Australia (Part 2b) - Eastern Coast Continued
Australia (Part 2b) - Eastern Coast ContinuedMarch/April 2001
A few weeks after my skydive over Fraser Island, a 9 year old kid was attacked and killed there by the local dingoes. There was uproar and demands to kill them all (the dingoes, not the tourists), but a selected "cull" by Aborigine trackers removed the 'culprits'. How could they tell which dingoes did the attacking? Did they have signs hung around their necks saying "I DID IT!"? The tourists still pour onto the island to suffer the occasional bite and have their food stolen at night.
Sugar cane plantations surround Bundaberg on the ‘Capricorn Coast’. It is famous for its 'Bundy Rum’, which is produced from molasses, a rich, black heavy liquid which is a by-product of sugarcane when it is converted into sugar. Molasses was pumped directly from the sugarcane factory to the distillery, added to yeast and piped into fermenting tanks and left for 36 hours. Warehouses full of these smelt like silage. Then it was pumped into another area where high-pressure steam was forced through it to produce alcoholic vapour at the top. This vapour was condensed and stored in a pot still which looked like a giant kettle. This was repeated to up the alcoholic content and then the condensed vapour was transferred to the 'raw rum receiver', and into huge storage vats of Canadian white oak, containing 60,000 litres each. It is then left to mature for 2 years. I felt like staying in this place two years myself.
Pure rum is actually white, but is coloured by chocolate caramel to give it its familiar black colour. This rum colouring occurred by accident back in the 17th century. The English ships used to haul out port to the Americas and bring back rum to England, which was very fashionable. But the port stained the wooden vats and the rum would appear in England, tainted black. People got used to this colour and thought that white rum was not the real thing, which is why you rarely see white rum. That also explains that however much Barcadi Rum spends on its commercials, noone drinks the stuff.
In the early days of the distillery, the rum was pumped through a pipe underground at the edge of a river, but some local fisherman discovered the pipeline and put a small hole in it to get a free supply. They were caught 3 years later (unconscious I would think). Now the rum is piped above the ground. The distillery burnt down in 1939 and the fire lasted 3 days. We had an excellent entertaining tour of the manufacturing process with free samples at the end. It was the best rum I'd ever tasted. Unfortunately, it is not exported. They barely keep up with the Australian demand.
From Bundaberg onwards, we would see endless green sugarcane plantations all the way to Cairns. It would be harvested between June and September. Every town seemed to have a Sugar cane factory but tours were only available during the harvest season. During my last visit, I had seen the cane being harvested in lovely sunshine. There were cane trains hauling the stuff out and the roads were full of cane dust.
Gladstone was a large port just south of Rockhampton with the cheapest petrol in Australia at 78 cents a litre (27p at the current exchange rate). There were vast freight trains pulling, what seemed, miles of trucks full of coal heading for the port. It also boasted the World's largest alumina plant and Australia's largest cement kiln. Like we cared. Just fill the campervan up mate.
The grand metropolis of Rockhampton (65,000) is located on the 'Tropic of Capricorn'. Sitting astride the Fitzroy River, it is known as the "Beef Capital of Australia" because the region's cattle reach 3.5 million head in a normal year. The breeds in this area are Brahman, Braford and Belmont Red. It was strange to see Indian cows in Australia. To make sure that everyone knows that it knows its beef, there are giant fibreglass models of the bull breeds as you enter the town. Over the years, these have been become the victim of student pranks and the awesome genitals often disappear after a heavy Friday night. Only to be dutifully replaced and welded back on by a hapless council worker the following week. They must have a stockroom labelled 'Bulls' Balls'.
Rockhampton also had some lovely Botanical Gardens and a small free zoo with the usual suspects - wallabies, dingoes, emus, cassowaries, a crocodile, a koala and a poor monkey with the worst case of haemorrhoids I've ever seen. I thought he was sitting on a red cushion until I realised it was his backside. Oo-er!
On a Saturday afternoon, as with most Australian towns, Mackay was closed. We headed inland through the lovely Pioneer Valley, full of sugar cane fields and surrounded by the subtropical forests lying atop the Eungella Range. We were headed for the Eungella National Park to go 'platypus spotting'. The mist descended over the mountains, and the rain poured down as we climbed up a steep narrow twisty road to the hamlet of Eungella. The tiny campsite lay right on the edge of the hill.
Despite the torrential downpour around dusk, we made for the Broken Hill River to the Platypus 'observation' deck. Platypus are very shy nocturnal creatures and about the only famous Australian species that I had never seen in the wild. The local regional mascot was called 'Pudgy the Platypus'. Cute or what?
When the first platypus was sent to England back in 1798, it was called a "fake" because the "flat-footed, duck-like animal" seemed to be made up of spare parts. Once proposed as the missing link between reptiles and mammals, the furry creature (a monotreme, whatever that is) has characteristics of both. It lays soft-shelled eggs and suckles its young. The male duck-billed platypus has a poisonous spur on his hind legs. It grows to about 50cm and lives in burrows and finds food in the rivers using electrical impulses over river territories stretching as far as 7km. They have only been successfully bred in captivity twice.
