Kuranda

[9 May]

 

Today we had a busy day! We started of with a visit to the Butterfly Garden. At the Butterfly Garden we got to see a variety of butterflies up close. Some came so close as to actually land on my back, or camera. At the Butterfly Garden there is a lot of time and effort put in by the staff to keep the butterflies safe, and to ensure that there eggs to do not die. Everyday the staff has their routines of things they must do to keep the butterflies and their eggs alive. One of my favorite butterflies, and probably one of the most popular butterflies in general and the Garden, was the Ulysses butterfly. This butterfly has wings of a vibrant blue color. The thing is though, that they are so bright in color that they fly very fast to keep away from predators and when they land they keep their wings shut. This made it hard to catch a good picture of them, and unfortunately I did not get one. I did get some great pictures of some of the other butterflies though. After the Butterfly Garden we got the chance to walk around Kuranda for a bit. Here we found a bunch of different shops set up with a variety of souvenirs and gifts. I found it amusing because some of the shops had very expensive, but nice, gifts but then there were other shops who had nice gifts but for a much cheaper price. I guess this amused me because they were all housed in the same area, so the vast variety of shops is something I did not expect. After we were done looking around here we hoped on the sky rail. The sky rail was amazing! It carried us high above the canopy of the tropical rain forest, and gave us a unique bird's eye view of it. On the way down the sky rail we had a couple of stops where we could walk through the rain forest, look at a waterfall, and learn about mining that occurred in the area. Once we reached the end of the sky rail we made our way to the Tjapukai Park, a cultural park where we got to meet and learn from a group of indigenous people. The most exciting part of this trip to the cultural park was getting to throw a boomerang. It was not easy, but I enjoyed getting to try it. I also have an even greater respect for the fact that the indigenous people have enough skill to actually use boomerangs practically (and to actually understand the design of boomerang and how it returns in the first place). Talking to the people we met here was also interesting, because the men that we met still embrace their Tjapukai culture but also embrace modern culture. They admit to using technology and things such as facebook. Once we got back form the Tjapukai Park we had time to quickly get dinner, and then we headed over to reef teach to prepare for snorkeling the next day. At reef teach we learned all about the different types of fish and coral in the Great Barrier Reef, as well as, what type of behavior is expected when snorkeling among the fish and coral. The number one thing was not to damage the coral in any way; watch your flippers! Reef teach was an informative way to end the day and it got me excited for snorkeling tomorrow!

 

-Kathleen D.