Leaving Sydney
Sunday, July 23
Sydney, 6:20 PM
We woke up today to a beautiful morning, no clouds, therefore no rain, and a perfect tempurature. We walked over to the Power Museum, discovering on the way the Spanish restaurant section of town. Drat, we missed it last night, eating at a Greek restaurant about a block short of this area. It was fine, although extremely busy and loud.
On the way to the museum, we stopped at the Haymarket, a large indoor market. Hundreds of stalls selling tourist stuff, cloths, wigs, bonsai, animals. We picked up a few clothes for the family.
The museum is a science and industry type museum. We walked through it, but neither of us was particularly interested because we both were impatient to get on the plane and go. I guess we both would rather just go than wait around, even in an interesting place.
After we exhausted the museum, we wandered back through the market, and then over to Hyde Park. It was a perfect day out, clear blue skies, and the cathedral was very dramatic looming over the park. Of course, I didn't have our camera, it was packed away.
We walked some more, back to the hotel and are now in the airport waiting for our flight. We discovered on the way here that our flight stops in Honolulu. I didn't know that until just now.
We should be boarding in about half an hour. Twenty five hours from now we'll be back in Philadelphia. We can't wait. We have enjoyed Australia, but we're ready to
be home.
The Blue Mountains
Saturday, July 22
Sydney, 6:15 PM
We decided to take the train up to the Blue Mountains today, as we’ve seen most of what we wanted to see in Sydney. We’ll catch the Power Museum tomorrow while we wait for our departure. We went
to a town named Katoomba, about two hours out of Sydney. It is on a plateau above some steep cliffs around a series of valleys and waterfalls. It would have been more dramatic if it hadn’t been fog shrouded. We took a one hour trail to Katoomba Cascade, a waterfall. Muddy, but an easy hike.
After the hike, we took the expensive bus to the village of Leura for lunch. Leura is nicer than Katoomba, which was a bit worn down. Both are little tourist destinations, with both the good and bad that that entails. Then to the train and back to Sydney. Tomorrow we head home.
Sydney
Friday, July 2o
Sydney, 5:45 PM
We slept late, and got started about 9:00. It was raining, again, so we headed to the Australian Museum first after breakfast. The museum is a natural history of Australia collection. We began with the indigenous peoples exhibit, which concentrated on the more modern aspects of indigenous Australians and their interrelationship with the Europeans, both spiritually and politically. Aborigine refers to the original peoples of the mainland, while indigenous refers both to them and to the people of the Cape Torres Islands, which are a distinct culture. The original indigenous people had a spiritual belief that there was a good and evil component to the Dreamtime, tied closely with the land. Unfortunately, the early European missionaries didn’t catch on to the obvious corollary with Christianity, and that made the interaction of the indigenous and the Europeans even more difficult. I was surprised to find out that the indigenous Australians were in contact with other cultures prior to the settlement of Australia. Indonesian traders made contact with the northwest, and Portuguese and other mariners had limited contact prior to settlement.
After we left the museum we walked over to the Botanical Garden. It is right in the heart of Sydney. The sun came out at an opportune time and we walked to Mrs. MacQuarrie’s Point, which gave us a nice view of the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge.
We walked back toward the Opera House. It’s a nice walk, through a nicely laid out garden with spectacular views of the harbor. It wasn’t too crowded, either, although that might have been because of the recent rain. We spoke with a woman at the information center, who informed us that the exotic flying foxes that we had been so excited about in Cape Tribulation were a nuisance in Sydney, denuding trees of their leaves. Also the ibis is a complete pest, rats with wings.
We had stopped for lunch earlier at a cafe, where I overheard two men from one of our competitors talking about work. I tried to eavesdrop and pick up something juicy, but without the right context I couldn’t learn anything useful.
We found ourselves at the Opera House without a plan. We decided to walk to the Powerhouse Museum, it being around 2:3o. We started on our way, stopped for a drink and bought Jenny a shirt at an overpriced store. Sydney is very pleasant, but walking around Sydney, at least in this area, is no different than any high end shopping area in the U.S., or the world. Hermes, Polo, Prada, blah blah blah. Borders, Starbucks. Nice stuff but I don’t need to spend twenty five hours in transit to see it. The city is very attractive, but both of us are trying hard to figure out what we will do to fill the time the next couple of days.
It took us longer than we thought to walk to the Power Museum, so we’ll save that for tomorrow. Back to the hotel. I found an internet cafe where I could post to the blog. For some reason, I can’t make email send, although I can receive. Hmm. A problem for another day.
The Chinese Garden in Sydney
We see a platypus
Thursday, July 19
Sydney, 7:05 PM
Up early for our flight. A nice cab ride with Ahmed, who moved to Adelaide twenty years ago. He loves Adelaide. He sold his restaurant a few years ago, which made him comfortable, now he drives a cab for spending money. He says Adelaide has everything he wants.
