Beware of "Stingers" of the Great Barrier Reef

Beware of the Stingers of the Great Barrier Reef in Whitsunday
As you may determine if you read the following account of our experience, I am still very upset. An old girlfriend used to call such things an AFLE which is short for “Another F-----g Learning Experience“ and it was. However after consideration I feel I should warn others as much as I can. The Internet is great for this so here it comes and I will use it as much as possible! Please feel free to send this off to as many people as you wish!
My wife and I have been planning an extended holiday in Australia and New Zealand for 2 years.
A little background.
I have been diving extensively now for over 40 years and sailing for about 34 years. We have our own cruising sailboat with all the amenities, hot and cold running water complete galley head, refrigeration etc. We have been taking diving holidays for many years. Not to mention all but some of these include places like Belize, Honduras, Florida, Jamaica, Philippines, Cuba, Bahamas, Cook Islands and about 3 or 4 times in my favorite Bonaire where they really know about protecting their reef! I raced for about 10 years in Nova Scotia with the Nova Scotia Schooner Association of which I have been a member for many years. I have also crewed on a tall ship. For many years we used to compete in Underwater Hockey and Spear fishing tournaments. Although I used to work 100 feet or more free diving I usually limit this to 50 or 60 feet now.
The purpose of the above preamble is to identify that I have had some experience with diving, sailing and being taken on diving trips.
Our plan for this trip was to take the time (about 5 months) to properly see Australia and New Zealand and escape a Canadian winter. Our estimates for the cost of the whole trip was to be around $40,000 to $60,000, a once in a lifetime trip. One of the real highlights would be a dive on the Great Barrier Reef. The place chosen was Whitsunday. We were traveling by campervan and were staying at the Flame Tree Caravan Park just outside of Whitsunday. A really great place, well run and most accommodating.
We proceeded to book out tour through the people at the Flame Tree for Nov 20th and 21st. We knew we were not in peak season so it should not be too much trouble to get a tour booked. After a few calls we paid our deposit and got a booking on the Apollo III. I noticed that the brochure said mask and snorkel no mention of fins. We called down to the booking agent and were told that they had fins. People were shown with fins on the brochure. Because there was all of the information available (brochures etc) and we were booking through an agent, we assumed we were dealing with a reputable firm.
When we went down to the booking agent to pay the remainder of the fee, we were told you had to rent the fins from a local dive shop because they didn’t have room for all the fins which might be required for 12 divers they would have on the boat. This made some sense so okay we go. We also had to rent a “Stinger suit” because of the problems with the jellyfish (stingers to the locals). Off to the local Dive Shop to rent fins and an underwater camera. The only underwater digital camera rental is from a local “bloke”. He’s not available. Okay so we purchase a “throw away” for $22.
When the lady came with her stinger suits we had to rent for $10 she told us “don’t worry there will be fins on the boat”. After when I went to make sure we had our fins the deck hand said that the trip is a “Eco” trip and no fins allowed so as not to damage the reef! Ever try to get underwater to take a picture with a 1/8 inch neoprene body suit and no weights or fins? Somehow all of this didn’t make any sense at all to me. Your feet were left unprotected from stringers and there was a current in some of the places we were diving in and you needed the power provided by fins. I guess we should have totally backed out at the start. We didn’t.
I know that the tour people have no control over weather etc. the visibility was 12 feet and sometimes less but the sea life was most poor surely there have to be better locations.
There were to be 3 “snorkeling” locations. The first was about as bad as I have ever seen for sea life. The second was worse and I didn’t even bother going over the side for the 3rd. Anyone who knows me would not believe I would miss an opportunity to dive. The area we were diving in was badly silted over so a lot of the coral was in bad shape. There was next to nothing to see or in my mind “to protect”
