Monday 16th. What a day! I hardly know where to start, so at the beginning is probably best.

Up early, quick breakfast and picked up from the hotel at 8.25 by a nutty coach driver who proceeded to crack jokes for the next half an hour as he picked up from other hotels and then took us out to the station to catch the heritage train up to Kuranda, high up in the rain forest. He epitomised everything we've always thought about coach tours. Mmm, no further comment. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

We had booked the gold service coach on the train which qualified us to have a mocktail while waiting for the train to come in and also gave us 'lounge style' seats in the carriage instead of the bench seats. Oooh! Oh, and refreshments on the way up.

The train is single gauge and rises an average of 1m in every 50m, climbing 327m and taking in 15 tunnels and more than 50 bridges. Construction of the railway began in 1882 with passenger services starting in 1891. Three million cubic metres of earth were excavated during the construction. The work was tough and dangerous and several lives were lost. It is easy to see why as you wind your way up the mountainside, often clinging tightly to narrow ledges or taking off into never never land over fearsome gorges.

Soon after we set off we passed a large group of wallabies. Half way up the train stops to allow people to get off and take photos of the magnificent Barron waterfall which tumbles 125 metres and is up to 259 metres at its widest point. For much of the year the waterfall is a mere trickle but we've been able to see it at its best as there has been so much rainfall in the last week or so.

Up in Kuranda, we had a look in at the control station that is still pretty much as it was more than 100 years ago but with a bit of modern communication behind the scenes nowadays. While we were there we heard a steam strain was due to come up the line very soon as part of the celebrations to mark 150 years of rail travel in North Queensland. We hung about for a while waiting to see this, but then heard it was delayed by half and hour and we only had around 3 hours total in Kuranda so we moved on.

Not surprisingly the village of Kuranda is very touristy. Lots of gift shops selling local art, several jewellers offering opals, many many shops selling all manner of Aussie bits and pieces, also cafés and restaurants. It is an interesting town. Hard to imagine what led to its original building but easy to imagine it was a hippy stronghold in the 1960s. Today it provides a good stopping off place for tourists for a few hours while the biggest interest probably lies in the spectacular journeys up and down through - or over - the rainforest.

There's a place in Kuranda called the venom zoo where you can see all sorts of poisonous nasties, a koala garden, and bird world and the largest butterfly sanctuary in Australia. It took all my willpower, but we visited the butterfly sanctuary. It was truly amazing although I kept my cap and sunglasses on and my head down most of the time. I am astonished at myself that I braved it. Hate anything that flutters around my head. The butterflies were gorgeous though, I have to say, including the Cairns bird wing - a gorgeous, enormous iridescent green and black butterfly - also the Ulysses which is a dazzling electric blue. Ulysses is unofficially the emblem of North Queensland. We didn't see a single one of these amazingly big Ulysses butterflies land, but pretty well every other species did - fortunately not too many on me!

And then it was time for a slow amble back down the hill to the station and sky rail terminal - we'd booked to travel back down on the skyrail cableway which soars above the tree canopy. Believe me, that's high. We had a glass bottom gondola for the most astonishing views looking right down into the trees, many of which are standing in water. Scary, but so worth doing. A short way down is a stop where you can alight and take a boardwalk to a viewing platform for even better views of the Barron Waterfall, then catch later gondola, and then further down again is another stop where you can take a boardwalk through the rainforest.

The rainforest was stunning, including huge trees that are 400 or more years old. So many different types of vegetation all fighting for that valuable bit of light coming through the treetops. It wasn't anything like I had imagined though. Difficult to describe what I had imagined but just different.

Back on the skyrail and as we zoomed towards Cairns we were able to pick out some bright blue birds flying way down below us and as we dropped down we flew over a few kangaroos. The views throughout were phenomenal. What an experience.

Back at the hotel, drink in the lounge while the bats flew out, and then off to a restaurant for dinner.

We've been so lucky with the weather today. Near cyclones are still being forecast just north of here, but today has been beautiful. Warm, sunny, humid of course! We had a very short sharp downpour when we first arrived at Kuranda and then a very heavy downpour just after we'd done the boardwalk on the second stop down the mountain, when we were sheltered waiting for our gondola to arrive. Overall, we couldn't have had better weather.

Tuesday

And the weather has been on our side again today. By 8.30 we were at the boat terminal not far from our hotel, checking in for our boat trip out to Green Island. This takes around an hour and a half. The water is very brown all around Cairns itself, in Trinity Inlet our hotel is situated, also all the rivers. We were told yesterday this isn't usually the case but is caused by all the rain there has been churning up the river and sea bottom. Whether or not this is the reason the water is very muddy looking, but as we drew further out of Cairns the sea gradually changed colour until is became a gorgeous pale jade with flashes of brilliant turquoise and some darker blue areas.