In the growing darkness, with the rain hitting the river, it was difficult to see much, but across the river I could see some burrows at water level. Then, what looked like a 2 foot long brown stick, swam just below the surface. Another came closer to the observation deck and stuck its bill out of the water a few times. A few river turtles scuttled around. We were the only people there. It was raining cats, dogs and platypus. Mission accomplished, we returned to sit in our van and listen to the rain hit the roof all night (as you do).
The following morning, woken up by a kookaburra with a megaphone connected to its beak, the sun had returned and we had a spectacular view down over the valley from our site. It was a fabulous location for a campsite but very sparten considering the possibilities. There are lots of lovely short walks you can do around the Eungella National Park and we chose to do the longest one - the Credition Creek Trail, through the soaking wet rainforests along the Broken River. Big mistake. We had barely got 3 miles when I noticed that two black leeches had attached themselves to my ankle. I burnt them off, but Jo was off and running back like a proper girlie to avoid anymore. 4 more leeches on the way back slimed me. They were relentless. By the time I got back to the van I had blood running down my legs into my running shoes. Despite this, I'd really recommend Eungella National Park as an excellent place to spend a couple of days. Quiet, beautiful, definite sightings of Platypus and off the main tourist agenda.
Finch Hatton Gorge in the valley before you rise to Eungella is another lovely area. You have to ford 3 rivers to get there (driving through a foot of fast moving water) but there are some nice waterfalls, places to swim and plenty of plump goanna lizards running about.
Onwards, north up the Whitsunday Coast to Airlie Beach - the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, which Captain Cook named on what he thought, was Whitsunday in 1770. But he'd forgotten the international dateline and was a day out. I mean how do you forget something like that. Even in 1770. I ask you. I'd come to do some more diving - Scuba Doobie Doo! There were very cheap boat trips out to the Great Barrier Reef and Whitsunday islands, so I signed aboard for a 'Pro-Dive' 10 dive trip over 3 days and 2 nights and also signed up to do the next scuba diving qualification, to become a 'Rescue Diver'. I also finally bought a proper mask with prescription glass to improve my eyesight underwater.
I spent a day at training school doing the module based, academic stuff - watching videos, listening to short lectures and taking the multi-answer exam. In the afternoon, I did a pool session with an instructor going through the various practical skills. These included the rescuing of an exhausted diver, a panicking diver, and an unconscious diver on the surface giving mouth to mouth and finally an unconscious diver underwater. Here, they had to be brought to the surface, then if necessary, given mouth to mouth, while removing their gear and your gear and then lifted out of the water onto a boat. It was very demanding day and I left exhausted. Two hours later, I boarded the boat heading out. I would complete the course on board.
"Emerging from a sapphire expanse of the Coral Sea, the volcanic coastal range and tropical islands of Australia’s Whitsunday’s are elements forged of fantasy. This is a realm where flooded mountains rise from mirror seas to be wrapped in rainforest sunsets", so preached the Oz tourist board literature and it was complete bollocks. For starters, a cyclone was holding off the coast and the mirror seas were very choppy. It rained all the time and I thought the Indonesian islands were far superior in beauty.
On the first night out, the stormy weather forced our spacious 28m long by 8m wide catamaran boat to take shelter behind 'Hook Island' and the skipper abandoned any idea about heading to the Outer Barrier Reef. Of the 20 backpackers (mostly English, American, German and Swiss) doing basic/advanced courses, I was the only Rescue Diver and had to really work hard. The crew were enthusiastic and good value and the food was excellent. All you can eat helpings of tacos, lasagne, roast beef, salad and ice cream. After these meals, I'd have difficulty zipping up my wetsuit again.
Over the next 3 days, we motored around some of the 74 islands and holed up off Hayman Island, during which, I made 8 dives, without a guide. I'd just buddy up with someone and off we'd go exploring on a planned route. The stormy seas had churned up the seabed so visibility was so-so. The coral and fish types were average, but it was a great feeling to be independent at last. On the 2 night dives, I accompanied 2 other people and led them over the reefs using our torches and the full moon, which we could see below the clear water.
But in-between all this fun, I also had some strenuous training with Heidi my instructor to complete the Rescue Diver Course. I had to repeat all the exercises that I had done in the pool. Far more difficult when the waves are choppy. I also had to use a compass and use 'search patterns' underwater to find a missing diver. I managed to find the hidden object after about 20 minutes of going around in ever increasing squares.
On top of the training, I then had to then be on standby to react to real scenarios set up by the crew. So there I'd be, between dives, after lunch, relaxing upstairs on deck in the sun, and a crewmember would come running up screaming about a diver in trouble. Another crewmember would be in the water somewhere, pretending to be exhausted/in panic/drowning and I'd have to go through the motions. For the first couple of these, my old lifesaving skills as a swimmer got the better of me and my immediate reaction was just to dive off the boat in my bathers and bring in the diver as a lifeguard. But to pass the course, you had to don scuba gear first before entering the water, no matter how long it took, while alerting crewmembers what you wanted them to do. Your own safety always came first.
