Stoney Creek

Well it rained pretty much all night. At some point we woke up and closed the windows as the rain drops were outweighing the heat. All in all though the bed is pretty comfy and good for space. It was still raining though when we woke up though and we took the extra sleep rather than attempting to figure out the gas hob so I ate cold pizza and Matt his bran cereal (apparently not as delicious as his usual bran flakes) before heading to the Sky Rail cable car. The cable car ultimately takes you over the rainforest to Kuranda village but there's some optional stops on the way. It was a very long way but spectacular forest views.

First stop was in the rain forest for a guided tour with Ranger Mike. (Matt and I had a probably non-PC game of guess the ranger's name but sadly it was neither Alan, Dave, Dale or Ricky) It was probably my favourite part of the Kuranda experience. The inner geek in me loved learning about weather systems, the way plants survive in the rainforest and the creatures that live there. We saw ferns which live in the branches of other trees and grow into a nest shape to catch fallen leaves which decompose to give the fern food. We learnt about strangler figs which grows in a crevice of a host tree sending its roots down and shoots up ultimately killing the host. We found a big (big by UK standards) spider - the female of the species is massive but the male is tiny. I was glad we spent the time on the tour rather than just walking around the board walk.

Next stop was a viewing section for waterfall. By this point the weather was even more torrential which made the waterfall itself more impressive but decreased the amount of time we wanted to spend outside looking at it. I was very grateful for my '100% genuine fake' North Face jacket that I picked up in Vietnam for a fiver.

Final stop of the cable car was Kuranda village itself. It's just a nice town really very much geared to tourists. We had lunch at a cafe (sampling Roo pie) before heading to Kuranda Wildlife Sanctuary. It was just a small place focusing on a few types of native animals like koalas and various marsupials. I fed a wallaby and practised my Parseltongue (Harry Potter reference for the non-initiated) which must be getting better as I did manage to get one snake to move towards me. Sadly I didn't get more time to break a Brazilian viper out and we headed to catch the Kuranda scenic railway. Less scenic because of the mist in the valleys but scenic all the same. There were some interesting hairpin bends and waterfalls to photograph and a slightly dry (glad something was) commentary piped out now and again.

Once back at the van we made a sandwich (I am seeing some positives in driving around in your house) and decided that we didn't fancy going back to the camp site and sitting in the van for the rest of the day (yes it was still raining) so we hit up Target i.e. The Australian version of Matalan for some cheap clobber. Matt has somehow ruined nearly all his t shirts and I just like buying clothes. We then went and watched Lego Batman at the cinema. I think we've been to the cinema more times this trip than we did all of last year! I'd give Lego Batman a solid 3.5/5 - funny but not as good as The Lego Movie.

Dinner was at Corea Corea, a Korean that looked like a fast food place in a food court but came recommended. We had very good Bi Bim Baps and a lot of free Kimchee before heading back to home to drive home home. It's still raining.Leia mais