Ha ha now I bet you read that and wondered what was going to be in it!
Well let me start by saying the single most important reason as to why I went back to Cairns…….The SUN! yes I hadn’t seen as much and thought I needed a little bit….just so I don’t look quite so white as I did before I left!
Well as it turned out I ended up back at Gilligans, the place was teaming with Americans and of course the usual mix of Irish and English, it was only meant to be a brief stop off, a couple of weeks in the sun then go down the coast again…well a month later and I was still there, I was chucked out of Gilligans, due to the fact that more Americans and Canadians needed to hostel, so we moved to Koalas, a place a little off the main street, but a great hostel….there was Lenny, Paul and I and we ended up in a room with two German girls, they were hilarious, plus Paul took a shine to one of them, not this Paul the other one…..but that I will explain in a short while…..
I hired a car, as I fancied exploring the place a little more than the usual, several, off white colored walls of PJ O’ Brians, and took a spin in to the rainforest’s around….guess what I had to drive a corsa….okay not so bad I know but come on….I am 6ft + for goodness sake, driving around looking like an elephant crammed in a mini, maybe not that bad but hey.
We drove up to a place called Kurunda, a smallish village up in the Hills around Cairns, after driving up a huge meandering roads, stopping off occasionally to stretch my tightly compressed legs, to look at some amazing vantage points, there is was this small 50 house village, thriving with activity, because it had a steam railway, that twisted and snaked up the hill side, sheer drops, looking menacingly hungry, so I decided it was too expensive to go on that…but do not despair…I found an irish bar that sold extra cold Guinness, so decided to have one.
We then took a drive just outside Kurunda, to a place called Barron Gorge, a raging torrent of water in the wet season, but a rather gorgeous looking water fall, at the time I went to see it, the river carved its way through the surrounding rocks, one problem with this place… keep in mind I had been in Oz quite a while by this point and sustained no bites, ten mins out of the car here and I was bitten at least 5 or six times….typical! But then I guess it was a rain forest!
As I reach a view point I looked up, and there suspended in mid air was a cable cart…guess where it came from, Kurunda, it looked amazing, up above the canopy, stretching as far as I could see….why didn’t I go on it….oh hang on I am a backpacker not a flash packer….it was a little pricey… but it looked good.
I left barron falls, scratching my bites, and decided Lenny could drive so I could sit as far back as I could do in the passenger seat…at least I wasn’t as squished as I was driving, that extra 3inches made all the difference….honest!!
That night I became friends with a rare person…yes an aussie, he had become an occupant in our room as did another English Paul, yes the one I mentioned at the beginning, well we got nattering and decided to drift in to Cairns, not to the irish bar mind, but a few other places, it was a good “craic” as the irish say. We all decided that we would take a spin up to Cape Trib in a few days time…but I had taken my car back and it was up to Aussie Rich to get one.
So the day of reckoning arrived, in front of the hostel was a huge v8 motor…oh I had room to stretch my legs, armed with Teds (Tooheys Extra Dry) sleeping bag and an overnight bagwe started driving north………