With an exhausted diver, you approach them slowly in the water and 6 ft away from them, say "Are you Ok? I can help you". If they respond you then approach and get them back to the boat. With a panic-stricken diver, with flaying arms and legs, you give the same message and then swim underwater, come up behind them and grab their tank with your knees and try and calm them down. Nick, a young Kiwi instructor loved being the panicky diver and trying to push my head underwater. After about 3 of these runs, as I approached my message was "Are you OK?. You'd better be Nick, because I'm here to drown you if I have to do another one of these bloody things".
On the final morning, I had a final full scenario, which took about an hour. I got about 50% right and after feedback about what I'd done right and wrong and suggestions on improvement, Heidi felt that I should repeat the whole exercise again before she would be satisfied. It was exhausting to try and remember every stage and what to do - from finding a missing diver underwater, bringing them up to the surface, giving mouth to mouth to getting them back on board to administer oxygen, but my endeavours paid off and I passed the course.
Back on land that evening where some of us had a farewell drink, I was so mentally exhausted that Jo told Heidi that she'd never seen me looking so beat. A couple of days later, I attended a one day basic first aid course as part of the course and was finally acclaimed a 'Rescue Diver'. It was a very satisfying feeling that all the hard work had finally paid off. I now also had 35 dives under my belt. Not bad considering I'd only taken up the sport 6 months ago.
While I was out on the boat, Jo had taken some flying lessons up the coast. We re-united for a half-day horse riding session in the bush at Cedar falls. It was rather disappointing, since we were stuck with a few beginners and also treated like beginners. In the boggy terrain, we trailed around some of the hinterland past a few waterholes and never even got the horses into a trot. This episode put us off the idea of a 'farm stay' to ride horses. Still, I finally got to ride a stockhorse with the thinner, flatter saddle, which is far more comfortable than the solid English ones. Everything I'd been taught in English riding lessons had to be ignored. You just put your toes in the stirrups and kept your legs out straight in front of you. Unlike England, you didn't kick the horse but used the reins.
At one waterhole, the horse owner told us the recent story of someone that had dived in off the rocks, hit his head and drowned. His body had still not surfaced after 2 days. The local police had cordoned off the area while waiting but decided on the third day, bored, decided to go for a 'liquid lunch'. While they were gone, a couple of families turned up, ignored the yellow tape and went for a dip. Suddenly the body popped up in the middle of them, which was, according to our man, "about as welcome as a turd appearing in a spa pool".
We also got to try the new local fruit being developed. It is called a 'lemonade'. It has a green lime skin, a fleshy interior like an orange, but tastes of weak lemon. Coming to your stores in the near future.
Bowen is the fruit picking capital of the north and is famous for its tomatoes and mangoes and 'the man who wears his undies over his trousers'. Don't ask. I had lost my last pair at Airlie Beach (as you do) but unfortunately never saw this man to see if I could borrow his. Bowen also had some of the nicest secluded beaches you'll find in Queensland and as the 'Mural capital of the mainland' had a town centre full of painted murals depicting scenes from old Bowen. All this and not a sign of a backpacker.
We hardly stopped in Townsville. It is the sprawling administrative, commercial and manufacturing centre of northern Queensland with 130,000 people. Off shore lies the very popular Magnetic Island, which I had visited before and seen my only wild koala bear. But it was now just another developed suburb which you reached by boat and we didn't bother.
Ingham calls itself the 'Aussie-Italian Capital of Oz' - which sounded like a desperate attempt to get tourists to visit. It looked like every other small Australian town, nothing like Italy and I didn't see one Godfather or little old lady dressed in black, milling around amongst the supposedly Italian population. Forrest Beach nearby was much nicer - the 'forgotten beach resort'. You could say that. The lovely quiet deserted location had 12-km kilometres of sandy beaches surrounded by tree-lined lagoons. We were the only tourists staying in the campsite of permanent people who were catching so much fish that they came round to offer us freebies to BBQ.
What Ingham does have to offer however, if you push inland, is the spectacular Wallaman Falls, which lie in the middle of the rainforests of Lumholtz National Park, and part of the 'Wet Tropics World Heritage' area. You leave the sugarcane plantations, drive along dusty roads with cows standing in the middle of them and climb up a steep twisty empty forest road until you reach the lookout. Across the gorge, Stony Creek tumbles 70m off the cliff and then hits another ledge to fall a further 268m in a clear drop to the pool below. At 301m, these are definitely the largest permanent single drop waterfalls in Australia and one of the most spectacular sights you will see.
The drop was so long that the white water tumbling over the edge seemed to fall in slow motion with cascades of brilliant white water overlapping each other as spray all the way down. Set against the blue sky and the sheer barren red and green mossy covered cliffs of the Gorge, the vista was surrounded by wet tropical rainforest, vine thickets, tropical heathlands and euclypst forests. It was a magical sight and we had the place to ourselves. We tackled the 'Falls Trail', a steep twisty 2-km path down through the rainforest into the gorge to the foot of the falls. There, with the spray in our faces, we looked up at the water descending above us. On the track heading up, a 2ft long narrow black and yellow tree snake scuttled across our path before climbing a tree. I'd never seen that sight before.
