rainforest

Visiting the rainforest was the highlight of my trip, especially because I got to see it from above, not just in. I kept coming back to the idea that being in the suburbs, you feel so oversized and clumsy, and you can't look anywhere without seeing a building or a parking lot or a road. Out here, you can see and see and see as far as forever - sky and forest and water, and you feel like just a speck that could be squashed at any second, which is a good check for the ego.

We took the skyrail above the rainforest, which gives you a 360 view of everything - valleys and gorges and waterfalls, and the air conditioning in each car comes from the breeze of the water and the movement of the trees, and your radio is birds and cicadas. Building the skyrail meant disturbing the trees very little (ie, they had to take down few if any). However, the whole city of Cairns is built on what used to be rainforest, not so good. There is a tree planting program, though - lots of schools contribute to it, and the kids even come out to actually plant the trees.

I can't really say anything about the rainforest that hasn't already been said, so I'll leave it at this quote by zoologist Carl Lumholtz in 1883: "...all was dark and damp, but on gazing upward, I saw the tree tops flooded with the most brilliant sunlight, which occasionally penetrated through the branches. As we ascend, the landscape gradually grows wilder and more picturesque. The palms are replaced by gigantic tree ferns, which here in in the damp rocky clefts, spread their mighty leaves in all their splendour over trickling brooks, which frequently disappear in little waterfalls down steep precipices. The effects of light and shade are magnificent here, the scenery is simply overwhelming in its splendour."