With much sadness we left PD and headed to Cairns - mainly to get ourselves ready for the oncoming journey to Japan, in 3 days. Cairns is not the nicest place in the world - with lots of young backpackers just visiting to drink and party. We could`ve showed`em a thing or two back in the days where we had money to burn on alcohol!!!!. Its a small city with no real beach, and a public swimming pool (which they call Lagoon), and a huge shopping centre. The backpackers we are staying at is a hive for Mosquitos and we are suffering quite badly from bites! However having been destroyed by the local insects we took the day off and visited the Antherton Tablelands (just east of Cairns town). Its very pretty, with waterfall after waterfall and huge fresh water swimming holes with native turtles, definately a good day trip to take. We also got to visit a croc farm which was BRILLIANT - much better than the over priced, hugely commercialised croc shows all over Cairns. This place actually farms the creatures for food and their skins (which as horrible as it sounds is actually quite humaine). We got to see huge crocs jump for their food, as well as handle a bady croc, snake and blue tongued lizard. We also got to pet pure bred dingos and play with some small rarer wallabees, as well as Emus and Kangeroos. It was a brilliant litte place.
They were also so kind to tell us where to see some wild Cassolwarys - a extremely rare bird, endangered and only present in these northern parts. After 2 days of searching the Daintree for them we were sceptical but we saw 3 just strolling around... So cool.
So we have one last day here which we are dedicating to clothes washing, internet reseach (on Japan) and visiting the local lagoon (SWIMMING POOL). So we will say farweel to you all from hot Australia and probably see you in the UK before we get to update our Japan adventure.
Check out the other blogs we uploaded today from Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation and Sydney New Year.