Back on the coast, the rainforest-covered Hitchinbrook Island is the world's largest island National Park and from a viewpoint looking out at the island, its majestic mountains were very tempting to visit. But a limited number of people are allowed to walk and camp along its 32km trail at any one time. It was full and we had no camping gear anyway.
Tully is supposedly the 'wettest place' in Australia with an annual average of 4.5 metres. When we visited, they were complaining this year that they were at missing at least a metre which should have fallen by now. Eat your heart out England. The beautiful twisting, rocky Gorge that leads down from the mountains into Tully is always full of water and consequently, since my last visit, it had become the 'Whitewater Capital of Oz' and the most popular place to do some white-water rafting. I hadn't done any rafting since 1986 in New Zealand, which had been, so awesome in Skippers Canyon, near Queenstown, that I felt it would never be bettered. But I thought, what the hell, I'll have another go. I was sold on the rafting company's award last year when it had won the 'Best One Day Adventure Activity' in Australia.
The rafting takes place through the beautiful Cardstone National Park and passes through impassable rainforest, spectacular volcanic gorges and over rapids up to Grade 5. The 'Raging Thunder' company must be making a fortune because over 60,000 people do the trip every year. It is the most rafted river in Australia. Estuarine crocodiles inhabit the river but mostly down stream.
My last rafting in NZ had involved only 2 rafts. This time, they were bussing the backpackers in from as far away as Cairns and Townsville for the day. By the time the coachloads disembarked and we put on our red lifejackets, blue helmets, grabbed an oar, assembled by our instructor and piled into the yellow reinforced rubber rafts, there were 20 vessels each filled with 8 multi nationalities and a guide, lined up for the run today. Far too many. I was now a fully paid up member of the backpacker circuit.
Nevertheless, I had a couple of advantages. I'd been put into a raft with 5 Danish guys and a 1 Swiss bloke. We were the only all male boat (no girlies to worry about!) and our 30 something instructor/guide called Trev, had just won the Australian Rafting Championship last month, so at least I was with the best in the country.
Before we took off, we got a brief lesson in paddling forward, backward, everybody over on the right, left, back on the job and 'Down!', where we hunched down in the raft with our paddles sticking up when we would go over the worst rapids.
The system of rafting with so many people was that a few would negotiate the first rapid, then hang around downstream for the rest to come down. This provided them with a security blanket to pick up people who had fallen in, or catch lost paddles. Different groups would take turns to go first. It slowed down proceedings immensely and usually it could take over 20 minutes to get everybody through each rapid, while someone videoed or photographed the action for later purchase. I could see that it would be a long day to travel only 14km down a very choppy river.
The first rapid was called 'Alarm clock' - a nice one to wake everybody up. We got through that ok and hung around to watch the others and laugh at the occasional Japanese tourist getting hurtled out of their raft into the whitewater. It was 'controlled' fun. They were lifted into the raft almost immediately. Trev could see that we were up for it and whenever possible got us to the front to 'test' the rapids. We would do the most difficult pass over some rapids and if we survived, the others would follow. If we lost someone, they took an easier pass. After that first confidence builder, we came a right cropper on the second called 'Double Waterfall'. It was a steep descent over a vicious torrent of water and we were buffeted against a mixture of currents that resulted in 4 of our team being thrown out. A record that was not beaten that day.
Successful through "The Staircase" we were back in control, if very wet. A long smooth stretch called "Foreplay" led to a cauldron of frothy water called "Wet and Moisty". Trev pulled us up. "Are we going for this one?" Cries of approval. So we all piled into the front third of the boat, sat on the edge with our arms around our neighbours' shoulders and over we went. It was a 7ft waterfall and inevitably when the raft hit the bottom, it sprang back up and we all got thrown out together as a mass of bodies. I lost a shoe (reclaimed later downstream), and was relieved that my glasses were tied to my head with string.
I suppose in retrospect that it was often as much fun to watch the other guides leading their doom-stricken victims over the rapids and laugh at the results. The Japanese were clueless and got popped out of the rafts at various intervals like champagne corks and they loved every minute of it. There was a good party atmosphere and everyone got into the spirit.
The scenery was lovely on this rare sunny day at this time of year. Old volcanic cliffs with sheer faces on either side, covered in luscious rainforest. Cormorant birds sunned themselves on rocks along with the odd turtle. I had plenty of time to take it all in, during the welcome lapses between rapids. Some lovely waterfalls poured off the cliffs. 'Disappearing Waterfalls' was a large fall at the top and then it dropped and seemed to disappear behind a ledge and only a trickle reached the river. 'Champagne Falls' cascaded over various edges like one of those champagne glass fountains where you pour it in at the top of a pyramid and it glides over the other glasses.
After a huge all-you-could eat hamburger and salad lunch, there was a spot of sunbathing while I watched the huge 3" 'Blue Emerald' butterflies fluttering around, attracted by our blue helmets and a possible mate. We had only covered 5km of river and things speeded up thereafter.
