An early start in Cairns can only mean one thing…waking up on a park bench with a hangover after a BIG night (I saw a guy on the beach this morning doing exactly that!) or the other thing it means to me is HOT AIR BALLOONING!

The alarm call at 3.30am wasn’t the most welcome I’ve ever had but I dragged myself from my pit, met the Korean media guys and Michelle downstairs and staggered onto the Raging Thunder courtesy bus ready for the hour’s drive up to the Atherton Tablelands just inland from Cairns.

Dawn was yet to happen but the early signs of a colourful horizon were starting to appear out to the east as we arrived at Mareeba, the town close to the launch site for our trip up into the sky.

I’d been up to do this once before with my girlfriend Bre and we’d had the most incredible experience together as Jay our pilot flew us over the patchwork landscape of the area. To read about it click here.

This time I’m flying together with a few other people so the balloon is that much bigger – in fact it’s huge and to boot there’s a cute little Koala on the outside. As the ground crew prepare our balloon, filling it with fans and then eventually heat from the burners, our group desperately try to avoid the plagues of carnivorous mosquito’s hovering all around. This is a game in itself!

As the elegant balloon starts to fill it’s our time to go. There are three other balloons all launching from the same site and the sound of firing burners fills the otherwise quiet morning air. We clamber into our basket, take loads of photos of each other and wait…

One final burst on the gas and the basket starts to skip across the ground below – we’re off! The last of the tethering ropes are thrown clear and we gain height quickly as our super-warm ball of air heads up into the heavens above.

Below us the lay of the land becomes that much clearer, the swirling streams and rivers lined by their lush green banks of bushes and trees. The patchwork of agriculture disappears into the distance with crops and fields making up the bulk of the landscape. This is farming territory.

As the sun broke the horizon the light changed with warm orange and yellows beams thrown onto the other balloons, the clouds above us and the peaks of the surrounding hills. This is the way to witness sunrise.

Our pilot the told us it was time to find a suitable landing site, he’d spied one around half a kilometre away in some rough ground behind a residential block. The shifting winds at altitude can vary over the ascent/descent of just a few metres and it’s these that he used to bring us closer to the site. Until finally the basket dragged over a group of bushes, scraped along the wet grass for a few metres and unceremoniously popped us over on our side. All of us are now lying flat on our backs!

As we clambered out of the basket and swapped stories about how good it was, there was one more job to do – pack the entire balloon and basket back onto the trailer.

What a way to spend the very early hours of the day!

After a hearty breakfast back at the Heritage Museum we all jumped onto the courtesy bus back to the city and an hour later arrived at the car park of Skyrail.

Now Skyrail is something, which has intrigued me for months. I’ve been to a few awards ceremonies for the tourism industry and almost every time it’s the destination awarded the prize for ‘Sustainable Tourism’. I had to see this place…

Skyrail opened in 1995 and consists of 114 gondola cabins that travel along a cableway for 7.5kms, and is much like a ski lift, albeit over slightly warmer more tropical conditions! The cableway starts off at the base of the Red Peak Mountain and climbs up 545 metres to the first of the stations.

We’re lucky enough to have a special ride for our trip, there’s a ‘marketing cage’ that does away with the usual sides and roof and instead each rider wears a harness and is secured to the metal framework. It’s a little scarier travelling this way but for the sake of the unrestricted photos we can get it’s well worth it!

As we leave the lower station Skyway whisks us up and over Tjapukai Aboriginal Centre where I visited last year and steeply up the side of Red Peak – the start of the tropical rainforest.

It’s really quite beautiful travelling in near silence so close to the canopy of the forest. The sounds you’d expect from this sort of environment flood up to us and the humidity rising up from the trees below is really noticeable.

Over the last week there has been a serious amount of rain falling on this area but today we’re lucky to have blue skies and sunshine…what this does do though is evaporate the moisture from below and that’s what were feeling. Nature working!