An uneventful flight to Sydney. It was cloudy, so we couldn’t see anything on approach. Our hotel is just south of downtown, pretty conveniently located it seems. But, no internet access. We will have to figure out a way to post.
We walked over to Darling Harbour and the Sydney Aquarium. On the way we found the Chinese Garden, built in 1988. The garden is beautiful. Right in the middle of the city, so behind the tranquil vistas every once in a while a high rise will loom. At the entranceway, there is a striking display of Chinese style bonsai. I could tell it was a different style than Japanese, but I couldn’t explain what it different. Something new to learn. The garden was lovely, I can only imagine what it would look like when the plants weren’t dormant. Each deciduous tree was perfectly pruned for shape. They were full sized bonsai. The pruning cut back the end of the branch, so that there was a lot of branching at the end of each branch. I need to learn how to do this. One of the signs remarked that the trees near the water all lean toward the water, as part of the style, something to remember for the Japanese maple near the pond.
We then stopped at a coffee bar for some food. We were amused by the sight of an ibis being treated as an annoying pigeon in the coffee bar where we had a snack. Familiarity breeds contempt for the exotic. It began to rain just as we finished lunch, and it hasn’t really stopped yet. We got fairly damp by the time we got to the Aquarium. The highlight was the first exhibit - a platypus! We watched him or her swim around for about half an hour. They’re smaller than I thought, only a little more than a foot long. When they swim, they close their eyes and ears, so they make their way underwater by touch. It fed a little, plunging it’s bill into to bottom and using it to filter out food. They are fairly adept swimmers. A dark putty brown. It looks like an adorable pet, other than the poisonous claw.
The rest of the aquarium is pretty neat. It has several tank where you walk under the water in tunnels, so you feel as if you’re scuba diving. I wouldn’t know, but Jenny says its not really like diving. Nevertheless, the tanks are interesting. We also saw the staff feed a estuarine crocodile, on of the man-eaters from the Daintree. The first aquarist walks out with a large plywood shield that he holds before him, four feet by four feet. The crocodile, an eight foot female threw herself at the shield, and then raised herself up on her hind legs to snap at the guy. He pushed her back with the plywood, and she lunged at him again, up in the air right at his face. How do you learn how to do this job? While he is fending her off with the plywood, another aquarist offers up a fish skewered on a metal shaft to the crocodile, which grabs it, and the 2 inch metal bar holding the fish and snaps it off, yanking the young women holding the skewer towards it’s snapping jaws. The first aquarist pushed back with the plywood, and the crocodile retreated. The two staff members exchanged glances and then backed away from the beast. These are creepy creatures.
Our feet gave out around 4:30 and we began our walk back to the hotel. It was raining. A nice feature of the buildings in Sydney is that almost all of them have an awning to protect you, either from the rain or what I suspect is actually the real reason, the sun.
We relaxed in our room, Jenny becoming more exercised about the yahoos at Enron, and then tried to find dinner. We walked up to Oxford Street, which the hotel had said had a lot of cafes. Not really. A lot of clubs, bars and lounges, with bums, adult bookstores and massage parlors. We turned around and found a restaurant in a hotel near ours. The waitress asked us where we where from because she loved our accents. The place was empty, although we thought the food was fine, and the staff was certainly friendly. We had a pleasant meal, and headed home around 10:00. Tomorrow we’ll try the Australian Museum, and a walk through the Botanical Gardens. We think we’ll cancel our tour through the expensive suburbs, and the sail on the harbor. Tours just don’t do it for us.
Adelaide is nice
Wednesday, July 18
Adelaide, 5:30 PM
We changed our minds about Adelaide today. The area around our hotel is still dead at night, but Adelaide is charming. We slept late, and started walking about 10:00 am. We made our way to the Central Market, a big indoor market at the main square. Jenny’s first comment was that it was like the Spice Market in Istanbul, with all of the vendors and stores. We bought Mom a gift and discovered a little restaurant row behind the market. Finally. Many many ethnic places, Indian, Malaysian, Vietnamese. Pretty nice. The market is on the main square which is surrounded by government buildings. Hence the dullness of the area between our hotel and this place. We walked eastward toward another restaurant street, Hutt Street. Within a block a dull set of auto dealers and parts stores. Oh well. When we got to Hutt Street, we didn’t see much interesting, but we were at the edge of the area marked on the map. We turn north towards the museums. As we neared the museum area another place opened up with cafes and interesting, snug looking buildings with deep balconies and intricate iron work.
