It’s warm in Cairns. That’s the first thing to note and apparently it hasn’t rained for three months. We’re not going to do the typical British thing and start complaining about it being too hot after moaning about the rain for the last few weeks though. Let’s hope that the monsoon season can hold off for a few more days. When we arrived at lunchtime we dropped our bags at the hotel and took a walk alongside the water into the centre of Cairns. Based on our recent experience Cairns seems like a fairly typical Australian city and is geared up for tourism and backpackers in particular but not a lot else.

We booked a 4WD trip to Cape Tribulation for our second day. This involved being picked up in a cool 4WD minibus thing (at 7am!) and transported to various parts of the tropical rainforest.

We had an entertaining driver/guide who knew all about the history of the rainforests and the different species of native plants and animals.

We also had a BBQ lunch and a cup of local tea grown in the daintree tea plantion.

In the afternoon we had a crocodile spotting trip on the river where we saw three of them lurking in the shallow water at the edge of the river. Fortunately they didn’t eat anyone and we returned safely in the evening (after a stop at an ice cream farm) with plenty of photos.