Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest

This has been a week of exploring - mainly under the waves, and in the rainforest.

On the 13th, we were up early for our pickup by the Poseidon crew, who took us to the very nice catamaran-type boat on which we were to tour the reef. The Great Barrier Reef gets prettier as you head farther north, and the boats leaving for the Agincourt ribbon reefs from Port Douglas go farther than any other charter day trip. Paul and I were separated as he was snorkeling, and I was diving. We spent most of the ride out to the reef(about 75 minutes) getting briefed about the boat, sea-sickness, diving rules, etc. The diving group got all of our gear on, and when we got to the site, took a giant stride entry in!

As soon as you enter the greeny-blue water, you are first struck by how clear it is. Then by the beautiful colour, then, when you stick your mask underwater for a peak, by how many fish there are. The fish are everywhere, in beautiful silvers and blues. We spent the day going to three sites - the Bommie, Turtle Cove, and another whose name I can't remember. There wasn't a lot of time between the sites. I spent most of the first dive just remembering to breath and keeping up with the divemaster, and trying to keep my buddy in view. She hadn't been diving in a while and was having buoyancy issues, and when she kept popping to the surface, I stopped following. At least we weren't down very far.

At each site the fish were the best part. We saw a little shark hanging out on the ocean floor, we saw a little manta ray, and some fabulous starfish. The best parts were when we saw sea anemones with clown fish going in and out. I also loved all of the butterfly fish and angel fish. The colors were blues, yellows, purples, blacks and white. Some of the little fish that seemed to like to school were black and white striped and looked like zebras. The silver fish were brilliant and look so much better swimming next to you than on your dinner plate. I think that I managed to see almost all of the Nemo characters (fish wise) except Dory (no whales, or big sharks or turtles either). Most of the fish dart in and out of the corals, and the coral comes in many shapes and forms. Some is pointy and sharp-looking with blue or green-colored tips, and others form rock-like structures that look like they should be spongey to touch, but aren't. You do spend a lot of diving time being mindful of not actually touching the corals, particularly with a rogue fin. One of the best parts of the day was the Maori Wrasse at the Turtle Bay site who decided to hang around and see what these divers were all about. She was really friendly, coming right up to you, kind of like a little puppy-dog...will you be my friend, huh, huh?


At the end of the day's dives I bought some of the pictures taken by the boat's photographer, since I figured that they would be about 100 times better than the ones we took with our point and shoot that need to go in for developing. As a result, I haven't actually taken any of the reef shots included in the blog, but have only posted fish or reef that we actually saw.

That night we ended up at a place called Rattle'n Hum for a delicious dinner of an avacado salad, and then spent the night posting pictures. Paul spent the night nursing a very bad burn on the backs of his calves and his back. Although we had sunscreened him twice that day, the sun was too powerful, and anything that generally pointed up and wasn't covered was bright red.

On October 14th we headed out on Tony's Tour of the Daintree rainforest. The tour was pretty good, and we saw a lot, but it was all a bit rushed. Also, we were definitely the youngest people on the tour by about 25 years. The tour started with a walk into Mossman gorge. Not exactly a strenuous walk, as it is mainly along boardwalk. The guide, Dave, was really good and stopped to tell us about lots of birds and animals. We heard an adolescent Riflebird and its call, the Wompoo pigeon who makes a Wom...poooo sound and was beautiful greens when it flew overhead. We saw the orange-footed scrubfowl (they seem to be everywhere), and the brush Turkey, who did not look like he would make a good Thanksgiving dinner, given his thin appearance, and constant rolling in the dirt to get rid of lice.

From Mossman gorge, we headed up to the Daintree river, in the rainforest, and took a boat tour down the river. Ostensibly looking for crocodiles, we only saw two with their heads poking out. I was more impressed with both the green tree frogs and the miniature little crabs scuttling along the beach. Also, there was this bean hanging off of a tree - it was HUGE!!! The bean species is apparently the larges in the world, and from our vantage in the boat, it looked like it was 4-5 feet tall. The guides pointed out the mangrove trees, and the mango trees, and we learned that the trees living near this salty, tidal river, have adapted to shuttle the salt into certain specific leaves that then turn yellow and drop off. Ingenious.

The river is only crossable by car ferry, and you would NOT want to swim across because, although we didn't see many crocodiles, they are everywhere. We met our tour guide and van on the other side, and headed into the Daintree forest. It was a very twisty road, but with amazing canopy coverage, and beautiful views of the ocean on the other side.

