Brisbane to Cairns

Brisbane will be memorable for the water taxi, beautiful gardens and the great coffee. A real boom town with 26.6 billion in development projects currently underway. Construction everywhere due to oil industry it reminded me of southern Ireland a few years ago when I visited Damien in Dublin. We saw an interesting Australian movie while we were in Brisbane that was based on an Australian play called 'Bran Nue Day'. It featured a lot of local talent and Jeffrey Rush played a role in the movie. Very interesting movie depiction of the Aborigine culture in western Australia around Broome.

The flight to Cairns on our Virgin Blue Air pass was OK. Reminded me of West Jet. Cairns is north east on the coast and the jumping off point for visiting the Great Barrier Reef. The air pass is a great buy and we plan to see something of all six Australian states or provinces with this pass (interrupted by a trip to New Zealand).

While I'm writing this blog, Mike is watching his beloved cricket on the local television channel. . It seems to be on television everywhere. I'm hoping we can see some of the Olympics while we're here, but I think the Aussies may not be that interested in the winter sports (they only have one medal hopeful in the luge event). So far, there doesn't seem to be anything less than around 15C temperatures in their winter. The current temperature in Cairns is around 33C and very humid. We are in 'the wet' right now which means some rain most days and or nights. Cairns really is the tropics (a cyclone is expected tomorrow so it may delay our plans).

They warn you against standing in any of the waterways because of crocodiles. Steve Irwin was from Cairns and started his career at Hartley's crocodile park very close to Cairns. We hope to visit the park this week. While walking home from the restaurant last night we saw hundreds of huge bats the size of hawks feeding in a bushy area in the centre of town. I thought I was in some prehistoric land.

Today we're taking it easy. Mike has some kind of head cold and needs a day of relaxation. We decided to visit one an aborigine villages in the afternoon and learn about their culture. The native peoples have an interesting culture with a focus on dreams and the dream state (we both had commented on our crazy dreams state since we arrived). The village is named after the tribe which are called the Tjapukai people. This tribe bordered the great barrier reef and the rainforest. Their cultural center included numerous shows and demonstrations. We had a great day learning about the rainforest and how to master a 'didgeridoo' (their musical instrument with an unusual base sound), The landscape is lush rainforest. The turtles were plentiful in the stream at the village site. We bought one of the original aborigine art works with a turtle theme. They were all very interesting primitive art with lots of earth tones and dots. The picture is a table with all the canvasses.

The plan is to spend a couple of days out on the reef. They take you out on a smaller boat and you travel on a large floating hotel. They have diving and snorkeling. I hope to try their introduction to diving depending on the conditions. Hoping Mike is feeling better with a few days of rest. After the reef visit we're off to Port Douglas for a few days and then flying to Sydney. This should be an eventful week.