Stinger season

In this area, the wet summer is also the cycklone season, the humid season and the stinger season.  Any snorkelling or diving must be done while wearing a lycra suirt or wetsuit.  There are different kinds of jelly fish (or stingers) but the most lethal is the irukanji.  Port Douglas beach along with most of the the other beaches around here erect stinger nets during the stinger season. 

The lakes at Cairns botanical gardens

We stopped off at the Cairns Botanical gardens on Saturday after a shopping day in the "big" city.  coming at it from a different angle we decided to walk through what is called the lake area. It was lovely, but lots of mozzies.  In fact the botanical gardens itself was very muggy and humid so we are glad we did the other walk as well.  Walked through the bamboo walkway and then back along the paperbark boardwalk.

This was in the botanical gardens itself.  Funny I thought there would be more flowers, but I was a bit dissapointed in that.  Once we got in amongst the plants it was very muggy and hot.

So we walked back on this boardwalk - always looks a little spooky to me!  Notice how the old leaves lie on the ground and decompose to form mulch.

On the right of this photo is a paperbark tree - they grow huge, but this one is a small one.  Paperbark has been used for lots of things including making boats.