Wednesday...25 August

Visitors came yesterday. First we put them to work....then we all went out to the Mount Uncle Distillery. Bit of a drive, 20kms, and they do a mix of things from liquers to spirits, but turns out their rum is only white rum and the selection of food was limited with fairly steep prices so we took a look around and came back into town via the scenic route and went to lunch at one of the local pubs. Was a great little country pub with damn nice food and the lunch menu outside the door says 10 meals for $10 each. Whats not to like about that?

Today we went back into Kuranda and did the tours through the three main attractions other than shops and skyrail. We started at the Butterfly Sanctuary. Stunning, awesome, amazing! A guide explains the life cycle of several different types of butterfly and they take you into their laboratory to see the eggs being harvested off the leaves and then they have working displays of the entire cycle from start to end. You can sit there and actually watch the butterflys hatch and take their first flight. Then it is back into the massive avairy type area to watch the thousands of butterflies flying around and sometimes landing on the tourists. Better yet they give you a passout stamp on your wrist so that if you want or have time etc you can return as often as you like during the day. The really big attraction is the local butterfly the bright blue Ulysses Swallowtail.

Then we went to the bird park and in here they sell you bags of bird seed to feed the birds. We had barely got in the door when a big blue and gold macaw landed on Keiths shoulder and happily chewed biscuit and nuts from his hand. It also chewed the button thing off the top of his baseball type hat! There were lots of birds of all types in the display and they all land on whoever they fancy at the time. Was amusing to hear the squeals of the younger japanese females. Their husbands of course were brave enough to pose with a bird or two for photos but most were in total awe of our birds. Natives and exotics are housed together and all fly around in a great big open avairy. There is a pond for water birds and at the back is an enclosure with cassawaries. My goodness they are one huge bird. Never seen one before and somehow had the impression they were maybe the size of a bush turkey. Uh uh, they are the size of an emu, maybe not quite so high as their necks are not long like the emu but golly they are huge birds and their feet are prehistoric. The talons on their feet would rip a mere mortal to shreds.

On to attraction number three, the koala park. They have a walk around display beginning with freshwater crocs, we gave up counting at 25. Then onto the lizard enclosure with frilled neck lizards and bobtails and bluetongues etc. Then to the koala area.  For an extra fee one could have a photo taken actually holding a koala, very popular with the asian tourists. I resisted (cute and cuddly but awfully smelly critters!!), but it was nice watching the tourists hold one. Then into the kangaroo enclosure where you are encouraged to feed the various types, including wallabys and bandicoots. Then we moved into the snake enclosure. Plenty of pythons and a red bellied black and then there was the tree hugging one above our heads.....

My bravery should be duly noted by all who know my fear of these creatures.  (double clik this pic and take a good look), it is real and the rest of it is about six foot wound around the branches above my head.

After leaving there we went to one last place and that was called Australias Venom Zoo. There was a lady out on the street in front of this attraction with a black headed python wrapped around her as she touted for business.  After she offered to hide the head of this creature and I could not see its little tongue flicking in and out,  I was convinced to finally touch a snake for the first time in my life. Then we went inside and looked at taipans and a few more pythons and then had a guide show and tell us all about tarantulas, red backs, and scorpions. No pics taken there, sorry. Then we went back into the Butterfly place for one last look before  heading home after a big day out. Tomorrow we move onto Innisfail area for a couple of days as we begin the long long trek south into the cooler regions as winter starts to depart.

Keith holding a big Ulysses