Kuranda Rainforest

Here's what I learned today:
1. If you don't charge your camera battery often enough it will die at an inopportune moment such as while riding a skyway over a beautiful waterfall in a rainforest.
2. Taking pictures with a disposable film camera seems very odd.
3. Cockroaches and termites are in the same family.
4. Coffee is part of the Gardenia family, which obviously is much better than being from the cockroach/termite family.
5. Dingoes don't bark, they howl unless they grow near dogs, then they sometimes throw in a bark with the howl.
6. Cassowary plum stones can't be planted and grown. They have to be eaten by a cassowary and pooped out in order
to grow.
7. Cassowaries are a very bizarre looking bird. They have a claw on their middle toe which looks to be a very effective weapon and the crest on their head is used to get vegetation out of the way in dense forest.
Now on to what I did today...I intended to take the Kuranda Scenic Railway up to Kuranda do the rainforest tour and come back via the Skyrail. However the Scenic Railway was closed because of a derailment a few weeks ago. Alright then, glad it didn't happen while I was riding it. I took the Skyrail up and back, it's a gondola that takes about 20 minutes to get from the outskirts of Cairns up to the rainforest town of Kuranda. There are a couple of stops where you can wander through the rainfoest and be amazed by what you see. I was amazed being over the rainforest, too because you can't see the ground through the trees and vines. Which slightly terrified me when I thought about it. It's w-a-a-a-a-a-y down there. The town of Kuranda is cute, but of course morphing into a tourist trap when it used to be an Aboriginal village with a fair amount of cultural heritage. There is a butterfly sanctuary I didn't go into because even though I have seen many wild animals in enclosures in the past weeks, the thought of butterflies being hemmed in was too much. I also passed on the venom zoo, though seeing those things behind glass might be a relief. On to the wildlife and rainforest area where I learned most of what I listed. I did get to see a female kangaroo clean out her pouch which was kind of freaky because one second there's a stomach and the next there's a slit with darker fur underneath. Weird.
Tomorrow I head out for my first Great Barrier Reef outing to Green Island. Not sure if I will do snorkeling or a helmet dive, seems like it might be the helmet dive just because of the name. The camera is recharging, so hopefully more pics on the way soon. Since today was photographed on actual film, who knows if those will show up. Off to find some fish for dinner.