Our first stop the Alexandra lookout...nothing particularly special, though it offered good views of the ocean. The first real stop in the Daintree was Thronton Beach. The beach was gorgeous - a little white-sand cove, surrounded by palms with rainforest hills in the background. Swimming, however, was not advisable because of the undertow, the crocodiles, and the jellyfish. So, we dipped our feet, had morning tea, and headed off to the next beach at Cape Tribulation, so-called because James Cook had a bit of a ship wreck there. The Cape is beautiful. It is said to be the only place in the world where two heritage listed sites meet - the Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. We had some spectacular views of the ocean, the beautiful beach, and the mangroves surrounding the beach. I could have stayed for the entire day, just watching the little fish in the tidal pools and enjoying the views of paradise.

Alas, we headed out to our next stop, called Noah Valley, within the rainforest. It seems to be where most tour groups take their parties for lunch which is prepared on large bar-b-ques, which the guides bring salads and fruit for desert. The benefit of Tony's tour was that we had our own little dining area, and weren't under the large tented area. Lunch was rather amazing, actually, with steak and yummy fish. After lunch there was optional swimming. I was the only person in the group to take up the offer and join the guide in the water, and was glad that I had. I've never seen clearer water. You could see the river snakes, and little tadpoles and fish swimming along. It was a large rock bottom, so you couldn't stand well, but that is what made the water so pristine. We also managed to see two Ulysses butterflies while we were swimming! So beautiful! Apparently they have to be because they only have 12-14 days to attract a mate before dying.

After the refreshing swim, our next stop was a walk through the rainforest. The guide pointed out the strangling fig trees, and showed the trees with buttresses used by aboriginals as swords and shields. We were shown plants that you could and couldn't eat, and those that look harmless but that you wouldn't even want to touch. We saw a musky rat kangaroo, a little marsupial that is ancient (from before Australia was a lot of dry grass and animals had to learn to hop to get places quickly), is active in the day time, and walks instead of hopping.

The last stop of the day was the Daintree Ice Cream shop. They make ice cream only from tropical fruits and nuts. The flavors of the day were wattleseed (tastes like coffee bean), jack fruit (tastes gross), raspberry, and macadamia nut. I then proceeded to sleep most of the way home in the back of the van going around twisty roads. It was either sleep or throw up.

Since we had had a huge lunch, we just got some sausages and bar-b-qued for supper.

The 15th was not an early morning. In fact, we spent the day doing nothing in particular. I talked with the fam, Paul checked up on his stocks, I left him in the apartment to do some shopping (soooo much nice summer clothing here, and I do love summer frocks). Supper was fish and chips at a pub, and then we went to see cane toad racing. This requires a bit of explanation. Cane toads were introduced to Australia in the 1970s from Hawaii, by a farmer who though that the toads would eat the beetles that were destroying the sugar cane crop. Problem was, beetles lived on the tops of the canes, toads couldn't hop that high. But, with no natural predators, and poison glands preventing anyone wanting to eat the toads, the toads have multiplied exponentially and now are estimated to number in the billions. They are the number one pests in Australia. But this guy keeps the ones he finds in his back yard as pets. They are kinda cute. Then he brings them to the pub and puts on a big show of finding toad jockeys amongst the crowd who have to pick up their toads and give them a kiss before racing them. The race consists of leaving the toads in the middle of an oval table, and getting them to hop to the edge and into a waiting hand. The encouragement for the toads to hop - those party favours with the curled paper that you blow and that make noise while straightening out. It was kind of cute. We paid our $5, watched for a while, and then headed back home for more lack of productivity. What a great day!

On the 16th, Paul stayed home nursing his sunburn and doing some reading/work?, while I headed out to the reef again. It was also with Poseidon, and the diving was even better. The conditions were perfect, with winds less than 10 knots, and we hit 3 different sites. It was absolutely amazing; and almost indescribably feeling to be swimming among the beautiful fishes, and seeing the incredible corals. I think that I enjoyed it more because I was much more comfortable with the actual diving. We saw a Grey reef shark circling at one site, and that was the biggest shark I'd ever want to see diving. Our dive master was really excited. I was sufficiently concerned to be glad that he didn't stick around long. We saw some beautiful corals, more little clownfish, and some crazy schools of large yellow fish that seemed to split into groups of 30 or so and hang out, and then of one mind all switch direction and hang out in exactly the same spot. It was funny to watch, actually, and I have no idea what was driving the positioning.

