There were a few tense moments in and around Babinda, before we left for Cairns. A. We spotted a flock of whistling kites circling over a fenced, camouflaged area. When stopping next to it, I climbed up on the car to take a peak and saw what looked like dug outs for fisheries, while Austin was trying to snap some of the kites with his big lensed camera. Two men, one on a quad bike and one in a 4 wheel drive, suddenly approached us from the enclosure. 
They obviously worried about us being Greenies, as they explained it was a crocodile farm. I thought naively that croc farms had been eradicated in Australia, but obviously not, and although I am not a friend of the big lizards, the idea of such a wild creatures being reared in overcrowded basins for their meat and skin made me shudder.
On the last night, we went for a cold cider into the old Babinda Hotel. Austin was very brave inviting me for a game of darts. We hadn’t really played after I very nearly impaled him with a dart many years ago. I rewarded him by letting him win!
The next thing was that our fridge, having been “fixed” in Mackay started to play up again. Since our washing machine had never started to work either, we headed straight for Jayco in Cairns who fixed both problems in a flash. A new washer was installed and a new motherboard for our fridge, all still on warranty. Having “saved” money, I got a haircut and Austin an early birthday present, binoculars for our bird spotting, since our only other pair is still on the boat in the Netherlands.
The city of Cairns itself has developed from a tropical backpacker destination and springboard for excursions to the Barrier Reef to an international city with flair without loosing it’s relaxed atmosphere. Chic shops, cafes and restaurants can be found and along the Esplanade a quality arts and craft market takes place most days.
I liked the horizon pool at the waters edge, and so did obviously many kids and teenagers.
We didn’t spent much time in the city. Our caravan park, the best we had stayed in so far, was in a beautiful rainforest area, right next to the suburb “Freshwater”. We are also not far from Cairns’ “Northern Beaches”, so we are feeling right at home.
The Crystal Cascades, after which the caravan park is named, are just down the road. A good escape from the bustle of the city.
One day we spent in Kuranda village and visited the beautiful Butterfly Sanctuary. Even though the bright blue Ulysses butterfly is elusive and almost impossible to capture on camera, we saw many beautiful other ones fluttering around our heads, and sometimes settling on someones hat or a child’s hand. The most colourful one was the Cairns Birdwing butterfly.
Each butterfly has a specific plant it lays their eggs on. They can taste with their feet, if they landed on the right one. For the laboratory workers on site, who collect the eggs, it is easy to tell on hand of the plant, which butterfly genus the eggs belong to. The eggs are then cleaned from pests and held in safe environments from caterpillar to chrysalis. When the last skin is shed and the butterfly spreads it’s wings it is released into the flight aviary. 
Butterfly wings, by the way, have scales, which are of course so very much more tender than fish scales and they can only afford to loose a small amount of them, as they are unable to replace them.
We saw some other scaly things of a different matter lurking at the side of the Barron river. The little cruise boat took us along the heritage listed rainforest. Again the water was teaming with fish and turtles. Little swifts had made their nests in the sun roof of the boat and came flying in and out over our heads, very cute!
On our way back to the caravan, Austin made a special discovery: there is a Bunnings hardware here! Do I need to say more…???
"Johnson Freshwater Crocodile"