We then went into the South Australia Museum. It is a natural history museum and also has a large Aboriginal collection. Several things struck me. The first is that every Aborigine in pictures looks emaciated. Clearly hunting and gathering is a tough life in such a difficult environment. Second, I can’t begin to understand their mythology and thinking. It is completely different from what I know. Third, I was amazed that the entire continent had a native presence. I had assumed that the center was uninhabitable. I might be wrong, but looking at a map in the museum it appeared that there were permanent inhabitants everywhere. Wow.
After the museum, we walked up the Torrens River to North Adelaide and the zoo. The river has a nice park on both banks. It’s very attractive. We walked up to Melbourne Street to find food. At first I thought we had made a poor decision, but Jenny said press on and viola, a pleasant cafe area.
We had a quick break and the headed back to the Adelaide Zoo. Its a small, pleasant zoo. Obviously a lot of Australian animals. The Tasmanian devils were particularly neat. The African section had meerkats, which do anthropomorphize nicely. Many spectacular birds. If this small zoo is this nice, I wonder what the Sydney Zoo has in store?
Feet aching, we headed back to the hotel through part of the Botanical Garden. The parks here are really lovely. It didn’t hurt that is was a beautiful day, about 6oF. We stumbled back on our worn stumps and decided we would take a cab to dinner, where ever it might be. After seven and a half straight hours of walking and standing, we are more than willing to have someone else drive us around.
Kangaroo on Kangaroo Island
Sea Lions on Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island
Another early morning in order to catch the flight to Kangaroo Island. I assumed it was a general aviation flight, not commercial, for some reason, so I didn’t bring our passports. It was a commercial flight, and the fact that Jenny didn’t have a photo id caused a bit of a problem at check in. Oops. Underneath the rest of the day was the minor concern that we wouldn’t be allowed on the plane back.
The flight is only 25 minutes. We got to the island, and boarded the tour bus. The first stop was a little eucalyptus oil distillery. It was interesting in a way, although the almost desperate need to sell something was a little sad. We got on the big tour bus there, with the other 25 people we would spend the day with.
The next stop was Seal Bay, where we got to walk down to the beach where a colony of Southern Australian sea lions lived. Beautiful shoreline, vivid blues and limestone cliffs with massive crashing waves. The sea lions are somewhat sedentary on shore. They go out to the ocean for two or three days, constantly awake, diving down almost 300 meters to feed. When they get back they are tired, and just sleep on the beach until they need to feed again. They’re big, males up to 300 kg, females 100 kg. The pups are active, and one was on the path back to the nature center, so we got to within three meters of him. At one point on the beach, a young adult male came over to our group and sat down about ten meters from us.
The next stop was lunch, which was a several pieces of barbequed lamb, beef and sausage with some salads. We then walked around the site for a few minutes, saw a wallaby and some koalas, then back to the bus.
The next stop was the Remarkable Rocks, which live up to their names. A giant granite dome, 200 million years old right on the coast. Again huge waves, crashing surf, deep blue water and skies, wind and crashing surf. Breathtaking views.
Next the Admiralty Arch, a natural arch in the stone, which is also a New Zealand fur seal colony. The pups are quite inquisitive and cute, staring at us with giant goo goo eyes.
Finally we went to the main center for the national park. Jenny and I walked around the parking lot,, looking for an echidna (no luck) or a kangaroo, which we found, The kangaroo had a joey in her pouch, and sadly was so used to humans that she came right up to Jenny looking for food. She let Jenny pet her awhile, and then moved away a few feet. We followed, and again she let Jenny pet her a bit. The joey would pull his head in from time to time, but he too was pretty comfortable with our presence.
That ended the trip to Kangaroo Island. We flew back to Adelaide, both of us convince that tours aren’t for us. The driver was a great guy, full of information and very helpful,but the rigid schedule just isn’t out style. We would have enjoyed the island more if we had stayed overnight, and had a car. Of course, you might still want a guide to get you to the penguins at night, but more time and freedom would have made a better trip.
Adelaide is not winning awards with us for most pleasant city we’ve visited. We went out looking for a restaurant, avoiding the interesting block we visited last night. We confirmed with the car driver from the airport that that was an unique part of town. But the city around our hotel is dead. We couldn’t find a restaurant within the five or six blocks we walked. Everywhere we went, things were closed, and what was closed was cheesy. The central part of town we’re staying at is a lot like Wilmington. Dead at night and those who are moving around are bored to death. We ate at the hotel, which was fine since lunch was still filling us up. Up to our room and we’ll post to the internet. Tomorrow I think we’ll go see a couple of museums, and maybe find out where the restaurant row is.
