Today was bloody awesome!!

We woke up to bright sunshine and clear blue skies, the first we've had since arriving in Queensland. It was a picture postcard start to the day, and it lasted all of about 1 and a half hours before the grey clouds returned over the horizon, and the mood of the weather changed... Bummer!! It wasn't to last however, today we were in for a treat. Jo and I had already agreed to use some of the days we have in Port Douglas to clear some of the activities that were scheduled for Cairns, because they're so close, and it didn't really make any difference. What we are hoping to achieve is to be able to free up some 'relax' time when in Cairns, so the boys can make use of the awesome facilities in the park, and we're not too busy running around doing things, that they don't get the chance. So, as per our plan, today we were driving to Kuranda...

Kuranda is a relatively small, hippy village up in the rainforest hinterland above Cairns. It's made a reputation for itself based on it's market economy and quality, local, hand crafted goods. Tourists have been coming for years, and the Kuranda Railway and Skyway have really opened up the village to the mainstream crowds. It's very popular. The markets are now a seven day a week operation, and other complementary businesses have sprung up, to take advantage of the masses of people arriving every day. We figured we'd need at least two days in Kuranda to see everything that's there, and we decided today would be one of those. Today, we drove up the mountain, next time, we'll catch the Skyway... Our first port of call is known as "Rainforestation", and is a combination of a wildlife reserve, cultural and heritage conservation park. You can get up and close with the native animals, and see some of the ones that you don't want to be up and close with... We had a ball feeding the little pademelons and grey kangaroos, and an activity that I thought would have lasted half an hour, we could have spent most of the day at if the boys had their way. They were just so friendly, and once they knew we had food, they wouldn't leave us alone. It was incredible... Then there was 'Jack the Ripper', a five metre crocodile that has killed 12 of his mates at his previous home, before being relocated to Rainforestation. He is now a commited batchelor, but he still looks so angry!! We looked at all the animals, but all the boys wanted to do was go back and feed the kangaroos... But, we had an army duck tour booked at 11am, so we had to make our way over and see what it was about. The army ducks are the amphibious landing craft manufactured by Chevy during WW2. Nearly every country has them for landing troops on beaches etc, but they're well past their use by date now, and have become a collectors item... Rainforestation runs 11 of them as tour buses around their park, and the tour goes through the rainforest, along rough, dirt tracks, and enters a waterway for a cruise, before returning to the 'docks' by more rough, dirt tracks. Along the trip, they explain about the flora and fauna of the area, and about the history of the property. It's really interesting stuff, as you can tell from the fact that I can't remember any of it to pass on to you... What I can remember, is that the army duck gets 1km per litre of fuel on the road, and 0.3km per litre of fuel when off road!! Suddenly, I feel a whole lot better about our fuel economy. Rainforestation have converted them to run on gas, which is better economy, but I don't know by how much... Once our tour had completed, we made our way to the Rainforest Ampitheatre for the Pamagirri Aboriginal Cultural Experience. This was a dance and interpretive storytelling guide through the dreamtime from the aboriginal perspective... and it was fantastic! There were some modern twists to the traditional dance, and they included humour fairly regularly to involve the audience, and to make it seem not so sensitive or serious. We all really enjoyed it, which surprised me a bit, and would happily recommend it to anyone... While there, we also tried our hand at boomerang throwing, and got an explanation as to how the boomerang was successfully used when hunting. After all, how can you hunt with a stick that won't fly straight at what you throw it at? They used to throw masses of the boomerangs into the sky, and the design of them would make them turn back and 'hang' in the air longer. The object of the hunt was to throw them into a flock of ducks or geese that other hunters had just scared off, and hopefully, one or two of the boomerangs would knock a bird out of the sky... It obviously worked!! Also, they gave us a display of their spear thrower, and the extra range and power they could achieve. They were incredibly accurate, and they used these during tribal conflicts as well. Finally, they showed us the didgeridoo, and demonstrated how it worked. They asked if anyone wanted a go, and Jeremy said he'd try... The guy was stunned at what Jeremy could do, (he didn't know Jeremy had been practicing for two weeks and had become fairly good for a beginner), and gave him a couple of tips for improving his breathing etc. All in all, it was a great start, which everyone enjoyed, and we spent over three hours there...

