The good thing about journeying up the coast is that you have time to properly acclimatise to the heat, which rises the further North you go. My first few days in Melbourne were in the dying days of Winter and reflected that - my gloves and hoody were essential clothing, not the balmy welcome I’d expected in Australia! But on the first official day of Spring something magical happened and the weather suddenly flipped to sunny, tee-shirt weather. Hurray!
It got noticeably hotter from Brisbane onwards, and a little more humid once we passed the Tropic of Cancer near Rockhampton, but my travel buddies and I were more than happy to cope with temperatures in the low 30s every day. Back home I wilt at that temperature.
Australia only has two seasons in the Tropics and when we arrived in Cairns the weather was slowly transitioning from the tourist-friendly Dry to the more humid Wet. We only had a few light showers during our week there but you could definitely feel increased humidity in the air.
I'm now in Darwin and the mercury says 32 degrees but it feels warmer because the air itself is warm. It's literally like opening an oven door and having the heat circulate around you. Not hot enough to burn but on the verge of being uncomfortable. I think I'm almost beyond my comfortable heat limit! As a pasty Pom I think the lack of cool breeze would drive me mad after a while. I've never liked opening ovens.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Sunday, 25 October 2009
...and then a galah stole my flip flop
Today we took a day trip by train to Kuranda, self-styled as ‘the village in the rainforest’. The hour-long scenic journey climbed up a steep hill incline and bent round waterfalls, giving us nice views of the city outskirts as it gave way to tree-filled valleys. At times the old-fashioned train wound across hairpin bends in an almost perfect horseshoe, and while I’m no trainspotter it was still a novelty to look out the window and see so much of it curved out.
We pulled up at Kuranda, a laidback, arty settlement full of hippy clothes and high-quality craft stores. It was magical, like Byron Bay but without the strongly-beating commercial heart. I found a retro store and obtained a blue peasant blouse for four dollars and Kat, Vicky and I, along with a travel friend we’d kept bumping into up the coast, had lunch in a sideless organic café near the market. Vicky had regretted not hugging a koala and went to the Koala Gardens. I headed to the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary, home to 2000 butterflies, and saw some amazing specimens, in particular the green-and-yellow Cairns Birdwing, Australia’s biggest butterfly. My favourite was the rainforest-dwelling Ulysses Butterfly - a large, beautiful blue specimen that liked sitting on my camera but not keeping still for pictures.
Next up was Birdworld Kuranda, which taught me the cheeky side of Aussie birds. First up, a galah. These parrot-sized Paris Hiltons of the bird world are pink, blue and white, and thought by some for being a bit dim. This specimen was very interested in pecking at my toes, and soon became determined to wrestle my (pink) flip flop away, while I was wearing it. To give its due, the thing had surprising strength but the thievery was halted by a member of staff.
I went off to admire the rainbow-hued collection of birds, nothing like I’d seen in the UK, and hoped to see if the cassowary was out in its enclosure. I was distracted by a cyan-blue parrot landing on my head and refusing to leave. Its claws hurt, and as I had no desire to be pooped on I tried to remove it but was nipped. Some members of the public laughed as the same member of staff as earlier extracted it and put it on the bird equivalent of Supernanny’s naughty step. What else could these birds do? Well, I was wise to a small, brown one scurrying on the ground and trying to peck at my feet, but not when it flew up and broke off a beakful of my hair. And the little mofo did it AGAIN, just as I was about to go through the exit, and the employee, standing nearby, turned to me and said that they prefer blondes.
I now understand how people get bird phobias. Meanwhile, part of my hair may be in a nest but at least I can say I‘ve left a lasting impression on someone in Australia.
We pulled up at Kuranda, a laidback, arty settlement full of hippy clothes and high-quality craft stores. It was magical, like Byron Bay but without the strongly-beating commercial heart. I found a retro store and obtained a blue peasant blouse for four dollars and Kat, Vicky and I, along with a travel friend we’d kept bumping into up the coast, had lunch in a sideless organic café near the market. Vicky had regretted not hugging a koala and went to the Koala Gardens. I headed to the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary, home to 2000 butterflies, and saw some amazing specimens, in particular the green-and-yellow Cairns Birdwing, Australia’s biggest butterfly. My favourite was the rainforest-dwelling Ulysses Butterfly - a large, beautiful blue specimen that liked sitting on my camera but not keeping still for pictures.