On the way to Adelaide
Adelaide, 9:25 PM
Well, today we have nothing to report. We spent the day in transit from Cape Tribulation to Adelaide. The morning was a long bus drive to the airport, then the pleasure of getting internet access and some emails. After posting to the weblog, we waited until 1:30 for our plane to leave. I picked up the Sydney Morning Herald (not very good), the Australian (very good) and the Australian Financial Review (excellent). The flight to Melbourne was uneventful. Clouds obscured our view the entire way so we didn’t see much. What I did see was red. We had a quick layover in Melbourne, got back on the same plane and flew to Adelaide. It was too dark to see anything. Nice conversation with the cab driver on the way to the hotel. He had just moved to Adelaide from Punjab eleven months ago. We talked about India, and how each state was it’s own culture. Someday we have to visit India.
The man at reception loves his job. He was just a delightful guy. He was funny, chatty and helpful. A nice way to check into a hotel. We arrived about 8:00 PM, but Adelaide’s time is earlier by 1/2 hour, so it was 7:30. Intriguing. We walked out for dinner. Bumped into a raving homeless person. Hmm. Walked some more to Rundle Mall, the main shopping area. The clerk at reception had said that all of the shops closed up at night along there, although there were some restaurants. We looked down the road and decided it was too dead, so we went a different way. Must have been the wrong choice. Another raving homeless man, and then a minor encounter with some drunks. We decided to head back the other way and eat at the Italian restaurant near the hotel. That was a great choice. It was called Parlamento. The food was terrific. Jenny had a pasta bolognese with sausage. I started with lentil and swiss chard soup with parmesan cheese (and a nice riesling). My main course was veal tenderloins with onion, tomato and balsamic vinegar over parmesan mashed potatoes with a mild bitter green. Had a nice Zema cabernet. I think I’m lucky I don’t live in Australia, too much good wine. Then espresso and grappa. I have to remember to have grappa after dinner back home.
Back to the room and tomorrow Kangaroo Island.
Wandering through Tribulation
Sunday, July 16
Cape Tribulation 10:00 PM
Since our walk wasn’t scheduled until 2:00, we got to sleep in late. Breakfast at 9:00, and on the way back we noticed some clumps in a tree outside of our room. The clumps move and have wings. At first I assumed they were bats, but really big bats, the body is one or two feet long and the wings are three to four feet spread. A gentleman in another room, from Tasmania, said he thought they were fruit bats (pineapples? watermelons?). Either way they are large. Later on I hear that they are fruit eating flying foxes.
I coerced Jenny into a walk down the road to Cape Tribulation. It is about 1 kilometer down the road. It’s a nice walk. Along the way we were passed by a women from our resort. We said hello. The Cape is where Captain Cook repaired his sinking ship on his voyage to Australia. The beach is beautiful, clean, long, no rocks, gently sloping down to the water. Perhaps there are a total of twenty people along the mile long beach. No one is swimming, however. There is a salt water crocodile living off the Cape. The clerk at reception said to us, without a trace of irony, that we shouldn’t swim near the cape if we liked living. Our guide yesterday also was deadly serious about staying away from crocodile water.
After looking at the Cape, we tried to walk down the beach back to our resort. We first had to walk through some rain forest. A sign had talked about an aggressive cassowary in the area, (cassowaries can disembowel you), so I was jumpy as we walked down the path, much to Jenny’s amusement. We arrived at the sanctuary of the beach and walked back toward the village. We came to Mason Creek, but couldn’t cross it because it was too deep. So we retraced our steps. Saw the woman from our resort again and said hi (again). It started to rain. We had left our rain gear in our room because it was not raining. Bad decision.
When we arrived back at the village we tried to get a Coke and coffee at PK’s, the local pub/hangout/backpacker resort. They had internet, but no accommodation for laptops. Drat. Also, no change, so no Coke or coffee. We bought Sean a t-shirt at the pharmacy, and a newspaper. We then went to Dragonfly (the restaurant we ate at last night) for the Coke and the coffee. Saw the same woman again. Then back to our room to wait for our rain forest walk.
Around 12:00 reception called to say our walk was canceled because not enough people were signed up. Double Drat. To make up for that, we decided to walk the national park path through the rain forest near the resort. It was a pretty interesting walk. This area is very sandy, so the plant life is different, more palm trees than the forest we saw yesterday, There also was some freshwater swamp so we saw some new plants, particularly a giant sedge with razor sharp (we checked) leaves. We walked onto the beach and then went back to our room.
We played a game of snooker and one of foosball. We read for awhile, and then I pleaded with Jenny to go back out to the beach, since the sky was clearing. Jenny relented, and we walked back to the beach. Again, miles of gently sloping, clean sand with twenty people in sight. We walked up the beach a ways and saw our friend yet again. We walked some more, I was unsuccessful in taking a picture of Jenny and headed back.
We had dinner reservations at 7:30, so we wrote postcards and read until dinner time. Around dusk, the flying foxes began to stir. They groomed themselves a bit, stretched, stretched again, just like a dog or cat. They ten spread their huge wings and fly off. The flew noiselessly, and without a lot of wing beating. Unlike bats, which beat their wings vigorously and constantly change direction, these flew more like a crow or other large bird.
