The next day we took a trip to the rainforest town of Karanda with the primary objective of holding a Koala. Karanda is an old logging town that has been converted to essentially a large gift shop with some wildlife venues. Part of the highlight of going to Karanda is the transport – one way on a gondola and back on a scenic train and the gondola passes over a roaring waterfall in the rainy season. It wasn’t the raining season. The gondola trip was great with a couple of opportunities to get off for short hikes around the waterfall. Upon arrival, we went directly to the Koala reserve to only find out you had to have a long-standing reservation to hold the Koala during a 30 minute window. Makes sense to reduce the stress on the animals.
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We did see a few Koalas in the reserve – just sleep all day and we got some pictures. And when you see the “holding Koala” – he looks pretty tired. We were looking for a place to eat and a young lady temped us with some bratwurst from a German restaurant – so we went in to find no bratwurst was left, a stalker shine to Nena (of 99 Luftballons) and the only place I have had to use cash in Australia since I arrived. The other wurst was pretty good but overall sketchy. The return train trip not near as good as the gondola trip over. I headed from the train station to the airport on return to Cairns while the Sharon, Steph, and Anish went to Fitzroy Island and Green Island – both highly recommended. I would be remiss to note that the three of them became big fans of “Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia” instead of picking an Australia Rules Football team.
On an administrative note, I am applying for a longer term visa – one of the requirements is a police clearance from anywhere you lived more than 365 days in the past 10 years. So in addition to having to provide the records of my daily travels the last 10 years, I have to obtain police clearance for South Korea, USA, and Maryland. The visa consultant said they’d handle the USA/Maryland and I was on my own for South Korea. I was very nervous about the South Korean one (since the form was only in Korean) but I went to the South Korean consulate to start the process. After a bit, I have received the South Korean clearance, obtained the forms for the FBI to complete (which require fingerprinting in a police station in Sydney), but still haven’t received the forms for Maryland to start the process – they only mail stuff around, nothing electronic. So much for the local things being easier to handle.
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