Next up was Birdworld Kuranda, which taught me the cheeky side of Aussie birds. First up, a galah. These parrot-sized Paris Hiltons of the bird world are pink, blue and white, and thought by some for being a bit dim. This specimen was very interested in pecking at my toes, and soon became determined to wrestle my (pink) flip flop away, while I was wearing it. To give its due, the thing had surprising strength but the thievery was halted by a member of staff.
I went off to admire the rainbow-hued collection of birds, nothing like I’d seen in the UK, and hoped to see if the cassowary was out in its enclosure. I was distracted by a cyan-blue parrot landing on my head and refusing to leave. Its claws hurt, and as I had no desire to be pooped on I tried to remove it but was nipped. Some members of the public laughed as the same member of staff as earlier extracted it and put it on the bird equivalent of Supernanny’s naughty step. What else could these birds do? Well, I was wise to a small, brown one scurrying on the ground and trying to peck at my feet, but not when it flew up and broke off a beakful of my hair. And the little mofo did it AGAIN, just as I was about to go through the exit, and the employee, standing nearby, turned to me and said that they prefer blondes.
I now understand how people get bird phobias. Meanwhile, part of my hair may be in a nest but at least I can say I‘ve left a lasting impression on someone in Australia.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Cape Tribulation
Cairns’ biggest money-spinner is the number of activities you can do nearby. My travel friend Vicky went white-water rafting on the river Tully and loved it; she also skydived onto a beach book ended by rainforest on one side and the Great Barrier Reef on the other.
Yesterday was Cape Tribulation, a headland a north of Cairns set in the Daintree rainforest national park. We took a river cruise on the Daintree River and saw saltwater crocodiles, albeit from a distance, then stopped off at a number of beauty spots. One of these was Mossman Gorge, a pretty swimming spot on land owned by the Kuku Yulanji Aboriginal community. It is said to have platypus and though I didn’t see any it was still a nice place to watch small fish weave in and around the clear shallows.
We stopped off at Port Douglas, a sweet, if sterile, little place that got rich in the gold rush and nearly perished in a cylone in 1911. Today it’s a resort town with its own golf course and a good trade in tourism. I did like it, but my brief stop felt like visiting an upmarket English coastal town, like Salcombe in Devon, and everything seemed that bit too conservative and old fashioned.
On we went to Cape Trib beach itself, a seemingly isolated (though accommodation is a short walk away), palm tree-strewn beach. It’s just 12 miles from the Great Barrier Reef and lumps of sun-bleached coral are visible at low tide. Going back down, the road, known as the Captain Cook Highway, was beautiful. The water looked lovely and the road twisted alongside the beach on the left and the rainforest to the right. In the distance I could see surfers enjoying the last of week of wetsuit-free surfing before stinger season begins.
Yesterday was Cape Tribulation, a headland a north of Cairns set in the Daintree rainforest national park. We took a river cruise on the Daintree River and saw saltwater crocodiles, albeit from a distance, then stopped off at a number of beauty spots. One of these was Mossman Gorge, a pretty swimming spot on land owned by the Kuku Yulanji Aboriginal community. It is said to have platypus and though I didn’t see any it was still a nice place to watch small fish weave in and around the clear shallows.
We stopped off at Port Douglas, a sweet, if sterile, little place that got rich in the gold rush and nearly perished in a cylone in 1911. Today it’s a resort town with its own golf course and a good trade in tourism. I did like it, but my brief stop felt like visiting an upmarket English coastal town, like Salcombe in Devon, and everything seemed that bit too conservative and old fashioned.
On we went to Cape Trib beach itself, a seemingly isolated (though accommodation is a short walk away), palm tree-strewn beach. It’s just 12 miles from the Great Barrier Reef and lumps of sun-bleached coral are visible at low tide. Going back down, the road, known as the Captain Cook Highway, was beautiful. The water looked lovely and the road twisted alongside the beach on the left and the rainforest to the right. In the distance I could see surfers enjoying the last of week of wetsuit-free surfing before stinger season begins.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Cairns
Cairns’s reputation as a bawdy, lively party town with nothing else for visitors other than expensive activities is well known. It’s a large place but feels smaller because so much of it is tourism-orientated that many of its wide streets look the same. Each has a backpackers’ travel agency, if not two, and even compared to Sydney the number of postcard shops and discount retailers of Australia-themed backpacks and koala-shaped soap is overwhelming. If you like to buy blindingly obvious knockoff fragrances you’re also in luck. I wasn’t aware that either Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise had released their own scents but that hasn’t stopped grainy pictures of them from appearing on bottles.