Dinner time, and Jenny had the same pasta dish, I had buttermilk chicken with a spicy aioli and a Viognier and a rose. While we were eating, our friend from the resort walked in.
After we finished eating, our friend stopped by and told us about the fish pond the restaurant had. We went to look at it. It had some turtles and barramundi in it. Pretty neat. She was American, from Saratoga Springs, in Australia to learn scuba dive. She and Jenny had a lot to discuss. We spoke for awhile, and then headed back to bed. We have an early shuttle tomorrow. Hopefully we can post to the internet tomorrow morning before our flight.
Monday , July 17
Cape Tribulation, 6:25 AM
It is pouring. Are we going to be stranded? Several creeks cross the road between hear and river. They flow over the road, and if they get too high we can’t cross. Hmm.
Cairns, 11:00 AM
We made it.
We see the elusive Cassowary
Saturday, July 15
Cape Tribulation 4:30 PM
Breakfast is an easy buffet. We wander over to the reception to look for things for tomorrow. We finally decide on another rain forest walk at 2:00. It will be a nice, late morning. Just before the guide shows up, I realize that we can go swimming on this tour. Gad. We rush back to the room to change and race back. We’re still early. Kylie our guide shows up with the van. There will be only two other people on our trip, a couple from Switzerland. They will leave after lunch, so then it will just be the two of us and the guide. That worked out well.
Our first stop is at a botanical walkway through the the forest. It is really dark in the rain forest, which is the first thing we noticed. Kylie pointed out that that is why there is nothing on the ground under the forest...no light reaches down so nothing grows at ground level. There are some little saplings growing which she says are twenty years old. Since they get no light they are just grow very slowly, waiting for something to make a tree fall down and open up the canopy. Once that happens the plants will rapidly increase in height trying to get to the light. You can’t calculate age by tree rings in the rain forest. What the rings show is the number of growth cycles, which could be years for one ring if the plant is shaded for a long time. The other odd thing is that the soil is so water logged that the tree brings it’s roots to the surface in buttresses in order to get air. It will also drop roots out from higher in the trunk for the same purpose. Vines are everywhere, clinging to other plants for support. Also clinging to the trees are epiphytes, like bird’s nest ferns and orchids, which live on the trees, but don’t root in the ground. They cling to the side ofthe tree and root in the debris that catches in the spot they root at. Eventually the rain forest gave way to a mangrove swamp, where the tide came in and inundated the land. Mangroves are pretty cool. Their roots elevate up off of the ground to get air also.
After wandering around the mangrove swamp, and a quick break for coffee and muffins we get on a boat looking for saltwater crocodiles. Estuarine crocodiles get up to 25 feet long and eat anything, including people. When we checked in last night, the desk clerk showed us some walks nearby and pointed out where some crocodiles were known to be. His exact phrase was, “Don’t swim there if you like living”. I won’t doubt his advice. We head up the creek (more like a river) for about fifteen minutes and see a lot of mangroves, some neat birds, a heron and then suddenly a crocodile swimming towards us.
A little further down the river there are two more, a female on the bank at a large male in the water. He swims off while the female stays up on the bank. We watch for awhile and then head back
The Swiss couple leaves us at this point and we drive down the road for lunch. The lunch spot is actually private property, with a beautiful stream and water cascade. We could swim, but the water is cold and neither of us is that enthused. We are eating lunch when Kylie looks up and says “Snakes”. Above us, on the canopy are the shadows of three tree snakes, taking the sun. Yuck. We take a photo to send to Paul.
After lunch we head off to the Discovery Centre, which has another walk through the rain forest. The highlight of this is the 25 meter tall tower that takes us up above the canopy of the forest. It’s pretty dramatic how much the light changes as you go up.
The last stop is at the local ice cream stand which specializes in exotic fruit ice cream, using their own-grown fruit. We had wattle, coconut mango, and something we can’t remember.
On the way home there is a bit of a traffic jam. A number of cars are stopped on the road, next to a beware of cassowary sign. There are only about 1300 cassowaries left in the wild, and one of them is standing next to the road, with his chick. The male cassowary does all of the chick maintenance. A pretty successful day.
Cape Tribulation
Friday, July 14 Bastille Day
Cape Tribulation 8:45 PM
Today we learned about the plusses and minuses of having a rental car. The minuses of a rental car are finding the parking, the expense, being lost, the tedium of driving. The pluses come from not doing what we did today. Since we’re tied to shuttle service, here is what we did. Up at 5:30, so that we could make sure our bags were ready for pick-up by 6:30. Wait for the shuttle to the airport at 7:30. Nothing is open for breakfast as that hour, so wait. Shuttle to the airport. Wait for the canteen at the airport to open. Wait for the 9:00 plane. Fly to Cairns. Arrive at 10:30. We have to wait for a shuttle to our destination that leaves from the airport at 2:00. The beauty of a rental car is that you can get up and leave when you wish, and you have someplace to store your luggage. Of course, we couldn’t have gotten from Hamilton Island to here.
