CAIRNS

Not much has been blogworthy the last couple of days.  We’ve had quite a bit of rain. We certainly manage to busy ourselves even with the rain--we are esteemed members of the trivia team the Brainiacs (we're not living up to our name but having great fun), and we attend lectures once or twice a day.

But yesterday the rain held off and the weather seems to be improving as we make our way north.   We are in Cairns, which is in Northeast Australia within the boundaries of the Great Barrier Reef.  Cairns is a delightful beachside town with quite a lively shopping and restaurant area.  Yesterday we decided that since we would not be snorkeling or diving to see the Great Barrier Reef (I know, we should do it, but we’re not brave enough--thanks to the box jelly fish, the sting of which produces indescribable pain often leading to a prolonged death, and other lethal sea creatures to numerous to mention), we would go to the highly recommended Aquarium in Cairns instead.  We walked through the town following the map toward the Aquarium and came upon a park-like enclosure.  A high pitched noise was emanating from the area and there was a huge sign which seemed to be warning us against something.  A closer look revealed that we were in the middle of a Flying Fox, also called the Australian Giant Bat, sanctuary, where the endangered creatures were in the middle of their breeding season. At first they are not obvious, but when we looked closely we could see that the trees were thick with them and many were hanging upside down from available bare branches.

 Below are a few pictures and a short video to give you an idea of the noise.  The bats are the size of large crows and when flying, their webbed wings remind one of Dracula and every horror movie you’ve ever seen.  Although the sanctuary trees were within the enclosure, the bats didn’t seem to know that they were supposed to STAY THERE and thousands of them were roosted in trees in about a square city block area.   I was in dread fear that a baby would fall out of its nest and I would be attacked by its extended family and transported to Transylvania.  A serious case of the willies ensued, but still, I’m thrilled that we got to see them.  A man in Sydney had told us that he came across a colony of them but we never saw them there.

In my pre-bat serene moments.  This is the root system of a single ficus tree with a truly lovely mosaic wall. 

The sign in the bat sanctuary warning not to touch or pick up a fallen baby bat.  Like, who would do that?

The definition of "hanging out."

The sound of thousands of Giant Bats or "flying foxes" singing.  It's a shame the video doesn't actually show the bats--believe me, there were thousands of them.

After surviving the bats, we made our way to the Aquarium and found it as soothing as the bats were harrowing.  We learned that The Great Barrier Reef is comprised of 600 islands and is 1,430 miles long.  And to give it mind-blowing perspective, it covers an area equivalent to 70 million football fields!  But the fish are the best.  In my next life I will be an ichthyologist.  In large beautiful tanks were every variety of marine life found in the Great Barrier Reef.  Fish great and small, eels, rays, sharks, sea snakes, starfish, pufferfish, parrot fish and one charmingly called Sweet Lips. 

A beautiful blue spotted ray

This is called a blue lobster! It's actually a type of crawfish, but bright blue.

A lion fish?

Several varieties of starfish

This morning we met the ship's chef along with 14 of our mates and accompanied him to the Cairns Farmer's Market.  I am a big fan of markets, no matter what kind, and this was a good one although it was primarily fruits and vegetables, no meat, fish or cheese.  A few crafts stalls were scattered about but we were busy following Chef Tim as he chose exotic fruits that will grace our tables the next couple of days.  We sampled rambutan, passionfruit, longan, durian, lychee and mangosteen as well as more common but equally delicious avocados and teeny bananas.  Of the hundreds of stalls in the market, Chef Tim inexplicably would decide to buy from this one or that one, and I would watch the face of the vendor as he filled bag after bag with one type of fruit in order to feed his ship family of 600.  Big smiles would break out and a few freebies thrown in.  The profits probably fed their families for a week. 

Mangosteen

Rambutan

Bananas large and small

Dragonfruit

 And  finally, for your amusement, this sign was on the wall of the ladies room.  I can't imagine for whose benefit.  Surely not the Asians who are quite a sophisticated bunch. 

And now we are back on the road with three sea days ahead.  More trivia and some heavy duty relaxation.