We stop at Red Peak station and are met by Lance…the wealth of all knowledge here at Skyrail. He’s one of the rangers who takes groups around the boardwalk here, educating them about the rainforest and flora & fauna that call this place home. It’s one thing visiting somewhere like this and being amazed by the trees and landscape but I think it adds another element altogether when you’re actually learning loads about the whole eco-system too. The rangers who work here love what they do and you can tell by the way they present about it!

In the distance the Barron River cuts through the forest as it has been doing for thousands of years creating the steep sided gorge through which it runs. It’s really impressive seeing it from up high especially at this time of year as the recent cyclone that passed through dumped a good few inches on the surrounding mountains resulting in loads of water coming over the falls.

Once we’ve travelled along Skyrail to the next station at Barron Falls, it’s time to leave for the next destination…Rainforestation.

After wolfing down lunch (this is tiring you know moving about all of the time!) we had the time for a quick tour of what’s on offer here…and I wish we’d had more.

The whistle-stop tour introduced the Korean media to everything Australian in the hour we had. We held a koala and crocodile, learned how to play a didgeridoo, threw a boomerang, and tossed a spear. Once we’d cleared the animal park it was time to explore the rainforest from a very different angle…down on the floor!

The DUKW, or DUCK, is an ex-army amphibious vehicle that can move on both land and in the water. Rainforestation have a fleet of around 15 of them and they are so impressive.

A track runs from the centre out into the forest and Muzz our guide and driver talked to us all about the history of the forest and some of the interesting creatures and plants, which are found here.

My particular favourite (as it’s so horrible) is the Stinging Tree. Now it’s no a piddly little nettle which irritates the skin for a few minutes – this thing hurts and for ages! There are tiny spikes, almost like fibreglass, which are on every leaf and branch which should be avoided at all costs as the sting hurts like hell to start with and once that’s gone, irritates you for up to a year afterwards. Not very good!

Our tour takes us into the valley into a large wet area at the bottom…there’s no stopping this DUCK though, Muzz simply engages the propeller and our truck becomes a boat! We drive around the waterway seeing freshwater turtles and lizards on the banks that scurry away as we approach. We’re up close and personal with nature once more.

The clock is ticking on our afternoon and we have to make a rushed exit in time to catch our train from the town of Kuranda back to Cairns – we’re travelling Gold Class and it’d be terribly rude to turn up late you know.

Kuranda station has to be one of the most beautiful in the whole of Australia; the plants and flowers that fill the platform only add to the colonial feel, of this the last stop on the line.

We board our Gold Class cabin onboard the Kuranda Scenic Railway and settle in for a journey back down the dramatic valley the Barron River has carved out. Our Hostess Beth pampers us with drinks, nibbles as the commentary plays on the television screens mounted in the wall.

As we travel down the line we’re told stories of the construction back in 1891 when the early pioneers decided they needed a way of getting from the inland gold fields out to the coast. The line clings to the edge of the steep sided hills, with huge drop-offs, raging waterfalls and delicate-looking bridges built along its length.

My Mum and Dad would have loved this part of the adventure. It’s a very special way of seeing the gorge. We stop off at a couple of photo spots, both of which focus on the dramatic waterfalls that are full to capacity:

It’s been an exhausting but thoroughly entertaining day and as we make it back to the hotel, there are a few sleepy bodies waking up around me – and I’m one of them. It’s amazing how the heat takes it out of you!

We reconvene an hour later ready for dinner at another of Cairns famous eateries – Barnacle Bills Seafood Inn

. Owner Tony has been here for 27 years and loves what he does. Tonight he’s prepared a special menu for us – suits me as there’s no complicated choosing from the menu.

I love my seafood and am not disappointed; oysters, scallops, Moreton Bugs, prawns and Coral Trout grace the table and as ever I eat the very last one!

Waddling back to the hotel, much like a Moreton Bay Bug, I sleep particularly well.

Day Two of the adventure complete.