We went into Cairns to try to find an internet connection and see the town. It’s a scruffy, instant tourist town. Every establishment seems to be dedicated to people on holiday. We found an internet cafe, but it didn’t have a wireless connection, just two cables for people with laptops. We decided to wait for the two guys on the cables we needed. We sat down with our Coke and long black (I finally figured out what that was) and waited. One guy was assiduously doing something. The other, some young hipster, was looking around, talking to people on his cell phone and watching us wait. Eventually, hipster’s girlfriend showed up. He dispatched her to look at us and she reported back. At that point Jenny and I decided that we should find some other place, or be prepared to wait a while. Cairns is filled with backpackers and affluent tourists and people who have very different ideas than I about personal hygiene. It is an odd combination. There are some interesting older buildings, which seem to be often elevated off the ground by a couple of feet. They often have louvered shades and deep porches, quite tropical looking. There are also a swarm of brand new buildings, condos, hotels, stores...many many trinket, aboriginal art, and opal shops. Each time we walked into an internet spot, there was no accommodation for laptops. Grr. One nice guy gave us directions which we didn’t follow correctly and we ended up at Cairns Central, the giant mall in the center of town, anchored by Target. The customer information person said that there was a coffee shop that had an internet hot spot, so I was put in my place by Jenny who had suggested we go in the mall while I had said that a mall was a poor idea.
So I bought a sandwich and a long black and proceeded into jerk mode because I couldn’t figure out how to get onto the coffee shop’s wireless network. The userid and password would connect me and I just couldn’t figure it out. Finally, around 1:00 we connected and uploaded our posting and received some email. Since it took awhile for our email to arrive, I initially thought none had been sent, and I was a little disappointed. Then...pop! 3 messages (plus some spam from Astral Plane, which was nostalgic) and I was surprised how excited I was.
We took a cab back to the airport and boarded our shuttle for our 2 1/2 hour ride up to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree rain forest. It took a while to get out of Cairns, dropping off and picking up folks for the ride, another point for the rental car. We had a delightful conversation with a couple from Melbourne as we drove around (point for the shuttle). They couldn’t believe the length of Jenny’s summer break. The summer (or should I say winter) break here is about six weeks, starting just before Christmas. They seem to have two other breaks of about two weeks each, one at Easter and one other.
We dozed off during the ride up to Daintree. There isn’t much to see on the road except sugar cane fields and green hills. We woke up when we crossed the Daintree river by ferry into the national park. The forest closed in, and suddenly we needed headlamps to see, it was so dark.
After a half hour we got to our hotel at Cape Tribulation. The town is five buildings, not counting the camping spots and hotels. Our little room is on two levels, a loft and the main room. Very nice. Empty minibar though, so I suggested we walk into town to buy Coke and beer. The town is one pub with attached camping lots and a motel, and a building with a pharmacy and a grocery store in it. The pharmacist greeted us as we walked in and inquired where we’re from. Turns out, his brother lives in Yardley. So, on the shuttle we pick up people from Philadelphia, at Hamilton Island we meet people from PA, and this guy’s brother is in Yardley. Cosmic convergence in Queensland. The pharmacist couldn’t sell us a newspaper or beer, so we went next door the hostile IGA for a paper and potato chips. A very frigid reception. Yikes. Don’t buy food in Cape Trib. Still no beer. We need to walk 1/2 a kilometer to the bottle shop for that. As we walk, we discover why it’s called a rain forest. It rains. We had left our rain gear in the room because it wasn’t raining when we left. We get to the bottle shop, soaked and we make our new best friends. Do I want some wine? Here’s a list of what’s in stock. What about ponchos? We have some in the back you can buy. Sure, we can break a 50. Jokes, questions, pleasantries. Quite fun. Back to the hotel, making quite the fashion statement being armored in our new ponchos.
I read the newspaper and drink my hard earned beer on our porch while Jenny giggles at David Sedaris. Funny stuff. We decide to eat at the resort’s restaurant because of the rain. I have barramundi, a fish and Jen has pasta carbonara.
Tomorrow we are on our expedition to the Noah Valley and the Daintree. Adventure awaits!
The Rain Forest
The creatures
Creatures of the Deep...