All my team-mates were first timers and didn't know what to expect. Trev, had secretly decided that his skills should be utilised to force everyone, but everyone out of our raft sometime in the afternoon, At regular intervals, Trev would roar "Forward paddle! Hard forward paddle! Come On! HARD". Everyone had their head down paddling for their lives expecting to hit a rapid. But we would actually be headed for a large rock sticking out of the riverbed. Then, suddenly, we would crash into it, and the raft, crushed against the rock, would tip sideways, spring back and anyone not looking, got the surprise of their lives as they were thrown out. "Well" Trev would say with a completely straight face, "What happened there?" as he winked at me and helped pull in a dazed Danishmen and always, always, the Swiss guy. I nearly peed myself laughing so hard. And they fell for it endlessly.
We amused ourselves with these antics during the afternoon, completing further sets of rapids. Trev's piece d'resistence was at the 'Double-D Falls' (named after an unfortunate large chested girl who was flung out and lost her bikini top in the process). They were probably the roughest waterfalls and rapids on the day and as we approached, Trev steered the raft so we went over them sideways (not a good idea at the best of times). When we hit a rock, the raft tipped and everyone was thrown out except for Trev and myself. I knew how to hold on with my feet and hands. "I can't believe you're still here" he laughed.
Everyone was pissed off that I hadn't fallen out. I did not see Trev signalling to a couple of the guys next to him that when we went over the final rapids called "Take Out", they should push me out of the raft. Over we went and I suddenly had 2 men and Trev all lunging at me. I grabbed hold of a rope, held on and all 3 of them tumbled out of the raft in the maelstrom. The Swiss guy also fell out in support. More wetting of pants laughing myself silly. The other rafts that were waiting for us were in hysterics watching the only 'guide' of the day fall out in spectacular fashion. As Trev climbed back in he mumbled "Shit. I'll owe a few beers for that one tonight". I laughed all the way to the finish. Thoroughly recommended.
The following day, Jo and I drove back up to the Gorge so that I could show her the scenery and take some photos of the rapids. But it poured with rain and looked miserable. From the cliffs, I could see today's groups going through the motions beneath me. It had been such a beautiful day yesterday and I felt very lucky.
This is Australia 1: Just outside Tully, I saw a strange traffic sign that said "This road does not go to Townsville". Eh? Only in Australia were there signs telling you where you were not going. Inevitably, there was no additional sign to tell you where you were actually headed. Real helpful. Not!
This is Australia 2: There is a well-known morning radio presenter called John Laws. He gets to interview all the politicians on his talk show (including John Howard the Prime Minister) and gets the usual sad callers airing their woes. Such is his popularity that the show is syndicated most mornings around the country on local radio stations and we would occasionally find him warbling on as we drove along. One day we tuned in to hear that he had been sent a letter by a 4 year old whose mother had written that she had lost her Teddy Bear last weekend on a picnic somewhere in Queensland. The bear was called "Katie bear" and had 'Katie' sown across its chest. So old Lawsy picked up on this, was touched and put out an immediate plea on the radio to everyone in Queensland to find it. He got the mother to call in and he talked to the little girl who told him where she lost it and what it was like and how sad she was etc. "How many bears have Katie sown on their chest for godssake" he bellowed to the audience. "We need to find it". There's nothing like dealing with the important issues of the day that can't wait for a Teddy Bear. Unfortunately, we didn't pick him up for a few days and never learnt if Katie Bear was discovered. But it didn't matter anyway for Katie Bear was still being dragged behind our campervan on a piece of string! Ha-Ha! OK so I lied about the last bit.
We stopped to take a photo of a banana plantation with the shrouded misty mountains behind and a plantation foreman was passing on his Quadbike (a small 4-wheel multi-terrain vehicle - all the rage here) and asked if we wanted to learn about the plantation. For the next 30 minutes, we were given a fascinating introduction into the techniques of farming bananas. Please feel free to skip the next 3 paragraphs if bananas do not do anything for you!
Banana trees live for about a year. They are self-pollinating and a "shooter" grows out next to the main stem to replace the first stem, which then dies off. They allow 3 generations of plant to grow on the plantations - grandfather, father and shooter. This plantation of 350 acres grew Cavindish bananas, special to Queensland and grown for the domestic market. They are grown in lines like pineapples with 12ft 'drills' between them, so that the workers can drive up and down between the lines on Quadbikes to attend them.
The bananas grow as 'bells' with numerous 'fingers' (bunches) of bananas growing off the main bell stalk. This man was going around and injecting the ends of the bells with an insect repellent and to halt the bell's growth so that the existent fingers would produce much better bananas. When the bells had bananas growing, they would be covered in a plastic bag. After injection, and other processes, they would get different coloured bags to indicate what stage the plant was up to. I had wondered why there were thousands of plastic bags on the crops in Queensland.
It took 3 months in the summer and 4 in the winter for the bananas to mature and there were two growing seasons. Banana trees need a lot of water - about 80 litres a day each - which was why plantations surrounded Tully. There is currently a high demand for Australian bananas since flooding has recently destroyed many of the South American plantations.
