Cairns to Darwin

Wednesday 14th September

There is really nothing much to say about today, and no pictures, as so much of it was spent in airports and planes. 

We arrived at our hotel in Darwin around 4, and spent some time reading the brochures to decide where to go. It seems there is a lot to see, and we have to try to avoid seeing things we are going to see anyway on our next tour, which starts on Sunday at some ungodly hour - before 6, I think.

It is certainly hot in Darwin, though I am told it is cooler than some other places as the sea breezes cool it.

Cairns

Tuesday 13^th September
This has been rather a lazy day. It was good to have a day to relax, and also to catch up with our laundry and email.
Our morning was enlivened by the discovery of the beautiful skink in the bathroom.

After a lazy morning, we went to Trinity beach for lunch. The sun was warm but it remained very windy.

After lunch, we went for a drive round Cairns looking for examples of the type of house called a Queenslander. This is a traditional style of wooden house, raised on piles and often with a wrap-around verandah. There seem to be relatively few of them around Cairns, possibly because they are expensive to maintain. It was interesting to see the suburbs of Cairns, it makes you realise why people leave England to come here; the lifestyle seems much better, with far more space and bigger houses.

We went out to dinner tonight, and the restaurant told us it was so cold we should bring coats and they would provide blankets if necessary - this is the tropics after all!

The last part of the day will be spent re-organising the suitcase ready to fly to Darwin tomorrow.

Cairns - Kuranda and Atherton

Monday 12^th September

Paul wanted to experience the scenic railway journey up to Kuranda, and I was more than happy to go again, I enjoyed it so much last time, so we set off for Freshwater station to catch the 9.50 train. The wooden station is pleasantly old –fashioned.

 The cafe is an absolute delight

The journey itself was just as wonderful as I remembered. It is hard to imagine that so many tunnels were built just using pick and shovel, and the bridges across the enormous chasms are quite amazing.

It was hard not to photograph everything.

The views down along the Barron River and across Cairns were as spectacular as I remember.

I managed an even more spectacular view of the Barron Falls than I managed when we went by road – still not much water over them, but the terrain, with steep beetling cliffs and a deep, almost circular pool, is amazing.

Rather than another visit to the tourist shops of Kuranda, we opted for a trip round the Tablelands, which was most interesting. We had not previously realised how fertile it was up there, and the variety of crops grown. We stopped at Lake Tinaroo for a picnic lunch. The lake is a reservoir, and is dedicated to water sports; boating, fishing,  swimming, water-skiing, sailing, canoeing and wind surfing are all catered for, in a very beautiful setting.

The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day, in spite of the cutting wind. After lunch, we toured some of the towns like the charming Yungaburra, which looks delightfully old-fashioned. Some of the countryside looks surprisingly like parts of southern England – until you notice the row of banana trees. We paid a visit to the Curtain Fig tree, a species of strangler fig, which is nearly 50 feet tall. I see that Wikipedia describes it as one of the largest trees in Tropical North Queensland.

We visited lake Barine, which is a volcanic crater lake and very pretty indeed.

As well as having a very nice cup of much needed hot tea (the cutting wind had started again and it was absolutely freezing) we took a walk to see the giant kauri pines. These giant trees have mostly been cut down, but these two remain as a reminder of what the area used to be like.

Cairns - Great Barrier Reef

Sunday 11^th September

This was the day for our trip to the Great Barrier Reef.  At 7 a.m. we walked down to the boat dock which wasn’t that far from where we were staying. Cairns has also changed a lot since our last visit – the boat dock has become very elegant with a smart hotel and expensive shopping mall, not to mention an infinity fountain.

