Cairns bound

I'm flying up to Cairns tomorrow morning for a week. Some time ago I agreed to accompany a small group of academics from Tokyo University around a number of tourist attractions in the Cairns area, including Daintree River and NP, Green Island and the outer Reef, and Undarra Lava Tubes. And so, the time has now come to do just that.

I'm taking Cal with me, and I've decided that he can be the official photographer. We leave Coolangatta tomorrow morning and meet up with the group tomorrow afternoon. I've done a bit of research on Daintree, Green Island, GBR and Undarra lava tubes but I guess I'll probably play to my strengths (ie they are going to learn a lot about snakes lol). I've had a fair bit on my plate the past couple of weeks so haven't really had a lot of time to think about it or get excited about the trip, but yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I like Cairns and have spent a fair bit of time there doing library based research about the taipan and Eric Worrell's involvement in the creation of an antivenom in 1955. The library is a beautiful white colonial-style building, that was the first town hall, and it was such a treat to spend days in there looking through fifty year old copies of the Cairns Post which carried the most amazing stories and advertisements. Sometime in the future I want to do some research on the old travelling shows that used to go up and down the east coast of Australia.

I also want to visit the grave of Kevin Budden, who died when he was just 20 after travelling to Cairns from Sydney back in 1950, to catch a taipan...which he did, but bit him when he was trying to bag the snake after having hitch-hiked to a friend's place holding the 2 metre taipan. He died the following day a hell of a long way from his family. I interviewed his lovely sister, Dorothy, for Snake Bitten and she very kindly gave me access to Kevin's diaries and photo albums. I've visited his grave several times to honour him and his sister, who absolutely adored her little brother.

Maybe Cal and I might do some night-time snake hunting but we'd need to hire a vehicle and I don't really know any good snake roads like I do around here. Luckily taipans tend not to be nocturnal!

I'm looking forward to visiting the Undarra Lava Tubes as they are out in savannah country..well maybe I should say I'm looking forward to looking at the tubes...5 hours there and back in a bus in one day....hmmm I'm not looking forward to that! Eye spy, anyone?