At 12.15, me, Bex and Stacey walked to East Coast Car Rentals to pick up our vehicle for the day, and then waited at our hostel for Alice to be ready after her cleaning shift. We drove to Kuranda, stopping off at Henry Ross lookout for a view over Cairns. Kuranda range (the route we went on) was very windy and went uphill so Stacey and Alice had to swap so that Stacey could go in the front as she was feeling a bit car sick.

Kuranda is a hippy-ish village in the rainforests that is famous for its markets, so we had a look around those. It wasn't as big as I was expecting, but that was good as we got there about 1.30, and they were supposed to close at 3.30, although they seemed to pack up sooner than that, I guess because it's not peak season. There were plenty of samples to take advantage of, including different honeys (the chilli one had more heat in than I was expecting), 'bliss balls' (sweet balls made from dates and coconut, with various flavours), green tea (I tried roasted rice flavour, which was nice and smelt very much like roasted rice which I didn't realise even had a smell; Alice and Stacey had mango flavour). The green tea stall had a very nice Japanese ambience.

Before going into the Koala Park, I had a rocky road ice cream from the homemade ice cream stall, and Stacey had a passion fruit one. I was a tiny bit disappointed as they had flavours such as Christmas pudding, nutmeg and pumpkin, and avocado (Ok, I probably wouldn't have tried that one) but these were out of season. The Koala Park said it was open until 4, but again it seemed like they were packing up earlier than that as we got in about 3.30, and had the last available opportunity to get our photo taken with one. We got to hold a bear called Princess- she looks asleep in all the photos but I think this must be the way we held her as she was a bit more awake whilst she was being handed from one person to the next. We then went through the wallaby and kangaroo enclosure, with some feed, although I chickened out, and they were quite full anyway (I don't think going at the end of the day, when they are most likely stuffed from all the other strings of people feeding them was the best time). There was supposedly a wombat in one section, but I couldn't see it, or its square shaped poo (apparently the most remarkable feature of it is its bum, which has a thick layer of padding to stop anything going up the wrong way, not sure why its poo comes out in a square shape though).

When me and Bex saw the crocodiles with their mouths wide open, we decided to have a competition to see who could keep their mouths open the longest. After trying to communicate with the woman in the gift shop, and Bex spilling her saliva whilst she put down her bag when we went to the toilet, I got bored and so Bex won. By the time we got out of the toilet, a guy had shut down the way out, and so we had to go through a gate.

Our next stop was Barron falls, where it rained (as in my itinerary) an adequate amount for me to put on my poncho (I was feeling a bit silly that I had brought it with me as I hadn't been on any rainforest walks yet). The boardwalk through the rainforest had notices telling you about various plants/wildlife and a few words from aboriginals telling you about how they lived in each section, which I found interesting, but Alice and Bex (who didn't have raincoats) didn't want to stop for. The waterfall was very spectacular (although I don't think the picture does it much justice). We walked to where the Kuranda scenic railway train tracks went past (some Nomad's people went to a waterfall that's on private property that you can only get to if you walk along the railway, but I think it would have been quite a far walk from where we were). By this point, I was really feeling worn out and lagging in energy (I think from whatever I had yesterday).

The plan was to go back to Cairns along the Gillies range but it was about 5 when we left Barron falls, and so we would have been driving in the dark, so we decided to go to one of the beaches off Cairns, Palm Cove. With all the palm trees, it kind of reminded me and Alice of Koh Phangnan (although you weren't meant to bathe in the sea as there are jellyfish and apparently saltwater crocs). We decided to splurge out and treat ourselves to a nice (non-backpacker) meal at a seafront Italian restaurant called Portobello. The other three all had Pollo pizza, which had chicken, cashews, pumpkin, sun dried tomatoes, and a minty yoghurt sauce (except Alice had it without the chicken). When I sampled it, I really liked the yoghurt topping. I tried Barramundi (a very popular fish out here), which was topped with a tomato sauce, and was served with deep fried vegetables, chips, a skewer of prawns and a doughy breadstick- very delicious, although the vegetables weren't that great.

After we got back home, I attempted to gather my face wash, toothbrush and toothpaste, but I collapsed on my bed (at 8pm!). I got up again at 9.30 to wash my face and clean my teeth, and then fell asleep again.