His bike had a large tank of insecticide connected to a long metal rod and a syringe at the end. He would poke it into each bell and give it a squeeze. The man reckoned it was 27km to drive up and down the drills on the plantation and he had to stop every 6-ft to inspect the trees. But it was now a lot easier. Before Quad bikes, they hauled 5 litre cans of insecticide on their backs and walked around! It was very muddy around the trees and your feet squelched around. The friendly chatty man dressed in bushhat, shorts, T-shirt and gaiters over his boots, had been working here for 4 years and it was his first job since leaving the Australian army after 25 years. He loved it and despite the mud, he found it both fascinating and rewarding to improve the yield every year. His enthusiasm was infectious. All this information and just because we'd happen to catch him on his "smoko" break.
It’s ok. You can come out now. The bananas have gone.
Misson Beach near Tully had been my favourite beach in Australia on my last visit. Miles of brilliant white sand with a lush palm tree/tropical rainforest backdrop and a few small hamlets. I was pleasantly surprised that despite talk about developing it into a major tourist capital, it had never really happened. In fact, most of the place seemed to be up for sale. I would see better beaches around Australia on this trip, but it was still a nice place to return to. Off shore, lies the small green tropical forest Dunk Island. I had caught a speedboat out there and camped under the palm trees. Now a major resort had taken over the island.
Just outside Mission beach, we saw our first wild cassowary birds. These are strange looking specimens - large flightless Emu like birds with brightly coloured blue plumage and an unusual looking 'crown' atop their heads which looks like a second beak or horn that never evolved. As with most other beautiful Aussie wildlife, they are on the endangered list, mainly due to the voracious destruction of their tropical habitats. We were fortunate enough to spot a mother and large baby bird, before I ran them over to get Cassowary on my road kill list (a joke!).
It was the start of the long Easter weekend, and at 1pm, I was randomly breathalized at a police roadblock. A first! "But I've only had a few ales officer" I mentioned, as it indicated green (see the movie 'Withnail & I' for quote and reference). "Bugger Off" they replied.
Cairns with 87,000 people is the tropical hub and 'Gateway' to the Great Barrier Reef, World Heritage Forests, Atherton Tablelands and the Far North. As one of Australia's most popular tourist Mecca’s, it had grown dramatically since my last visit and looked like a large grid-like American town by the coast. Apparently there are now over 40 backpacker hostels here alone. Everyone that visits Australia usually has Cairns on the itinerary. It poured with rain all Easter weekend and was very quiet. I caught a cold. "Come to sunny bloody Queensland they said" I'd say to everyone as I sniffed away. We would spend a week in the area and it rained continually. Which wasn't nice.
Originally, I'd fancied another 3 day scuba diving trip out to the Great Barrier Reef, but the sea was so choppy, that all the operators were resigned to admitting that "visibility out there is shit at the moment. Come back in 10 days".
We decided to push on northwards to uncharted territory for me. There is a beautiful quiet narrow coastal road (the 'Captain Cook Highway') from Cairns to Port Douglas with plunging rainforests hugging the Coral Sea coastline on one side and stunning coastal views of pristine beaches on the other. I’d say it is one of the most scenic roads in Oz.
Since 1985, Port Douglas had developed from a sleepy resort into a major centre and even ex-President George Bush Sr. had taken a holiday here. As he left, he apparently commented "Read My lips. No more package holidays in Queensland". George Dubya Bush, his son and latest President, still doesn't know where Queensland is.
The small settlement of Daintree lies next to the World Heritage listed Daintree National Park. I must admit that by now, I had seen so much tropical rainforest in Queensland that it was all starting to look the same. But we walked some trails in the rain and failed to get leeched. Mossman Gorge was a lovely spot for walking, picnics and swimming (in the sun!)
We passed through Mossman, a "charming little cane town with original Queenlander buildings and pretty tree lined streets" (it said in the tourist blurb). Moss and epiphytes hung in profusion from the large trees, "flimsy, wispy, natural drapes - tangible evidence of the high rainfall and humidity experienced here". No shit, I thought as we left the place in pouring rain.
Most of the road up to Cooktown had now been sealed. The start was a lovely stretch climbing up 1000ft to a plateau covered in woodland and grazing cattle. The warning roadsides had a black silhouette picture of a car being upended by a cow. They must be bloody big cows around here. From the top, we could gaze back down over the endlessly stretching Daintree National Park. The road was virtually empty and it was nice to be away from the major tourist circuit again. At a roadhouse, where we got petrol, there were only three magazines for sale: "Guns", "Fishing" and "Horse Deals". My kinda place! We stayed at the hamlet of Lakeland overnight before tackling the final unsurfaced 60km to Cooktown. Positioned next to a river, there were warning signs about crocodiles suggesting that swimming was not a good option.
Shock horror. The next morning it wasn't raining. The unsurfaced road was dusty gravel, but pretty smooth. There were a few interesting potholes and corrugations to negotiate around. It was obvious that this road was flooded during much of the year, but today, if a 4WD vehicle roared past us, red dust filled the air and visibility disappeared completely for a few seconds. We were not unended by any rogue cows but did see a strange looking grey/white tailless lizard thing lumbering across the road. Creepy!