It’s not that it’s a bad place, just compared to many Aussie places parts of the town centre are a little ropey. In its defence it has a lovely pool on the esplanade, a largely tack-free shopping centre near the station, and if you get the munchies at night there’s an evening market selling clothing, high-quality OZ souvenirs and food from a number of different Asian cultures.
Cairns has a big thing for eating and socialising and there are eateries everywhere. Plus, the advantage of being in a destination town is that unlike in Britain, you can visit charity shops and pick up clothes you would actually want to wear, dirt cheap. I found a pair of new Rip Curl flip flops and a purple day dress, all for the grand sum of $1.50AU. My Primark flip flops had done well, surviving a x mile journey from Melbourne but they’d finally carked it, and fully embracing the traveller spirit I’m keen to pay as little as possible on replaceable commodities like shoes.
RIP, beloved pink flip-flops. You served me faithfully all the way up the East coast.
It’s not that it’s a bad place, just compared to many Aussie places parts of the town centre are a little ropey. In its defence it has a lovely pool on the esplanade, a largely tack-free shopping centre near the station, and if you get the munchies at night there’s an evening market selling clothing, high-quality OZ souvenirs and food from a number of different Asian cultures.
Cairns has a big thing for eating and socialising and there are eateries everywhere. Plus, the advantage of being in a destination town is that unlike in Britain, you can visit charity shops and pick up clothes you would actually want to wear, dirt cheap. I found a pair of new Rip Curl flip flops and a purple day dress, all for the grand sum of $1.50AU. My Primark flip flops had done well, surviving a x mile journey from Melbourne but they’d finally carked it, and fully embracing the traveller spirit I’m keen to pay as little as possible on replaceable commodities like shoes.
RIP, beloved pink flip-flops. You served me faithfully all the way up the East coast.
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Surfing in 1770/Agnes Water
The Town of 1770 - well, 'town' seems like a bit of an exaggeration when there only 30 residents but it's not the urbanisation that brings people to this stretch of Queensland. The area is known for sporting and lesiure activities, from scooter rides to light aircraft, and that, now that Captain Cook is very, very longtime gone, is what's put this pinprick of a feature onto the (Greyhound) map today. There may not be any shops in 1770 (commercialism is left to the larger Agnes Water, just a few miles away, which boasts two supermarkets, several restaurants and a handful of specialist shops) but that doesn't matter when you can horse ride, kitesurf, go on day cruises to the Outer Barrier Reef and experience a scenic flight over the beach. Surfing in Agnes and 1770 is the cheapest in all of Australia, with three hours of surfing, tuition and board hire costing just $17 all in.
My attempt: Picture the most unsporty person around, give them a heavy and wilfully misbehaving surfboard and you have an approximation of just how inept I was. I was even poor at bodyboarding despite spending a couple of days in Coffs Harbour trying to do it, but tell me NOT to hold onto the board and suddenly I slid through the water right to up to the sand like a pro, clinging for dear life. On some occasions, the board would suddently charge through the water, dragging me right off my feet with through water only a metre high. However, many scrapes to the legs, bumps to the head (thanks, board) and full-sea submersions later and I was standing! Granted, not for more than a second or two at a time but hey, it definitely counts. I'd found my surfing mojo by the end of the lesson, kind of, and was able to to repeat it a few times. And I liked it! Unfortunately, as I'm heading north Agnes is the most northerly safe surfing beach in Australia. Ooops. But here's hoping I can give it a go when I go off to NZ.
My attempt: Picture the most unsporty person around, give them a heavy and wilfully misbehaving surfboard and you have an approximation of just how inept I was. I was even poor at bodyboarding despite spending a couple of days in Coffs Harbour trying to do it, but tell me NOT to hold onto the board and suddenly I slid through the water right to up to the sand like a pro, clinging for dear life. On some occasions, the board would suddently charge through the water, dragging me right off my feet with through water only a metre high. However, many scrapes to the legs, bumps to the head (thanks, board) and full-sea submersions later and I was standing! Granted, not for more than a second or two at a time but hey, it definitely counts. I'd found my surfing mojo by the end of the lesson, kind of, and was able to to repeat it a few times. And I liked it! Unfortunately, as I'm heading north Agnes is the most northerly safe surfing beach in Australia. Ooops. But here's hoping I can give it a go when I go off to NZ.
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