We then moved into Kuranda Village proper, and found a bit of lunch. This was eaten in the village park, in full glorious sunshine again, before moving onto our next activity, which was a visit to the Butterfly Sanctuary. This is the largest butterfly aviary in Australia, and houses over 1500 of them. I know what you're thinking... Butterflies?? Pfft... But, you're all idiots... It was absolutely spectacular. Some of these butterflies were huge, and colours you'd never think were possible... All flying and floating around inside this great garden display of tropical plants... They were landing on us and fluttering around us, and it was simply mesmerising, and again, an area where I thought we'd spend half an hour before being dragged away by bored kids, we easily spent an hour and it could have been longer. I ended up dragging us away, because the day was getting late, and there was still too much to do...

A short drive led us to Barron Gorge National Park, and a boardwalk through the rainforest to the most spectacular lookout over Barron Falls and Gorge. The boardwalk is elevated over the jungle floor, and at times, is as high as the canopy, so you get the view from up high as well as down low, but when it comes out of the jungle at the edge of the gorge, and the waterfalls are on the other side, it's just magical, and you could sit and look at it all day. Well, you could, if you had all day to sit and look... We didn't, we'd already spent most of the day elsewhere, so we enjoyed the view for a while and then headed back to the village.

As far as the boys were concerned, that was the end of our plans. We'd done Rainforestation, meandered briefly through the markets, visited the Butterfly Sanctuary, and done the rainforest walk to the lookout. We had another day in Kuranda planned to fully explore the village and the markets at another time, and we were headed back to Port Douglas. At the bottom of the hill however, instead of taking the main road back to Port Douglas, we took a different road, and ended up at AJ Hackett's Bungy Jump facility in Cairns. Jeremy had mentioned a desire to bungy jump again, but they had a new activity there, called the Minjin Swing. Obviously, it's also an adrenalin pumping activity, but instead of plunging off an elevated platform with an elastic band around your ankle, they winch you into the sky in a harness, and then let you fall. You're attached by wire to a point higher above you, and as you fall, you swing like a pendulum from the higher point. It's a superman type of flight... (A similar thing was shown recently on Biggest Loser in Switzerland and was called the canyon swing). It's 45 meters high, and scary as all s***, but you could do it alone, or as a couple, or three together. I thought Jeremy and I would do it, instead of the bungy, but Dylan surprised all of us by wanting to go as well. He was sure he could do it, and I knew the longer we put it off, the more he might change his mind, so we went for it... He was chatter, chatter, chatter all the way to the platform. The guide who harnessed us in asked him if he was sure he wanted to go, they don't get many 8 year olds doing it, and Dylan reassured him it was ok (it really didn't look that high from the ground)... Before long, we were strapped in to the harness, and being winched up into the air, and Dylan's non stop chatter started to dry up... The higher we got, the tighter his grip on my arm got, and he stopped talking altogether... At the top, 45 meters in the sky, we paused for a look around. I looked at Dylan quickly to make sure he was ok, and I could tell he was terrified. His eyes were like saucers, and I thought he was going to puke... Then, Jeremy pulled the ripcord to set us free, and we plummeted... Straight down... Freefalling for two seconds of sheer terror, before the wire went taught and the harnesses took us into the most beautiful swinging sensation in the world. We flew like superman through the air, screaming all the way, except for Dylan... At the crest of the first swing, as we started to swing back the other way, I looked at Dylan beside me, and he had tears streaming down his face... I smiled at him and screamed again... "This is scary s*** huh? It's awesome..." And then he began screaming and laughing and calling out to Jo from the sky, and because he knew he wasn't going to die that day, he had the best ride of his life... All it takes is 20 seconds of stupid courage to make someone realise they can do it, if they just stop thinking about it... Dylan says now that it's the best thing he's ever done, but when I asked him what he'd like to go and do again, his answer was to feed the kangaroos... And that makes perfect sense...

As I said, it's been an awesome day. Not just because the weather came good for us, and not just because we've seen some great things or some beautiful things. It's been an awesome day because we've seen our youngest and least confident little boy take his courage in his hands, face his fears head on... and learn to fly!!!