We first glimpsed the atolls from five miles high: Turquoise patches stitched onto a green sheet, and the even darker green of the rain forest and mangrove swamps.
Cairns is a thriving city with a population of about 145 000, spread out without congestion across a strip of plain between dense tropical forest and the Pacific Coast of Australia's Queensland state. It boasts an international airport, and so is ideal as the first or last port-of-call for the visitor to Australia. And though it does