Day 11 – The Rainforest

We are picked up by a large tour bus and taken to the rainforest that lies inland from the Great Barrier Reef. The weather is still overcast, but the temperature is reasonable. The bus leaves us at a small train station and we ride an old fashioned, narrow gage train up to the rainforest.

The train track was laid mostly with hand labor, and the earth removed to cut the tracks was rolled out in huge barrels. This is a pretty hot, humid part of the world and the effort and suffering must have been immense. However, it’s a delightful ride for those of us who don’t have to cut the tracks and lay the rails.







The train drops us at a small development at the top of the mountain. We go into a butterfly preserve. Like a lot of the things we are seeing on the trip, it is operated by folks who care about preserving butterflies, and we get a fair bit of information about the habitat of butterflies, and how development threatens it. We also see a lot of beautiful butterflies.


We leave the butterfly place to take a trip through the rainforest in a World War II U.S. Army “duck,” an amphibious vehicle apparently built by women for the war, but still in service in this Australian rain forest.
The duck drives us through difficult and muddy trails, and we get to see amazing plants and a few animals.
After the duck trip we wander through a section that has caged crocodiles, a cassowary, iguanas and other animals.
We also see a demonstration of aboriginal dancing, digiridoo playing, and boomerang and spear throwing. It is interesting, but clearly put on for tourists, and the demonstrators, who appear to be college aged young men, struggle a bit to conceal their boredom. Miriam, however, gets a mild case of the hots for the young rhythm player.
The trip back is on a gondola, high above the rainforest. It’s beautiful.
Miriam grabs the following shot of cockatoos resting in a tree.
The ride back is uneventful and we go to bed way early again.