I don’t think the Captain or crew had any sort of idea how to host a group who wanted to see anything. On the way out we passed a very large turtle that was about 4 feet off the port side which the Captain watched as we motored by at full speed. The same applied to a pod of Dolphins about 60 feet off the port side. This is the kind of thing people come to see. Show it to them, talk it up!
Much of our time was spent “motor-sailing” although the windex indicated we could easily sail and there was good wind!
There was next to nothing said about any of the locations we “snorkeled” at except the area the Captain wanted us to stay in. The Captain did get into the water at the second location minus his “Stinger suit” which makes you wonder why you are wearing one.. I’m not too sure what diving experience he has. The coral near shore was badly silted and with only 12 feet or less visibility you couldn’t see much of the other coral. In my opinion the areas chosen were very poor and there is little to “protect’. Other boats did drop “snorkelers” in some of the locations so we weren’t the only ones in poor conditions.
So much for the “Snorkeling”
Now the Sailing.
At first glance the boat is an old 50 foot “Maxi racer” who has seen better days.
She has Grinder jib winches, running backstays, many aux winches for reefing etc. one missing from it’s pedestal, a portion of the port side sail track missing, she could use some TLC. There was also a Hydraulic vang, baby stay, backstay and apparently drive. The hydraulic pressure gauge was jumping around in tune with some whining which looked to me like it was due to low oil or a pressure relief valve operating. Just a guess on my part. Most of the racing rigging is not fitted, including the 1st and 2nd reef lines on the main. She had a fairly new set of sails (main and 100% jib).
Once on the boat we had to remove our shoes, I’m sure to prevent marking the deck or something. I would question the safety of this. Ask for proper shoes. The deck did get slippery from suntan lotion and there were many things to hurt feet on.
Greetings from the Captain.
At this point I was very, very annoyed about the fins being yes we have no we don’t type of thing and was ready to leave. As I mentioned above we didn’t. This was to be our only look at the “Great” Barrier Reef.
From my point of view it was an extreme GONG show and I said it several times. My wife was also becoming very upset at my annoyance and asking me not to “rain on the parade of those who were on their first experience”. “Don’t ruin it for them”! We had already paid. Okay I will try to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the trip and absolutely stay out of the way.
The message from the Captain was something like this. Welcome my name is etc and your crew is etc. Are there any smokers aboard. None, great. Watch out for the boom, one hand should always hold onto something so you don’t fall overboard. If we have a fire go to the bow of the boat away from all the fuel etc. If someone falls overboard yell “man overboard”.
The message DID NOT AT ANY TIME MENTION LIFE JACKETS, WHERE THEY WERE LOCATED, HOW TO PUT THEM ON, OR FIRE EXTINGUISHERS, IF ANY WERE ON BOARD, WHERE THEY WERE LOCATED OR HOW THEY WERE OPERATED. I asked several people if they knew if any lifejackets were on board and they didn’t know.
-There was no mention of proper man overboard procedures.
-There was no mention of what was to be done in the event of the need to abandon ship with an inflatable which could only handle 7 people. 14 were on board.
-There were a few other things but I think you get the idea of what we went through.
It was the Captain’s first day on the boat. He didn’t seem to know much about the boat at all. Although he talked like he had a very great deal of experience. I’m not sure what credentials he had if any. I didn’t ask. It would have only heightened my anger! I’m not sure any credentials are needed. I don’t know what controls the Whitsunday area has on Charters. It looks like none to me. You sort of assume this thing is looked after.
For between $700 and $800 dollars for 1 night and 2 days we got stung.
ALL TOLD WE GOT STUNG REAL GOOD!!
BE WARY OF STINGERS AT WHITSUNDAY.
Because this sort of thing is very hard to check for in advance. Everything looked or perhaps sounded okay to begin with, I would say definitely stay away from Whitsunday for good sailing or snorkeling!!
We were looking for a great diving experience on the Great Barrier Reef.
It wasn’t. For my money I’ll stick with the Caribbean!!