Wednesday, July 12
Noon
To the internet kiosk. Kiosk is open, connection fine, got an email, sent one back and then we discover that Blogger is down for maintenance. Rats. We’ll eat and then try. Breakfast was a tad confusing. I’m not sure what type of coffee to order. Confusion with the waitress...do I want long black which I think is espresso shots diluted in hot water, or a flat white? Eventually I get a latte. Later on I find out that flat white is a cafe au lait. We eat, wander around for awhile and then I post to the blog. Success. Now we’re killing time until the glass bottom boat adventure.
8:15 PM
The trip was great. All of these islands have “fringing reef” around them, so just offshore you see a forest of coral, with thousands of fish. The little kids on the boat kept saying “I see Dory” or “There’s Nemo”. The sky was overcast, so we didn’t get a great view. The lack of sun made the colors subdued.
Nevertheless it was striking. Sometimes there were very few fish, other times dozens. The boat would drop some food which attracted more. Quite entertaining.
We both are excited about diving amongst the coral tomorrow I hope I can do it. I keep thinking I’ll chicken out. The coral is quite fragile, so the guide was saying that all of the large boats from the marina are killing the coral with their wakes. This is quite the rich persons paradise. George Harrison built a retreat here, and the guide pointed out several $10 million yachts in the harbor. When you buy your multimillion property here, you are only buying the remains of a 99 year lease. I don’t know who the actual landowner is. He pointed out one small island as the only freehold property in the Whitsunday islands. Property prices have gone up 500% in the last few years. Another miss I guess.
After the boat ride, Jenny bought a nice Australia fleece, and then we headed over to the go-kart track. Jenny had some trouble with the accelerator and the brake peddle, so she almost burnt out the brakes. Oops. Then over to the driving range for a bucket of balls. Jenny figured out how to hit the ball quite well. Back to the bungalow for some reading and then to the Italian restaurant for dinner. I had a spatchcock, which is a three month old chicken, with cannelini beans and tomato sauce. Nice. Jenny had gnocchi with four cheeses, also good. I had a Tasmanian pinot noir. Good. Back to the bungalow for an early evening. We need to be at the pool tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning.
Thursday, July 13
6:35 PM
Up early for scuba. I step outside about 6:oo am and see what I think are kangaroos hopping past the bungalow. They stop just down the path and spend some time grazing on something on the ground. One of the staff members walking by says that they are actually wallabees, which are smaller than kangaroos. Good start to the day.
Jenny and I wander down to the pool about 7:10. We wait, worried that something will go wrong...we’re in the wrong place, the trip has been canceled, etc. At 7:30, the normal people show up, so we’re OK. The group is a couple from San Diego, a teenage boy from Pennsylvania, two teenage boys from Sydney and a man from Adelaide. We get into our gear, hop into the pool and spend an hour on basic skills. It’s a nice course. We learned how to clear our mask, clear our regulator, and find our air hose if it came out of our mouth. We then swam around the pool underwater. We both felt pretty good after doing the preparation. Much more involved than our little jaunt in Turkey. Then down to the boat. The dive group went along with about 15 others who were going to snorkel at the reef. The first island we headed to was about one hour away. Usually they go all the way out to the Barrier Reef itself, but it was too rough for that today. It was also overcast. At least we don’t need to worry about sunblock.
We got to the island and squeeze into our still wet and cold wet suits. Ugh. We then hop into a zodiac boat and are driven to our dive location. We are in two four person groups. As a surprise, it turns out we have to roll off the boat backwards into the water, and Jim’s first! With severe trepidation, off I go. With success, I feel pretty good. We’re at a life ring that is tied down to the bottom. All of us will hold onto the line and descend with the instructor, stopping to pressurize our ears every few feet. It’s deep, about thirty feet. Oops, Jenny points out that we forgot the underwater cameras we bought. We start to descend, and my heart heads up into my head. Quite nervous. Then it’s time to equalize my ears. I can’t seem to do it. I don’t hear the pop, and they’re beginning to feel uncomfortable. That makes me more nervous and I’m not sure if I can’t equalize or I’m just afraid. Miko (the instructor) points out some coral and fish behind me, which is pretty neat. I try again, no luck. She can’t wait for me, because everyone else has to wait too, and they’ll run out of air. Up I go, they call over the boat and I’m demoted to snorkeling. Jenny however does great and keeps going. She’ll have to write up her entry, or at least I’ll try to transcribe what she tells me at dinner tonight.
Snorkeling, while disappointing because it wasn’t diving, was neat. If I hadn’t been mad at myself for being there, I probably would have thought it was grand. After awhile though, the enchantment began to wear down my disappointment. Fish everywhere. It was like floating on top of the National Aquarium coral reef. Big fish too. At some point I floated over a group of parrot fish biting away at the coral, with several dozen other fish swarming around. I assume the the parrot fish must disturb other things on the coral which the other fish eat. The coral rises up to what looks like ten feet from the surface, and then plunges down to thirty or so feet. They are yellow, blue, and red corals. I spot a giant clam.
