Train in the rain

Today, we took a scenic diesel train trip to a rainforest. Here's what we saw out the window on the way: 

 

It was a little gray and damp out, but what would you expect a rainforest to be like? 

When the train stopped at Kuranda Village, we had a few hours to explore and eat. Cas and I went to a gemstone museum and very briefly down a footpath into some pretty dense trees. 

When we left there, we traveled by way of a cable car gondola. Cas gave me the idea to take a time lapse video, and I wanted to try to post it here. I'm not sure the percentage by which time lapse speeds things up, but we went a LOT slower than this: 

Hopefully, that works. 

We stopped along the way and looked at a beautiful waterfall before getting to an aboriginal culture center where some very patient native people tried to teach us to throw boomerangs and spears. They taught us their dance and offered us some face paint so we could look more aboriginal. Cas and I threw things, but we skipped the paint. I doubt we'd have convinced anyone we are anything but American tourists. 

It was a very full day and everything was absolutely gorgeous. We have another morning in Cairns tomorrow, then we head to Sydney in the afternoon. That's our last stop before New Zealand. It should be pretty great.