At least I had a day of leisure in the heat of Cairns - we had a picnic on the grass near the water, and generally took it easy. On Wednesday I was picked up by Raging Thunder at 4.30am. Quick tip - north Queensland may be tropical, but in the small hours of the morning it's absolutely freezing. We drove for an hour out to the Atherton Tablelands, and watched the balloons being inflated as the sky turned from pink to blue. Our group then took it in turns to ride, half an hour for each group of twelve.
Ballooning is a strange experience.
I got in the basket, the burner roared on with a lovely heat and then the balloon was sailing up with an incredibly smooth motion. The scenery started opening up around us and objects became smaller until we reached a settling point about 2500ft up. The sensation when I looked over the edge of the basket was bizarre - it felt like this contraption should be plummeting through the air, but somehow we were just sitting there, barely shifting an inch. I'd have picked rafting over it. In the afternoon I was deposited at Kuranda, an attractive, touristy village with markets boasting more Australian souvenirs than you could ever hope to bring home to England.