They are still attempting to completely seal this road, and an expensive bridge had just been constructed over the largest river. Unfortunately, the State spent all its money on the bridge and nothing left for the road which is now due to be completed in 2005. It is a strange experience to be hobbling down the dusty track, see a gleaming new concrete bridge that has no road leading to it. You pass parallel to it on the old low-level wooded ricketey single-track job and then return to the dusty track. Queensland meets Cambodian planning.
250km north of Cairns, Cooktown is the last major settlement in Queensland and still a few hundred kilometres from the tip at Cape Tribulation. Back in the heady days of 1770, Captain Cook's ship the 'Endeavour' was stranded here on coral reefs and he was forced to hole up and repair it. They spent 3 months here and it was his only major base on the first Australian voyage (Botany Bay doesn't count - they only had a couple of days there before the unfriendly aborigines frightened them off!). It was here that Joseph Banks, the botanist collected his first famous 186 species of plants and flowers, sketched his first kangaroo and the crew made contact with the local friendly aborigines who looked after them and explained what a BBQ was. It was the first tangible proof to the Mother Country that Australia was a strange wonderful place and had the potential to host Bob Jack and the Olympics one day. This reputation has only just been tarnished after the world was forced to watch Paul Hogan in "Crocodile Dundee in LA". It could all be downhill from here.
Consequently, Cooktown claims to be Australia's first British settlement. In 1874, before Cairns even existed, it was the second largest settlement in Queensland. A year before, a gold rush in the Far North had sparked a flood of hopeful miners who sailed into the port. There were equal numbers of pubs and brothels (94) in a flourishing town of 30,000. But the gold disappeared within ten years as did the people, and regular cyclones in the last century and evacuation during World War Two nearly killed it off.
Today, it is a sleepy, spacious town of 1400 people and 3 pubs with 100ft wide streets and no traffic. There were a few splendid 1880s buildings and pubs/hotels as a reminder of the goldrush days. Set by the Endeavour River, it was devoid of foreign tourists, but a healthy number of Easter weekend fishermen were up there for excellent fishing. The bounty is so huge, they have to set weight and length limits to the types of fish, which can be kept or thrown back. There was a bronze statue of Cook and various historical information boards. I was amazed to read that it had a Pearl fishing fleet (as in catching oysters) but in 1899, when they were all at sea, a terrible storm wiped out 39 of the 40 boats. 240 out of 267 fisherman lost their lives in one night. Incredible.
The Captain Cook Historical Museum was getting a face-lift. This was no doubt in preparation for the promised sealed road and the ever-expanding backpacking/tourist circuit, which is bound to discover this town when access is easier. By no means unmissable, I found the town a quaint return to a time before Queensland became a mass tourist destination. If you ever reach Cairns, I'd recommend a visit. But make it fast. Ten years from now, it will look like Port Douglas and Bill Clinton will be here looking for underage girls.
Back in Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef beckoned. What can you say about it. It is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The biological and geological complexity of the reef makes it the richest marine habitat on earth. The reef is only 2 million years old but has a fragile and extremely complex ecosystem. The vast complex of over 2900 separate reefs extends 2500km down the Queensland coast. It is almost the size of Texas and apparently can be seen from the moon (by whom?).
I had previously had a day snorkelling over it in 1985 on a daytrip, which left from Port Douglas. But this time I wanted to dive. The weather was still wet and windy and a 3-day trip seemed pointless. I compromised with Jo. We'd go out on a day boat that allowed me to do a couple of dives and which also offered her a free attempt at doing a dive.
The thing you need to realise about my travel partner Joanne is that she is absolutely terrified by fish! Oh yes. You can stick a spider or snake in front of her and she won't flinch. Leeches excepted. But put her near a fish, the smell of a fish or even thought of a fish and she's not a happy bunny. I didn't get to eat a lot of fish on this trip for this reason. But she had seen how I'd taken to scuba like a fish and I'd massaged her fears by saying things like "Look you'll be wearing a wetsuit and a mask. The fish can't touch you, and they don't anyway because if you tried to touch them, they dart away etc etc". What the hell, she bravely thought, I can't come to Australia and not see the Great Barrier Reef even if it is Fish Central and the lesson is free and I can pull out at any moment.
So off we went on the first bright sunny day in Cairns we had seen. 'Reef Magic' was a very professional operation. A fast luxurious boat which was only half full on our trip. We motored out 90 minutes from Cairns in choppy seas, rough enough to have a few punters losing their breakfasts over board. Saxon Reef was a small kilometre wide coral atoll. We moored up in the middle of it and I donned my scuba gear while Jo got the low-down about her experience to come.