Brisbane

Up until now, I’ve been writing the blog and then choosing some pictures to go with it. I’m going to attempt to put the pictures in FIRST (and I’ve discovered, in reverse order) so that I can tell you what they are - but this may not work! I’m hoping that picture #1 will be of the beautiful Japanese garden we went to on our first day here (more on that later). Picture #2 should be of Brisbane taken from one of the ferries we went on and #3 is, I hope, of the amazing flower arbour on the south bank in Brisbane. The flowers are being trained to grow along trellises and even though it’s fairly new and has a long way to grow, it really is spectacular. You can walk for quite a long way under it and it’s a welcome relief from the sun (did I mention that it’s hot here!) - although I see from the SaskTel website that we’re probably missing the warmest winter for a long while in Saskatoon!


We arrived in Brisbane a couple of days ago - our first attempt at big city driving in the camper van! The further south we come, the better (and bigger) the roads are, so we are now dealing with 4 lanes each way and everyone else knowing exactly where they want to go - a little intimidating! We have been riding the bus down into Brisbane and everyone is very helpful - bus drivers, people on the bus and in the street. I have learned to say “I’m a tourist and I’m lost” and people immediately want to help! We had supper the first night at the Bowls Club just across the road from the campground (someone please tell Freda!!) Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, but like a lot of the clubs at home, the average age was about 70 and all the people had obviously put a huge amount of their time and effort into the club over the years, but no young people are joining - sad to see. We jumped on a tourist bus the next day as John’s friend Don (thanks Don!) had suggested that it’s the best way to get a feel for a big city - and he’s right. The bus takes you past all the “sights” with a commentary so you know what you want to go back to. We decided to spend some time at Mount Coot-tha which has a spectacular view of the city, an amazing botanical garden and a planetarium which we “did” in that order. The botanical gardens were enormous and it was very hot, so we chose to go to the Japanese garden and the bonsai garden - both absolutely beautiful. The Japanese garden was donated (I think I have this right) for Expo in 1988 by Japan and it is an island of peace with a lovely water feature and places you can sit and just relax. There are the most amazing plants and flowers here (Zoe - John has taken a lovely picture of a bird-of-paradise flower for you!) and there are almost NO BUGS! which for us is very welcome. Obviously there are lots of spiders and other creepy crawlies, but you can sleep at night with the window open and not get eaten alive by mosquitoes. We then went to a movie at the planetarium with commentary by Tom Hanks - “Journey Through the Universe”. Pretty basic information but the images were incredible and afterwards, an astronomer took us through the night sky as it would be without light pollution, and pointed out where all the constellations were etc. - very interesting. Our tourist bus ticket also allowed us the ride the ferries, so we jumped on a ferry with no great idea about where we would end up and saw a different side of Brisbane. On the map, it looks as though it’s on the ocean but it’s actually inland on a river and the city runs all kinds of ferries and catamarans which are very handy. The south bank is where all the museums and art galleries etc. are plus lots of little cafes and market stalls on the weekend - everything you could want from having your fortune told (we didn’t) to buying leather belts (we did).

I had hoped to get John to the Test Match Cricket the following day, but Australia did a very efficient job of ousting the West Indies in very short order, so there was no cricket to be had! We did a bit of wandering down town - very nice and quiet as it was Sunday so not many people around,. Today we are hoping to go to a little local zoo where we are told there is a friendly platypus - haven’t seen one yet so that’s our plan. Then we’ll be off down the coast, hoping to avoid the “schoolies” by choosing quiet beaches to stay at. We have the camper van for another 10 days, so we’re also planning to go out to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney before we have to return it. Serendipitously (sp?!) I have just seen on the map that the hostel we are staying at in Sydney is quite close to where we have to return the van, so I hope driving in Sydney will be kept to a minimum!

