Climate and weather

I always wanted to visit either an equatorial or a tropical area during the humid season, so I took the opportunity to try this time; when I landed I was first very impressed by how green the land and vegetation were.

The second strange (enjoyable) feeling appeared as soon as I got outside from the plane or any air conditioned building: an unexpected heat wave. In Europe this is quite unlikely as rain and humid weather comes with fresh or cold temperatures.

The weather was very similar during my stay: mostly cloudy with isolated rain drops, then once in a while a heavy shower and possibly a few sun rays.

Below: sunset in Cairns and weather forecast.

People visiting Cairns

The city in itself is really a special place with many tourist resorts and a very high percentage of stores are named tourist information and booking centre (understand: travel agents who make a commission of 20% on tours booked). I noticed that the average people visiting Cairns stays in shopping malls that could have been named either New Tokyo or New Berlin due to the amount of Japanese and German tourists crashing around. I believe that Cairns is a good place to open a store as so many of them are not original at all – got my idea :D.

Experience

Despite it was the low season, many people had the idea to visit it because it was. Despite it, I was the only person hiking outside the city where the only persons I met on my way were a couple of aboriginal people. At least now I know why they call rainforest rainforest; the experience was awesome despite the extreme humidity. I could not figure out if my outlet was wet because of the rain or my sweat: a shower was so enjoyable afterwards!

Due to the rain, I did not take many pictures, but below a sample is available:

Crocodiles like Germans. Crocodiles may be in this river.

Rainforest, creek, tropical plant and heavy rain:

Next stop

I caught the train to Townsville and did not know if it would have been on track as it was flooded. Fortunately, everything was fine and I jumped into the Sunlander, a train where the economic class was more like the 1st in European trains with an excellent service like in old fashion trains. In addition, it was almost empty and I shared the car with a youth going to Townsville too who I met twice there! Sugar cane and banana plants were common on the way; in addition the flood was impressive – the rest of Australia is (was) experiencing one of the worst dryness.