Cairns - Latitude 16.9 - The Australian Tropics

March 12 - 14  [Republished to combine text with photos]

I flew up to the wettest part of Australia, the state of Queensland and the city of Cairns. Here in this city of about 160,000 people, annual rainfall is measured in feet (or meters) not in inches.  Cairns was established in the late 1880's to support the gold boom up here. At this low latitude it's very tropical and at the end of the monsoon (hurricane) season.  I was lucky, I got one out of 3 days here with no rain, the other 2 were heavy, but that's the way of life up here.

The city was fun, it had a long esplanade filled with restaurants, and a cool night market. In the Banyon trees above the streets of the city giant bats hung throughout the day then squawked as they took off at sunset flapping their wings which were up to 4 feet across!

Also up here was the chance to visit the great barrier reef. That was a bust, I took a boat to Green island on the edge of the reef, but the weather was bad, a monsoonal storm with buckets of rain. I scrapped the snorkel plans and took a glass bottomed boat. At least I made it to the Reef.

More rewarding was a 7km cable car ride over the top of the rain forest south of Cairns, an amazing ride with stops to view huge waterfall of the Barren river. Also stopped at a small village in the forest, Kuranda, where I visited a butterfly sanctuary, took an amphibious boat ride through the forest, and observed some Aboriginal locals demonstrate boomerang and spear throwing.

This was a great visit of this part of Australia. Next the great city of Sydney.

- Bill

Melbourne Australia

Melbourne Australia

March 10-11, 2012  [Republished to combine text with pictures]

Melbourne was a surprise to me, I expected a smaller town. It is huge, vibrant and reminds me a bit of San Diego with a harbor, and high rise buildings together. But Melbourne also has a river. I was there on a holiday weekend so the town was alive every where. It had a great mix of historical buildings, museums, and modern buildings including a new 88 story high rise tower.

I visited the well preserved Royal Exposition Building, built in 1880 for a world  exposition in Melbourne. The building was selected to be listed as a World Heritage Site. All these sites never disappoint the visitor.

Melbourne's downtown was fun, they have a series of "lane ways" which are old narrow street alleys in between the major streets. They have been converted into busy, pedestrian walkways filled with restaurants and shops.

I enjoyed the city for a couple of days. Now on to the city of Cairnes, in north Queensland. This is a tropical zone, hope to see the rain forests.

- Bill

Christ Church New Zealand - On to Australia

March 11, 2012

Well said goodbye to New Zealand, what an amazing country!  Got to stay at a cattle farm home in Fairlie, met the family. Great people, had a chance to see their animals including a ostrich, 2600 pound bull and Wataki Deer. The Wataki is a deer the size of a horse, beautiful calm animal.  Chris and Derreck my hosts put on an amazing dinner and conversation.

Then a bus ride to Christ Church to fly across the "ditch" to Melbourne, Australia. The devastation from the earthquakes in downtown Christchurch was all very apparent. They had 5 earth quakes since September of 2010, the first one being a 7.0. Much of the downtown is still closed off for repairs. Many multiple story buildings have to be torn down. Lots of construction work for years to come. To give the town people a pick-me-up, they created a mall made out of container cargo holders..painted up and turned into shops. It was an incredible idea, worked well

Well am now in Melbourne. Beautiful city, much to see here, I'll get pictures out separately tomorrow I hope. Internet service has been sometimes hard to find now because everybody has it in their hands on their phones!!

See you in a day or two

-Bill

Sent from my iPhone