Sailing around the World ( Presently in Cairns, Australia. )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sun 15 Aug 2010 03:22
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SATURDAY 14th
AUGUST 2010
06.00hrs,, All up and about, as we are off to "
Kuranda" for the day, we are like school children off to the
zoo.
07.10hrs We trooped up to the -
Shangri-La - Hotel to catch our coach to the train that will take us up
through the mountains
to this old village which was part of the rail
system to the mining area of Queensland back in the 1880's
The railway was built mainly with Irish and Italian
sweat and blood, plus a few chineese and aisian workers for good
measure,
Only about 40 died during the construction of this
facinating project which took 5 years to complete.
( Skipper and Aileen, were here 9 years ago, so it
will be interesting to see what has changed )
An amazing thing, the last time we were there, we
met Mary O Loughlin from Dublin walking down the street.. small
world.
Mary sailed mirrors with our kids.........
God , thinking back, they were great days and we had great fun,
THE MIRROR CIRCUIT...
We arrived at the railway station about 09.30hrs,
and boarded the 14 carraige train , which was hauled along by two
large diesel locamotives,
The train wound its way up the side of the Mountain
, through the rain forrests, over the gourges and valleys, through the tunnels,
and around
tight bends like you never saw in your
life, the steel wheels screeching on the
iron tracks as she forced her way around the corners,, magic
stuff.
We stopped on the way up for some photo's and take
in the views, as we looked out over Port Douglas and Cairns,
We eventuall arrived at - Kuranda -and made
our way up to the town, It was still a very picture, just as we remembered
it from before.
We all did a bit of retail therapy, ( mostly stuff
for the kids, shit !, I mean adults, and the granchildren )
The weather was great,, clear blue
skies, and very little wind, and a lovely 23 degrees, dry . no
humidity.
We eventually made our way to the " Butterfly Farm
" now , this was something else,, The total area of the farm was 6
hectares,
and the enclosure with all the Butterflies was
about the size of a soccer pitch, and attached at one end was the
laboratory where
they bred the beautifull insects.. Our guide
( Sue ) gave a fantastic presentation of how these butterflies mate, breed,
how long they live,
( depending on the type ) and what they eat
when they are catterpillers ( 25,000 times their weight ) the equivalent of a
forest,
can you credit that !
We saw millions of Ulysses Butterflies when
we were in " Scawfell Island ", and guess what,, grab this :- when they
mate, the female hooks onto the male and feeds him a drug through her sex organs and knocks him out, and then she controls the show for the next 14
hours, WOW,
whataway to go !
Sue had lots and lots of these types of stories,
and the enclosure had about 3000 Butterflies fluttering about the plants, and
trees,
with little trays of nector here and there , which
they fed on regularly,, The average life span of the butterflies in the farm was
a few months,
Later, we went to the Koala bear place next
door,, where they had snakes, kangaroo's, wombats, and lots of other
creatures,
We had to have our photo's taken with the Koala's
and of course Niall had to get a snake around his neck for his
photo'
14.30hrs, we made our way back to the train
Station, having really enjoyed Kuranda , but we only saw a fraction of what was
on offer.
Our way back was on the - Sky Train -
This is basically a cable car system, and is the longest cable car in the World,
It runs all across the the canopy of the rain
forest , down dales , aver vallies, up mountains, and eventually back to Port
Douglas.
This had two stops, where the passengers could get
off and have a guided tour around the floor ot the forest,
It was all facinating stuff for us, and we really
soaked up the whole experience.
17.00hrs We eventually arrived back to base
in Cairns, Mary and niall went to the boat, while Skipper escorted Aileen to
seek out the
RC Cathedral, We eventually arrived and it was a
1960's structure, ( Ugly ) but had the most amazing stained glass windows,
The church was built in remberance of those
Australians who lost their lives in the 2nd World War.
Mass was celebrated by Bishop Foley,,, ( sounds
Irish ) but we did not get a chance to interview him after Mass finished ,
as he made the
fastest exit we ever saw anywhere,
Later, we met up with Niall & Mary again and
had an " Indian " meal ,, ohhhhhh, plenty hot man. ................ rings
of fire tomorrow.
We enjoyed that too, and then walked back through
the park, which was heaving with the concert still in full swing, to the Marina
complex,
where we had a night cap and reflected on the
wonderfull day we just had......
Then back to the boat,, checked the emails, and hit
the scratchers, ZZZZZZZZZZZZ
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz Z z
Thats it for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper
)
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