Our last blog entry gave only a brief sentence about our trip above into the Atherton tablelands. We travelled by scenic railway to Kuranda, 328m above sea level. The journey was stunning. How the engineers ever built the railway without modern day tools!! The journey took an hour and a half through the jungle, through cuttings and tunnels and over bridges. We stopped at the Barron Waterfall for photos. In Kuranda we walked into town and looked at the shops. We decided to spend our time at the butterfly Sanctuary. Such large beautifully coloured butterflies and huge caterpillars! I have never seen any so large! And what an appetite they have! Our return trip was by sky train (cable car) over the jungle with a couple of stops to again view the Barron Falls and to walk through the jungle. Huge straight trees some with vines winding round and round the trunks. Our final activity was a visit to the Aboriginal Centre where we were entertained with music and dancing, explanations about weapons and cooking. We all had to try spear and boomerang throwing. Good thing that I don't have to hunt for my dinner every day!!

On Monday we had another lazy day around the resort and then took the bus into town. On Tuesday we took the ferry to Green Island on the Inner Reef for another snorkelling expedition. This time the water was clear and we saw amazing coral and brightly coloured fish. John even saw a ray and I saw rainbow fish. We went out a couple of times, but had to walk a long way out the second time as the tide was going out. Some of the coral was then above the water. Awesome!!

Today we have been croc watching in Trinity Inlet. We took a boat trip into the mangrove swamp and saw two crocs basking on the roots of trees. John was a good croc spotter! The guy managed to stop the boat and turn it so that we were only a couple of metres away. We then saw loads of crocs at a crocodile farm. A huge one was in the muddy water below where we were standing. Even though the driver stamped on the platform, it did not move. I hope that I have some good video footage, but they are so camouflaged in the mud and water!!

Tomorrow we are off to Sydney. We understand that it has been cooler and wetter down south!!