Cairns at last

Saturday 19 September… We have finally arrived in Cairns, Lake Placid actually which is about 15K’s north of the city centre. Lake Placid is supplied by the Barron River and the place looks to be popular with day visitors, who come here to swim. Further up river in the National Park is Barron Gorge where there is a big waterfall and rapids down to Lake Placid with white water rafting---------all to be investigated. Just reading the “Things to do around Cairns” brochure would mean a very long stay here to do it all, so we will do our best to see what we can.
We had more rain overnight last night but woke up to warm sunshine and clear blue skies, if only it would do that in the U K! The journey from Innesfail to Cairns is less than 100 K’s so we took our time and went for a detour through a place called Babinda, to The Boulders which we thought must be similar to the Devils Marbles which we visited in the Northern Territory. They turned out to be Granite rock worn smooth to all sorts of shapes by the Babinda Creek, though there wasn’t a great lot of water in it today. More photos of rainforests, rivers and rocks to follow. As we walked out of the gorge we were nearly run over by a musky rat kangaroo (best google it!) ( A small dark brown furry animal with a long tail) We know it was one of those because we asked a park ranger. On up to Cairns, bypassing the city centre and up to Smithfield for a brief skirmish with their huge shopping mall before escaping to our site at Lake Placid.