June the Tenth.

So I woke up this morning and looked outside and it a) wasn't cloudy, and b) wasn't raining, and c) was a beautiful sunshiny day!!!!!

So below is a picture of one of the big hills behind Cairns with a lenticularis cumuli form cloud on it's peak, indicating cool air and strong wind.

Point being, I can actually see the hills!!!!!!!!!!

So I went for a wander about the Cairns esplanade and they have built an artificial beach with pool similar to South bank in Brisbane.....

AND I'm wondering why would they have an artificial beach right beside the beach..............

Then I saw why, Cairns doesn't have a beach!!!!!!!!!!

Cool fish statues at one end of the artificial beach 

OOOOHHHHHHH..... look, a beach in Cairns!!!!! all of 20 metres long and you can run down the sand into the mud at low tide!!

I decided to go for a drive around the tablelands behind Cairns today and see all the things I wanted to see which I thought I would miss due to the rain.
Below is the beach looking south towards Cairns from Yorkeys Knob. It's quite a nice place.....

Then I went up the hill to Kuranda and came upon a lookout on the side of the road, so I stopped and snapped some shots looking back towards Cairns.

And what better thing to plant in the middle of a clearing on the side of a hill designed to be a lookout?...... A paw paw tree!!!!

I giggled at this sign inside a public toilet, yes, the men's was the furthest from the car, gotta eat what goes in the toilet!!!!!!!!!

I was going to ride the sky rail from Kuranda, but being the non-tourist season, it was closed for maintenance till next week!!!!! 

Below are pictures of the walkways into the Barron river falls...

One advantage of seeing waterfalls the day after several inches of rain..... plenty of water!! All the streams about here are swollen at the moment but no flooding.

Barron river in the Barron gorge....pretty cool!

 This weir is at the top, water is diverted through a pipe for hydro-electric generation.

 Looking down the gorge you can see Cairns in the distance...

I found the Atherton Tablelands, very pleasant piece of country.

I continued around through to Gordonvale and ended back in Cairns again tonight.... It certainly is a spectacular piece of country up here with lots to see, as long as it isn't closed for maintenance. I wanted to check out a few places which were closed, if I came a month earlier or later they would all be open!!  Tomorrow I'll head North     : )