I wandered home from the Marina along the waterfront, looking longingly at the beach, and the warves with boats, and wishing that I could live in a tropical place like Port Douglas. It's laid back, warm and sunny, not too big, and on beautiful ocean. I think I could be very happy, if it just wasn't so far from home.

Port Douglas and Cairns

Paul and I have found a little piece of heaven in northern Queensland. We have an apartment for 9 nights in the pretty little seaside town of Port Douglas, and I love it here. The apartment is perfect - everything you need with a pretty view out the balcony so that I can sit and eat breakfast and enjoy the weather and the birds while Paul sleeps. That said, I'm not letting him have many sleep-ins. Today we were up at 7 so that we could get to Cairns for me to do a dive refresher, and tomorrow we'll be up at 7 again so that we can go out on the reef with a boat.

We arrived at the Cairns airport on the 10th, and headed to the car rental agency. They pick you up at the airport, which is the only good thing about the company. Called, "Older Car Rental Cairns", we had expected cars that were 5-10 years. What we got was a beater. The price for the rental of this little Ford Fiesta ($500 for 9 days including insurance, though goodness knows why one would ever need insurance)was more than what they could ever sell it for. The car had no safety features, and so we were feeling rather gypped. We had to take the car for 48 hours, so we drove off with it creaking and groaning the whole way. Our Trip Advisor report will express our displeasure.

The drive from Cairns to Port Douglas is amazing. Ocean to your right, green hills and mountains to the left. Much of the drive is around twisty road as it follows the coast. The beaches are beautiful with white sand. I knew that I'd like it here. We stopped in a swishy town called Palm Cove for lunch and paid way too much for sandwiches, and then headed to our accommodation in Port Douglas. After checking ourselves in, we did a bit of grocery shopping, had dinner of takeout pizza, but generally spent the day relaxing and reading on the balcony. THIS is vacation!

On October 11th we slept in and then headed to the Port Douglas Sunday market. It was held in a park, with each vendor under their own white tent. There was a disappointing amount of fresh product, but a plethora of local crafts. There were also a lot of masseuses doing massage on people lying in little tents with a view of the ocean in the background. Very hippy, much of it, but rather enjoyable.

We headed to 4-mile beach next. It's a beautiful white-sand beach, made more attractive by the mangrove trees partially submerged, the rocks around the edges, and the spectacular mountains in the background. We clambered over the rocks for a while, and enjoyed the surf and then found a yummy ice cream. We got the stuff needed for supper and headed to the apartment to relax, and then have steak on the bar-b-que (the apartment building has a communal barbie). Night was spent relaxing while I did some reading up on scuba diving skills.

On Monday ,the 12th (Thanksgiving in Canada), we were up early to head to Cairns. First, we picked up a new rental car, at a credible agency, and then dropped off our piece of junk. The diving course was excellent - a much appreciated review after a few years above water. I was taught by this Canadian from somewhere 3 hours north of Edmonton, who must have been only about 22, but somehow has gotten to be a dive instructor. He said he feels like he gets paid to go on vacation, since he spends a lot of his time out on the reef scuba diving with tourists. Not bad.

We hit the mall to eat lunch and get Paul some Crocs so that he can be on the boat without being in his hiking boots, and then did a bit of Cairns sight-seeing. Cairns is a bit of an icky town, actually. The water-front isn't really charming. There is a long boardwalk, which is nice, and there is a huge saltwater pool which is attractive and seems to draw a huge number of sun-seekers. I also really enjoyed watching the egrets and pelicans congregate on the edge. But the water is murky, and the other side of the boardwalk is lined with ugly shops. There is nothing quaint about Cairns. The inner streets are livable and practical, but there is nothing there to recommend the city. The very best part of the city, and the one thing that I'd suggest people see, is the Botanical Gardens. They were beautiful! Tropical greens and flowers everywhere, a lily pond, guinea fowl-like birds and turkeys that scampered away whenever we came near. Of course, they made more noise and were more conspicuous trying to hide than if they had just stood on the path in front of us. The little fowls make me laugh, the way that they dig at the ground throwing away anything in their path to lunch.

We spent the evening having supper at a nice place called 2 Fish, and then Paul had to go to a take-away joint to fill the rest of the holes. Now we sit watching TV and relaxing before another early morning heading out to the Great Barrier Reef...Yeah!!!

Australia's Red Center

We weren't sure that we really wanted to see Uluru (well, that we wanted to spend the time and money to go see Uluru...we want to see everything). But, since it is THE symbol of Australia, and a site of Aboriginal significance, we figured that we ought to see it while we are here.