We were travelling in a big catamaran called Pleasures of Paradise which took 80 people on board. It took two and a half hours to reach the first stop, Michaelmas Cay. We had travelled inside, as the journey was very choppy and the wind very cold. So it was with great surprise and displeasure that we realised quite how cold and windy it was when we got into the glass bottomed boat in our swimsuits. The glass bottomed boat was excellent. We saw a great diversity of coral and of fish.  Paul was at first surprised by the fact that so much of the coral was mud coloured.  But after you look at it a bit, you see many different gradations in the colour and it is fascinating. We saw so many giant clams, often with deep purple insides, though they usually quickly flicked shut as soon as the boat passed over them. After our journey, when we saw a lot more than coral than the snorkelers, we went onto Michaelmas Cay. The Cay is a world-famous bird sanctuary with a beautiful sandy beach, and is supposed to give you an opportunity to snorkel and dive straight off the beach in protected, calm waters.  Apparently, sea turtles are common and you are also likely to see giant trevally, small black tip reef sharks, bat fish and hundreds of species of colourful reef fish. Most of the Cay is roped off and set aside for the birds.

Unfortunately, it was absolutely freezing and the wind cut like a knife so we opted not to stay and not to snorkel, and took our shivering selves back to the boat and the warm saloon. When lunch time was declared, the saloon was filled with people who were covered with gooseflesh, whose knees were knocking, and who looked like smumfs , they were so blue with cold. Fortunately, there was some hot food for lunch.

After lunch, we set off for Paradise Reef, a hard coral reef featuring a ribbon of small reefs, with depths of up to 25 metres. As there was no prospect of going in here from the beach, we didn’t even contemplate it.

Most of the snorkelers opted not to go in again because of the cold, and those who did go in didn’t stay more than 10 minutes. After an hour, it was time to sail back to Cairns, which we did mostly by sail. This made it very rough and some people were quite ill during the journey – not us, fortunately. It was quite disappointing that it was so cold and windy that we felt too uncomfortable to swim, I certainly managed to do a bit last time I was out there. But it appears Cairns has been having an unseasonably cold snap, which makes a bit of a change. No doubt we will be longing for the cold again when we get to Darwin!

On our return to cairns, we said goodbye to the last of our fellow travellers, that being the end of our first trip, and went off to visit family who live in Cairns.

Cape Tribulation to Cairns

Saturday 10th September

I thought Crocodylus was absolutely wonderful. I had wanted to stay there twelve years ago when I visited Cairns with a friend, but she didn't like the idea. Now at last I have been able to do it!

The huts you stay in are almost tents, but with a wooden frame and a wooden floor. The roof and walls are canvas, and each one has a proper toilet, washbasins and shower.

The water is lovely and hot in the shower. The huts are set in the rainforest.

Ours was right on the forest edge, looking right into the forest, so the view from our verandah was lovely.

The kitchen makes lovely food, and the dining room and other public areas are just canvas roofs over huge wooden beams.

The only power points were in the public areas, so charging everything was hard. There was no phone signal of any sort, though there was wireless Internet, which was switched off at 9.30, to my great consternation!

When I could no longer use the Internet, I noticed an animal looking vaguely like a rat with long legs, but the size of a big cat, hopping about round the chairs. This was a bandicoot, the first I have ever seen. I was really excited, I thought it was a charming animal but sadly there is no picture, because Paul had gone on a night walk, taking my camera. Even more annoying, after I had gone to bed, a male cassowary and his two babies visited the dining area (the males raise the babies, while the females go off to seek an alternative husband). I have been longing to see a wild cassowary, but will have to content myself with the one I saw in Bird World in Kuranda.

The night was far from quiet, because there was a very short but very sharp shower of very heavy rain. It made an extremely loud noise on our tent roof, which woke us up. What was even louder was the screams of rage from all the birds in the trees surrounding us, who really objected to the sudden cold shower, and all screamed with temper until the water was turned off! Fortunately, the shower didn't last long, and after a lot of dark muttering and grumbling the birds finally dropped off to sleep again, and we were able to do the same.

After breakfast next morning, we went for a walk in the rainforest. The path is clearly marked with orange rope so you don't get lost, and it really makes you appreciate how easy it would be to get lost and even walk in circles. It all looks the same, and you can't see more than a few yards in any direction. I had hoped to see the cassowaries, but we weren't so lucky, we only saw some bush hens and heard some wild pigs snorting and snuffling. We walked for over an hour, then it was time to go. I was really sorry to leave, I would have loved to have stayed longer.