The boat returns and the captain asks me if I want to try the second dive. Sure. Back to the main boat for my gear (and the cameras) and then to the next dive spot. Same problem, although now it’s a pain in my temples. Apparently I blew so hard to pop my ears I put an air bubble in my sinuses. Back to snorkeling. Jenny has a camera now, as do I, so hopefully some of the pictures turn out.
After the diving and snorkeling is complete the boat takes us to Whitsunday Island. On the way we see a couple of whales on the horizon. We have lunch on the boat and then disembark onto the island. From the lookout point we overlook at Hall’s inlet and the most beautiful white sand beach we’ve ever seen. Jenny says she’ll never be able to go back to the Jersey shore. The sand is literally white, and amazingly soft. The park sign informs us that is pure quartz from the mainland, which is why it is so white. The water is an astounding turquoise color, because the quartz is pulled from the mainland by the really strong currents, and the quartz is in suspension reflecting light until it is deposited on shore. It makes for tough running, as we discover during the soccer game that starts up. It’s so soft you sink in quite a ways. We’ve struck up conversation earlier with a family of five from Germany, so I’m on their side, while Jenny plays for the other. A good game. Finally, called due to exhaustion and the tide we head back. On the way we see the whales again, much closer. We can see them blowing and coming up out of the water. Pretty neat.
Time setting
My first posts were published with a time stamp set for US Pacific Coast time. I just set it for Australian time.
Koala and Baby
We toured Koala Garden Zoo last night. Several of the koalas have young. Their fur is surprisingly soft. It looks coarse, but is more like a thick soft wool.
The marina at Hamilton.
This is the marina at Hamilton. Jenny and I had lunch yesterday overlooking this view. Tough duty.
Hamilton Island
Hamilton Island. We arrived here at noon, from Brisbane. Finally. It is a long trip from Philadelphia. Since we had a twelve hour layover in Los Angeles, Paul picked us up at the airport and drove us to his house. Unfortunately, we arrived an hour early, and couldn’t get ahold of Paul to let him know, so we had to wait. I didn’t bring my cell phone because I didn’t want to carry it around Australia, so I spent $5.00 in quarters trying to get Paul. Next time I won’t worry so much about a little extra weight. The trip from LAX to Brisbane was uneventful. Every seat in the plane was occupied, many by very excited college students on their way to a semester at University of Queensland. Jenny and I were in row 74 of 75, in the center. Jenny’s neighbor amply occupied his seat and constantly harassed the attendants. The entire flight is in the dark, since we left at 11:30 PM and arrived at 6:30 AM in Brisbane. Jenny slept most of the way. I woke up after sleeping for hours, and realized there was still another 5 to go. Back to sleep fortunately. In retrospect, the flight is not as bad as I had imagined.
We were entertained during our layover by the troubles of a couple on their way to Hayman Island. Their travel agent had booked them on a flight that departed on Monday, although they arrived today, Tuesday. The flight from LA hadn’t left them in the best of moods for dealing with the problem. They ended up on the same flight as us to Hamilton, where they caught a boat to their island to join the Shakespeare conference.
All of Hamilton Island is one large resort. It has a little street along the marina with shops and restaurants, and several different accommodations. We are in a “bungalow”, which is quite nice. It’s a little hut with a large room and a kitchenette. We were warned to keep the door closed to keep the cockatoos out. I thought it was a bit much, but as we wandered around we discovered they are the local pigeon. They’re big, about a foot long, white with a yellow crest. We met one in the Koala Garden, which kept saying “bye-bye” as we left it. Tonight we go back to the Koala Garden to see a nighttime tour which promises to show us baby koala bears. We walked through the garden and saw various odd Australian creatures, the most alarming being the no-see-um salt-water crocodile, eight feet long that was four feet away from us, but neither of us spotted it until we had walked past it twice.
We had lunch at the marina, marveling at the blue of the water. Very unlike New Jersey observed Jenny. We then arranged our scuba adventure. It will be Thursday, starting at 7:30 am in the pool for instruction and then to the boat for the hoped for trip to the Outer Reef. It might be too windy to go out there on Thursday. If so, we will dive on the reefs on some of the nearby islands. We also arranged for a trip on a glass-bottomed boat tomorrow to see the reef.
Then to the golf range for a bucket of balls apiece, then the shooting range to practice our marksmanship and then back to the room. We picked up the computer to go to the Internet kiosk only to discover it closed at 5:00...20 minutes ago. So now I’m typing this up while we wait for our night time koala hunt. Hopefully I can upload this in the morning. They open at 9:00.
Dinner was at the Toucan Tango Restaurant (get it?). A nice reisling and shiraz with my beef rib filet. Jenny had chicken. The waitress kept getting confused because the maitre'd had moved our table outside, throw off her table count.