We flew out on Saturday, the 26th, and were able to catch planes all the way to Uluru where we picked up our rental car, somehow scored an upgrade and 1200 extra free kilometers (really nice guy working at the counter), and headed to Yulara. Yulara is an alternate reality. When you fly into Uluru there are beautiful views of the rock, of the Olgas, and of vast expanses of red desert. Then, out of the sand, pops Yulara. The entire town is either resort or housing for people working at the resort. There are about 6 hotels/hostels/resorts and a campground. You never see the housing for the workers - apparently hidden behind the cheapest hotel. There is a "mall" at which there is a supermarket, a deli, a restaurant, a post office, and souvenir shops. All very surreal.

After we set up our borrowed tent, courtesy of one of the doctors at the Children's Hospital, we headed out to take some pictures of Uluru. It is just a rock, but what a rock.


It is special because it is all one stone. Walking around Australia, I have come to realize just how rare that is. Most large "rocks" are actually conglomerate rock, or made of several stones together. This is just one large piece of sandstone, and it actually extends under the earth for kilometers. By comparison, the relatively nearby Olgas (Kata Tjuta) are made of conglomerate rock that was laid in a different time period than that of Uluru.



Then we headed out to the Sounds of Silence Dinner. We were told that this was pricey, but worth it because you got to eat dinner watching the sun set over both Uluru and the Kata Tjutas at the same time. Alas, this was not so. We did get to stand on a dune with a glass of champagne and watch the sun go down over both sites, which was nice. But dinner was a very chilly affair, and we could only see the Olgas. The company was good, though. We met a French Canadian couple who were happy to let me practice French, and they practiced English, and the guy wanted to talk stocks. Paul was a happy camper.
The food was pretty good for being prepared entirely out at the desert, though cold by the time you got it back to your table. I did discover that crocodile is pretty good! The didgeridoo player was amazing. He was a white guy, which is not to say that non-aboriginals can play the didgeridoo, but did re-emphasize the lack of Aboriginal involvement in the resort, tours and pretty much everything having to do with Uluru.

We had a chilly night camping and the next morning were up bright and early to head to Kata Tjuta, where we did the Valley of the Winds walk. It was a pretty amazing 2.5 hour hike through rock formations with amazing views. Scrambling up some of the "paths" was a good challenge. There are always really pretty flowers in the desert, and this was no exception. Most impressive, though, were the huge expanses of sand dunes, rocky hills, and no human influence.




From here we headed back to Uluru to go through the cultural center that describes the Aboriginal connection to Uluru/Kata Tjuta and it's spiritual significance. Then we headed down the Lasseter highway towards Kings Canyon. The drive is quite beautiful, with red sand and dunes all around that put PEI to shame.


We had quick stops at Mounth Conner (frequently mistaken as Uluru when people are driving from Alice Springs to Uluru) and Curtain Springs for the toilet and a gawk at the emus.



We spent that night at the Kings Canyon Cattle Station, a reasonable option for those tired of resorts (the only other accommodation around, including camping, is at a place owned by the same people who own Yulara). It's a working cattle station with millions of acres of land, and they operate the front as a tourism business. I liked out little permanent safari-type tent. Actually, I really liked the atmosphere of the whole place. We watched sunset from a place called Tank Hill and then made dinner on the bar-b-que.

Next morning we were up bright and early to walk around Kings Canyon. The hike was supposed to take 4 hours. It only took about 2.5, but was one of my favorites in Australia to date. It starts with a bit of a brutal climb up to the top of the table, and then involves a hike around the rim of the canyon. But it isn't just a straight walk looking down into a canyon the entire time. You weave in and out of rock dome formations, with amazing views alternating with sheltered expanses. It felt a bit surreal, but in a magical kind of way. Anyone going to Uluru should definitely take the time to go north to the canyon.











After our hike, we headed back out to the highway, and on to Alice Springs. The coolest thing about the ride - we saw a group of 6-7 feral horses as they ran across the road. Even more surprising was the camel we came across eating from the top branches of a tree. Crazy!

We stayed at a charming little B&B in Alice Springs. I had booked it because of the promise of seeing animals, and we weren't disappointed. In this lady's backyard are Kangaroos and the most beautiful cockatoos called Gullahs. I spent part of the morning while Paul slept in our little sunroom just watching the kangaroos (including 2 moms with joeys). Definitely a trip highlight. The animals are all wild, and you can't get close to them - they are super-wary of humans, but are still happy to come into her back yard when she leaves out food!