuranda, a tiny town which used to have a lot of hippie/alternate-life style people living there. It was well known for it's markets but today the markets are just a permanent fixture and don't have the home-made/grown produce, etc. that used to be sold. I think it's lost some of it's appeal but the trip on the Skyrail was worth it.

The skyrail stops twice on the way up and down, this was at a viewing spot and is part of the dam on the Barron River. There wasn't a lot of water flowing over so the falls weren't as spectacular as they can be.

From the Skyrail

There is a butterfly house at Kuranda and I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of trouble taking any decent photos, the butterflies just didn't want to stay still. The Ulysses is the one I really wanted to photograph but those guys do not stay still for a second. They stop to lay an egg but they have their wings closed at that time and you don't get to see the beautiful colour.

This was my feeble attempt at capturing the Ulysses, they were just too fast for me.

Another view from a different motel room. This is sunset

This was sunrise. That's a fisherman trying his luck for some breakfast maybe.

29th June - 2nd July Far North Queensland

Just north of Townsville you see signs "Cassowaries crossing, slow down". After quite a few of these signs we were saying how we had never seen one and joking that they didn't really exist. I was driving and next minute there was a Cassowary at the side of the road! I stopped a long way off so I didn't frighten him away. I started shooting and very slowly he started walking towards me... he got closer and closer. Then he was right in front of me, I was only using my 16-55mm so you can see how close he was. I suddenly thought I better not let him get any closer because he has huge claws on those feet. I ran back to the car and someone passing calling out "you be careful". I found out later that they can be aggressive. After the cyclone, people were feeding them because they were starving, so he was probably just looking for some food from me.

I should have asked David to stand next to this tree that must have been uprooted by the cyclone. It was huge, but it's hard to tell with nothing to use for scale. These were taken at Mission Beach.

PARONELLA PARK

David and I visited here in 1974, it burnt down in 1979, was abandoned for many years before someone finally bought it to restore for tourists to visit again. The old ruins aren't actually used anymore but we did walk up and down this beautiful stairway. The story is so interesting about one man's vision, determination and hard work. From Paronella Park website: {José Paronella’s dream was to build a castle. He chose a special part of Australia and created Paronella Park. On 5 Hectares beside Mena Creek Falls he built his castle, picnic area by the falls, tennis courts, bridges, a tunnel, and wrapped it up in an amazing range of 7,500 tropical plants and trees (now a lush rainforest!). It opened to the public in 1935.} He also had running water in their house and produced hydro electricity.

José also planted this avenue of Kauri pines

There was a wedding held here the day we were there. The bride was just arriving when I took the photo of the guests waiting.

This fountain doesn't need a pump to run.

This is where he diverted the water to his hydro electricity which is still used today.

This is from the suspension bridge that goes across the top of the falls.

A Ulysses butterfly in the garden.