Into the City

Just a short bus ride away from the suburb of Smithfield is the city of Cairns. Immediately after exiting the bus, my roommate and I heard screeching from the green space nearby. At first, I thought it was a flock of birds, but when I looked up into the trees I saw the black bodies hung upside down clinging to the branches. Thousands of bats dominated the trees in the clearing.

After stopping for a few pictures, we made our way into the Cairns Aquarium just a block or two away. The aquarium was somewhat small compared to what I was expecting from an aquarium placed just off the coast of the Great Barrier Reef, but it was worth it nonetheless. It was mostly filled with smaller tanks showcasing tropical wildlife, like lizards and frogs, and marine wildlife, like reef fish and lobster.

However, there were two amazing tanks that stand out in my mind. The first was a two-story tall tank with over 60 different types of reef fish. We sat and listened to one of the staff members give a short presentation about the tank and the fish inside. He had some interesting facts about one of the fish, a big blue fish named Percy, who can change sex from a female to a male.

The other tank was upwards of a million gallons large and housed multiple species of shark and rays. The same staff member gave a fun and engaging talk on why sharks need to be saved not hunted. Many people fear sharks, but in a hilarious statistic, you are more likely to die from a vending machine accident than you are likely to even encounter a shark.

Sharks are necessary for a healthy ecosystem. They are able to and likely to eat fish that are dying of disease without contaminating themselves. Without them, diseases are bound to spread. But that’s just a short lesson for those reading. Sharks are good for the environment, and we need to protect them.

After we finished our tour of the aquarium, we headed out in search of some lunch. After passing by many expensive looking restaurants on the coast, we settled down at a Vietnamese restaurant with a view of our friendly bats.

It was getting close to dusk, so many of the bats were starting to stretch their wings and fly around the neighboring buildings. I’m so thankful that I bought my camera along because I got some pretty cool shots of them in flight.

We stuck around for an hour or so to eat our food and get some photos, but it was getting late and we needed to get back to campus. However, we did take a small detour on our way to the bus stop to take some photos by a mural painted on the side of a nearby building.

The mural showed some of the biomes of Australia such as the marine life depicted by the Great Barrier Reef and the mountains of the Daintree Rainforest. The colors and the images were far too aesthetic for us to pass up a little photo opportunity.