Day 63
Distance travelled: 62km
Today we woke early. I was incredibly excited. We had booked a snorkelling trip at Green Island on the Great Barrier Reef.
We drove out to the wharf where the ferry ‘Big Cat’ was waiting. We spent about an hour and a half on the ferry in choppy water and the boat was heavily rocking. Mum even threw up from motion sickness! But we all made it to Green Island where we collected our snorkelling equipment and went out on the beach. We swam out through the choppy water and above the reef. The reef was incredible! It wasn’t as colourful as the pictures you see but the fish were amazing! Some of the fish were fluoro green, rainbow fish and sawfish, but most we didn’t know. We spent all day, about five hours at Green Island, exploring different parts of the reef.
We got back on the ferry at about three and got back to Cairns at about five.
I had an amazing day swimming over the reef looking at all the fish and coral. We all slept well that night.
Day 64
Distance travelled: 24km
We decided to spend another night in Kuranda, our fourth. This was our longest stop since Darwin. We went back into Kuranda and everything was open because the Ski Rail was running again. Nick and I went to the Venom Zoo, while Dad and Jackson went to the Birdhouse. The Venom Zoo had lots of different venomous snakes, spiders, scorpions, and (non-venomous) turtles and lizards. We got a little tour of the spiders, scorpions, lizards and some snakes. We got to hold different lizards and even a snake! The Birdhouse was a huge enclosure where there were dozens of species of birds.
We had lunch in town and then went back to camp, where we had a relaxed afternoon doing schoolwork and blogging.
Day 65
Distance travelled: 221km
After four nights, we could have stayed longer but we packed up and drove, our goal to get to Paronella Park, an old castle. But we stopped a lot on the way, first at Atherton, where we stocked up on clothes, food and cricket bats. Our second stop was at Mount Hypipamee crater. We had lunch there and walked to the crater. It was a massive hole in the ground with water in it. It was at least eighty meters deep! Our third and final stop was at Malanda Falls. We had a quick look there and wished we had our bathers.
We arrived at Paronella and set up. At four we went on a tour of the park, where we learnt about the history of José, who built the castle. The castle was very old and partly destroyed by cyclones and fire.
We went on another tour, after looking around the park, a night tour this time and we walked through the park being taught by the guide. We went down to the pool under the water fall and saw a croc!
Day 66
Distance travelled: 129km
We had another walk around Paronella Park in the morning, before we packed up and had breakfast in Innisfail. We drove to Mission Beach, which was destroyed by the two recent cyclones, Larry and Yasi. We thought about setting up camp there, but, we had a look around and decided to keep going. We did set up on South Mission Beach at a Caravan Park, which was luxury! It had everything! A pool and air hockey table, swimming pool with a waterslide and tennis & basketball courts.
We decided to spend the night there and I set up quickly so I could use the games/pool.
Day 67
Distance travelled: 211km
Although we loved South Mission Beach, we packed up and moved on. We weren’t sure where we were going to stay but we drove out towards Tully. Tully was a sugar town; its only industry was making sugar. Tully’s Factory is one of the few factories that give tours, so we went on a tour. The tour took us through the factory and showed us how sugar is produced. I didn’t like it. It was hot, really loud and smelt very bad, which made me feel sick. It was interesting to find out how something I love, sugar, is made.
We didn’t stay at Tully though, we kept moving. We went to Lucinda where there is a 5.76km wharf where the sugar is exported to other countries. Then, headed up into the mountains and set up camp at Wallaman Falls, which are longest falls in Australia.
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