Right by Green Island, which is surrounded by Great Barrier Reef, it was much clearer and light bluey green in colour. Green Island itself is tiny. Much of it is National Park. The boats dock on the south side and there is a long jetty to take you onto the island. On the island is a luxury resort hotel which day visitors can't access and there's a very small 'village' with a couple of shops, a couple of bars, a small swimming pool and a few places to eat. Leading off from this are paths to the two snorkelling beaches which are tiny but well guarded. People snorkel as close as two or three metres from the beach.

We weren't snorkelling. I don't do going in water with fish and can't bear the thought of breathing through a tube like that. Everyone to their own. We walked along one path to a crocodile sanctuary which is a bit of an anomaly on the island, but was so interesting. It was started around 45 years ago by an ecologist and is still very much a family business. Spoke to the grandson of the founder who grew up there and now he's a young man he works there.

He'd just done a show of crocodile feeding which we were too late for, but was holding a young croc of about three years, about 60 cms long. You could have a photo taken holding him. Nooooo! I did steel myself to touch it with one finger - hadn't expected it to feel soft which I found creepy.

The sanctuary is home to a number of crocs that have been rescued from various places locally. Some are salt water, some fresh water. One, Cassius, is around 110 years old and has one front leg missing. Several are 50 or so years old. They vary in length up to five and a half metres (Cassius). It's not a zoo. It is definitely much more of a sanctuary but the money people pay to visit is an important source of funding. There are also two huge Hawksbill turtles called Bill and Shelley which were taken in when they were small because they were deemed unfit to survive in the wild for some reason.

Very soon it was time to head back to the boat for our buffet lunch on board which had a distinctly Chinese feel to it - it is Chinese New Year on Thursday and Cairns is choc a block with Chinese people who have come here on holiday - direct flights from somewhere in China to Cairns have only started this month and it seems a lot are taking advantage of it.

And then came the two main events of our trip to Green Island. First a trip out in a glass bottom boat which went very close over the top of the coral. Amazing, though the colours aren't very bright at the moment - this was explained - something to do with the amount of rain and the coral not photosynthesising as much as it is when it is sunny, so it is more bleached out than it is at other times. It is a recognised situation known as bleaching and is part of the recognised cycle of the coral. Nevertheless there were some incredible blue colours and some other bright colours amongst all the yellows and beiges. In the midst of them were several giant clams, some almost a metre across. Quite a few fish, but we saw more of these on the second boat experience.

This was in a semi submersible where the seating is in the glass sided hull of the ship so you sit well beneath the surface of the water with sea on either side of you. We passed over a fair bit of coral then they threw a very small amount of fish food over the side and very soon there were shoals of fish swimming along with us, all different colours including pinks, bright blues, yellows, silvers ... Brilliant. So worth doing. The amount of food used is heavily regulated so it does not discourage the fish from finding their own food source.

And then a little while after it was time to return to Cairns. The rain had held off all day and it had been 31 degrees with lots of sunshine, but as we came close to the harbour there was the tiniest hint of rain in the air which caused the creation of a perfect rainbow. Lovely.

Back in the hotel, showered and set off to take pix of the flying fox from ground level as they were leaving the trees in the town centre to fly to the mangrove swamps. What a noise and a weird smell too! They may be a pest to have in the town centre but I still think it is wrong of the local council to want to chop down the heritage trees to get rid of bats.

Then took a meander through the night markets which takes place every night in Cairns. Mostly crafts, tee shirts, jewellery, gifts, but at the front is a food hall. Had a serve-yourself-as-much-as-you-like Chinese meal for $14.95.

Strolling back to the hotel was gorgeous. I've said before there are many avenues of trees in the esplanade/lagoon/harbour/CBD areas of Cairns and at night many of these are uplit with red, blue and green lights. Beautiful. I've discovered tonight the trees are a kind of fig tree that sets down trailing shoots from the branches forming a kind of curtain. When these trails touch down on the ground they take root and as the tree matures it will have developed scores of supplementary trunks. This makes for a very dense trunked area beneath the tree canopy. They are one of the typical tree types found in the mangrove swamps.

Back in the hotel, early night. Tomorrow we have a late check out and then fly down to Coogee Beach in the Sydney outer suburbs for a few days of chilling.