We returned to Cairns, where some of our fellow travellers were anxious to do a bungy jump. It looked absolutely awful, but they seemed to enjoy it.

Three of them also tried the jungle swing - they were winched up to tree top level (about 170 feet, in this case) in a prone position and then allowed to fall, so that they swung about like a pendulum. To me it looked just as awful as the bungy jump.

After that we came into the centre of Cairns to find where we were staying, and had time before our last supper together to have a brief walk round Cairns.

Mission Beach to Cape Tribulation

Friday 9^th September

This has been another very full day.

We rose quite early, so as to leave Mission Beach at 7.30. Our first stop was a place called Babinda Boulders. According to Aboriginal legend, a girl and a boy from different tribes fell in love and ran away together. Their tribes chased and caught them, and they were separated. In despair, the girl threw herself in the river and died. Her body is the boulders, and she tries to draw other people towards their deaths too – the water here is very dangerous and people have been killed by trying to swim near the boulders.

We walked through the rainforest to get there, and were able to admire the large number of butterflies, particularly the huge blue Ulysses butterfly. There is a lovely calm pool on another part of the river where you could swim, so I went in, but didn’t swim. The water wasn’t really deep enough, there having been no rain there for a while.

After a brief stop to look at new cameras – somebody else, as well as Paul, had a broken camera - we made a visit to Kuranda, where I went to cuddle a koala. The koalas were awake and moving gently, unlike the last time I visited 12 years ago, when they were all fast asleep.

I was able to hold one called Princess who was very sleepy and gentle.

There were lots of other animals too – I particularly liked the wallaby with the joey in her pouch.

Paul and I went in to Bird World, and there were a lot of beautiful coloured birds.

Many of them came and sat on us. Paul did not like it at all, especially when the one sitting on him decided to take off his glasses. They had quite a quarrel over them!

We spent quite a while at Kuranda, then we drove down to see the Barron Falls. The walk down to the falls was very interesting, a high level walkway on long stilts so it is near the forest canopy in places. There were several bush turkeys, one who was determined to pass us on the walkway and expected us to stand aside for him. Apparently, there is very little water going over the falls at present, so the photos are nothing special.

On the way down from Kuranda, we had a wonderful view over Cairns and down to the sea.

We made our way to Cape Tribulation, where we are staying in some little huts at a place called Crocodylus.

Mission Beach

Thursday 8^th September

This has been a much needed lazy day. We rose late (if you can call 8 a.m. late) and didn’t breakfast until 9. We looked out all our washing, but the laundry machines were full, and we had to wait until later.

We are staying at South Mission Beach, which is 6 Km. from Mission Beach itself, and not so convenient if you want to visit the shops, but our bus driver took us in to Mission Beach for some shopping and wandering about, and we looked in at the visitor centre to learn about Cassowaries, which we are unlikely to see, though this is one area where they are known to live. The locals put fruit in feeding stations well away from town for them, so they don’t come into contact with people or traffic.

One of the women working at the place where we are staying was telling us about the cyclone damage. She says it doesn’t look bad, because a lot of it is inside the houses. Sometimes, the outside was left undamaged but the inside torn out. In some cases the roof was lifted off and dropped back on again, or sometimes the whole house was lifted up and then dropped back onto its piles, sometimes breaking them. She says some people are still living in tents in their gardens.

The trees are starting to regenerate, but if you look closely, you can see they are putting out leaves directly from the trunk or branches. Many trees were not uprooted, but stripped of all their leaves and branches, and are growing leaves from wherever there is some part still living.

The people here think it will take many years before things are back to normal. The beach is still beautiful, but there are far fewer palm trees than there were.

We came back and lunched, did our laundry, then had a really lazy afternoon. The pool was very cool, and it is hot here, so we enjoyed reading in the shade on our veranda or in our air-conditioned room and cooling off in the pool.

Tonight, our tour driver and guide is cooking for us again, as there is a barbecue here that guests can use.