East Coast: Cairns, GBR, Rainforest and Butterflys

So after a flight and a night in Cairns.  We got our campervan.  Ok so from the picture you can see its a bit bigger than originally thought. 
We were told when we went to pick it up that we had been upgraded.  So, it has sleeping for four (Why? In case we pick up hitchhikers?  Oh yeah like that is going to happen.  I have seen way too many horror movies)  Sorry I digress. 

So off we go north of Cairns to Ellis Beach.  Where we find a spot in a campground right on the beach.  Check it out.  Most excellent though we are still trying to remember where we put everything in this behemoth.






While staying at this lovely beach (which you can swim in only between two buoys and a net due to the mass influx of jellyfish), we took a sky tram up through the rainforest, stopping to wander through it a number of times.

After the ride up we ended up in the small town of Kuranda.  Tiny little tourist town that also has a huge hydroelectric station as well as a butterfly aviary.  Ok, so they explain to wear bright colors like reds and white so the butterflys are attracted to you.  There were thousands of butterflys all different colors and sizes.  One of the bright blue ones alighted on Dwaynes back and would not leave.  She stayed there for at least fifteen minutes and when we were leaving we had to shake his shirt vigourously so she would leave.  It was really neat to have them land on you and they liked us.

After the butterflys we took a train back down to Red Lynch and headed back to our campground.

We next headed north to Port Douglas which is the closest point that the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) gets to land.  We took a boat out and snorkelled on three different spots on this amazing reef. 

Having done a fair bit of snorkelling on other reefs in the Caribbean and Florida in comparison, this one is the best.  According to the marine biologist on board the boat there are at least three times as many types of coral and sponges and five times the diveristy of fish.  The colors are brilliant, the reef is healthy and if this is not on your bucket list, it should be.  We rented an underwater digital camera and took about 160 pictures.  Don't panic I won't put that many on but enjoy these ones. 

  
After a day of this, I don't think anything could top it.  So we took it easy for a day and then went to Daintree national park and hiked through the Mossman gorge.  Oh yeah both the GBR and the Park are UNESCO world heritage sites, surprise, surprise.  We will now work our way south towards Brisbane.