I jumped off the boat and dived under with 4 others and a guide. The water was 29'c and I didn't bother with a wetsuit. Visibility was so-so and the coral looked strangely uncolourful after Vanuatu's reefs. But the dive was memorable for three things. We had seen one turtle swim past, but I saw a larger green leatherback turtle grazing on soft coral. It was literally pulling great tuffs of coral off the reef and munching it. I spent 5 minutes with the turtle about 3ft away. It didn't move. A little later, I saw a stingray chase a cuttlefish off the sand - it went the speed of roadrunner. Then we saw another large cuttlefish hovering over some coral. We approached it slowly. Cuttlefish are large squid like objects over a foot in length, with large eyes. It didn't move which was surprising because they are very territorial and will attack you if you get too close. But this one stayed put. Our guide Mark began to stroke it gently on its back and I gradually moved in to do the same. It was the closest I'd ever come to a cuttlefish and how I wished I'd had an underwater camera that day. What a Kodak moment. I also saw a large ugly green moray eel with its sharp teeth looking very menacing.
Surfacing, I discovered the trainees going through their paces. But where was Jo? She still had her gear on, but had pulled out. Her mask kept filing up, she didn't like sitting on a ramp off the back of the boat with 30ft of water beneath her and "For Christ's Sake, there's Fish everywhere" she concluded. Rather unfairly I thought. But she was brave to give it a go. Just before an excellent all-you-can-eat lunch, and I had done some snorkelling, we took a glass bottom boat so that Jo could actually see something of the reef. But it was nothing like being down there. Good enough for Jo though.
My second dive was equally interesting in a different way. Another guide took just me and a Yank down so show us "some different stuff". We dropped down to 14m and swam around the outer edge of the atoll, where Mark would point out tiny specimens of marine life, the sort of stuff you'd usually miss looking for the larger stuff. A white tubeworm was a strange animal with long tentacles like white spaghetti that would pull in the tentacles when you touched them. Fern anoemies closed their leaves when you touched them like a Venus flycatcher and there were a variety of nudibranches. It was a revelation to me to actually touch things like soft coral without the worry about getting stung. When I had snorkelled off the Reef in 1985, I had been stung so badly in the feet by red tipped fire coral that I couldn't walk for 2 days. This had put me off touching anything I wasn't sure about underwater.
Other species we spotted were a long narrow yellow trumpet fish, pufferfish, a huge green spotted barrimundi cod hiding in a small cave and a unicorn fish with a long pointed nose. We did a few 'swim thoughs' through coral caves and near the end of the dive came across a 3-ft long giant clam and a white-tipped reef shark. We stayed underwater for 50 minutes and it was one of my most interesting dives. In just two dives, I felt I'd seen the best that the reef had to offer. But I'd love to return and spend a whole week exploring different reefs.
After that most excellent day, Kuranda in the rain had to be a letdown. It started as a small village in the hills above Cairns in the tropical rainforests and there was a scenic railway ride up to it, which I'd ridden before. In the pouring rain, Jo abandoned the idea of catching the train and we drove up into the hills instead through the fog. We stopped at the famous Baron Falls, which was a long forked waterfall tumbling a few hundred feet over the sloping rocky cliffs. All the tourist photos portray it as a spectacular, gushing wall of water. It looked nothing like the photo and I discovered later that there is a dam at the top and they only let the water out when the tourist train pulls in once a day. What a con.
While walking around the wooden boards on a short hike near the lookout, we came across the largest spider I'd ever seen. Its web was spun about 4ft square between some bushes - at head height. In the middle of the web, sat this huge 6" brown spider with bright yellow dots along its long legs. I nearly walked into the web face first. When you blew on the spider it scuttled around. I don't know if it was poisonous, but we didn't wait to find out. Kuranda was one big tourist trap of shops selling everything you'd never need. We took one look and headed home. It didn't help that it was raining so hard there was a foot of water in the gutters. A complete washout.
Finally, Cairns was where we had to make some major decisions. The infamous country of Papua New Guinea lies off Northern Queensland and access is via Cairns. I'd put PNG on my original list of countries to see but the feedback we got from everyone was the most negative I'd ever heard about somewhere. Comments like "I knew someone who went there and died from Malaria" and "Everyone gets mugged at the airport". Along with these horror stories, 'Time' magazine had recently run a long spread about the violence in the hills due to the drug smuggling trade. If I had handled Kashmir and West Timor which were supposedly off-limits, it couldn't be as bad as everyone tells me, I resolutely thought.
Enquiring at the Quantas office about flights, the staff said "It's too dangerous. We wouldn't sell you a ticket anyway". I used the internet to see if anyone had been there recently and someone said he'd been there for 2 weeks in one area without problems but it took ages to get around. There are few roads and you have to fly around the regions which makes the trip very expensive. The infrastructure was pretty ropy.
At the PNG Embassy in Cairns, a friendly man gave us a reasonable assessment and played down the reputation. "We don't get a lot of visitors but people seem to enjoy themselves if they are street-wise". We could get a visa within a day. Then at the Air New Guinea office, we discovered they were offering short 4 days breaks to different areas. It was also possible to put a couple of these trips together. So we spent half a day pouring over the possibilities and the prices and concluded that we'd hardly see anything there for the money spent. If I were ever going to see the place properly, I'd need at least a month and someone who was prepared to rough it. Jo was uninterested in this prospect so PNG got shelved for the future.
That decision made, the next one was simple. We'd drive right around Australia instead.