Mon Repos

We have decided to leave the touristy track for a while - enough traveling with a bunch of other people and having to be at a certain place at a certain time. We were seriously considering doing a tour of Fraser Island (“You MUST do Fraser Island!”) but we both felt that we’d had enough organization (yes, I did say that!) so we have found some rather eccentric things to do instead! We’re also missing Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo (Crikey!) and all the other glitzy attractions on the Sunshine and Gold Coasts.
After the Capricorn Caves, we drove to a tiny little dot on the map called Mon Repos where there is a turtle rookery. We are here in the season to watch the mama turtles drag themselves up the beach and lay their eggs - the little guys do the scurry to the beach thing in January. John and I and about 40 of our closest friends were taken down onto the beach in total darkness to watch a loggerhead turtle do her thing. There is a research facility there, and they use the tourists to generate revenue. Apparently once the turtle has started digging, she doesn’t appear to care about having a bunch of people watch her, and it was amazing to watch. The one we saw wasn’t particularly large (and of course we’d seen it on TV - but this was a totally different experience!) It had rained hard all day, but cleared up for the evening. There wasn’t much moonlight, but the guide did a really good job of lighting the spot where she was digging and we all got to watch her lay her eggs. She had come quite a long way up the beach to get above the tide mark, so she had a long way to go back, followed by her retinue. So that was a neat experience.
The next day we drove to Noosa which was big and touristy ( I know we said we were avoiding that stuff, but we had been told that a walk along the Noosa Headland is an absolute must, so we did as we were told. It’s quite a nerve-wracking experience driving a fairly large vehicle that you’re not that familiar with, on the wrong side of the road, stick shift on the wrong side, not knowing where you are going and tons of traffic. John and I are still on speaking terms, so we are doing OK so far! We had been told that parking at Noosa Headland was almost impossible, so we visualized like crazy and as we got there, someone pulled out. There you are! The walk really was as good as they said - beautiful golden beaches, rolling waves, bikini-clad girls with Santa hats on (which John enjoyed) and a huge zen-like koala which I spotted sitting on the middle of a very wide branch. He looked a bit like Yoda and couldn’t have cared less about us.
We spent that night at Coolum Beach which is a sleepy little town on the coast. The camp ground we stayed at was right on the beach and we actually spent a morning on the beach and GOING INTO THE OCEAN! We are at last far enough south to be out of reach of the dreaded stingers. That afternoon we drove to a little town called Eumundi where the guide book told us there was a glass blowing cooperative in the local hotel. Such an intriguing juxtaposition was obviously not to be missed, so off we went. Our GPS lady had a bit of a hissy fit and took us to the train station, but we eventually found the hotel, only to be told that the glass blowing guys had been asked to move as their operation was kind of dangerous! Eumundi turned out to be very quaint (lots of hemp shops and hippy-type people around) so we wandered around for a bit and then took off for Pomona where we had something of a Twilight Zone experience. The local campground (total price $15) was run by an engaging lady called Sharon who didn’t have many teeth but did have a wonderful sense of humour. The campground was basic - I shared the shower with 3 dead beetles and someone’s discarded razor - and we were woken up at 4 a.m. by the kookaburras laughing. They are extremely loud! The reason for going to Pomona is that it is the home of the only silent movie theatre in the world that is still going ALONG WITH ORGAN ACCOMPANIMENT! How could we pass up an experience like that? The organist/owner was a delightful New Zealander who had bought the theatre about 25 years ago. He’s been running silent movies ever since (Rudolph Valentino’s Son of the Sheik has been running weekly all that time!) It’s a lovely old theatre and we were two of an audience of about a dozen. We saw a 1936 German film called The Golem - forerunner of Frankenstein complete with Herman Munster (or Elton John) boots and funny walk. Of course there was a heroine with long hair who rolled her eyes and gasped when her lover touched her (gasp!) breast. It was very funny - of course lots of the “dialogue” is given in script, but Ron did a fantastic job of capturing the mood with his organ music. He’s about 76 and absolutely loves his hobby!
Today we drove to Brisbane via Yandina where we eventually ran the glass blowers to ground. They were working on producing about 4,000 glass shapes inspired by sea life on the Great Barrier Reef which the artist wants to install underwater somewhere - very interesting! One of his helpers very kindly explained everything they were doing. We then drove on to Caboolture where the guide book told us there was a Second World War airplane museum. There was even an exact address which we gave to our GPS lady, who promptly took us to the landfill! She actually was quite close and has been very useful most of the time (thank you Andy and Zoe!!)
We’re now in Brisbane where we’ll stay for 3 days and then hope to get a few more days on the beach before we head inland to the Blue Mountains.

Airlie Beach

I know, I know - it’s been a while - but we’ve been on a boat and on the road! My journal after Mission Beach is pretty sketchy for a couple of days - Nov. 16 “Drove to Townsville”; Nov. 17 “Drove away from Townsville”. We stayed at quite a nice campsite which turned out to be bordered by an Air Force Base, an industrial park and a very noisy main road. We have since met 3 other couples who also have the same entries in their journals who stayed in the same camp ground! We were actually offered free tickets to Magnetic Island (just off Townsville) given to us by a Calgary couple who were so anxious to leave, that they were prepared to pass over their ferry tickets! But we were keen to get on the road to Airlie Beach, so we gave the tickets to the camp ground guy and waved goodbye.
We stopped just south of Townsville to go to the Billabong Sanctuary (wild-life park affair). They adopt orphaned koalas, wombats etc. and they did a very nice job of introducing us to all the animals. I had never met a wombat face to face before - they are quite large with fearsome looking claws and are apparently more intelligent than koalas which just lie about and eat leaves and sleep all day. The one we met was called Wilhomena and her life’s ambition for that day was to chew through her keeper’s steel-toed boot. Apart from the marsupials, there were lots of birds (cassowaries also are enormous!), crocodiles (ditto) and other assorted animals.
We arrived in Airlie Beach (mainland off the Whitsunday islands) in the late afternoon and drove to the delightful-sounding campground I had found in the Lonely Planet, but it was quite a way out of town, so we turned around and went to one closer in. When I went in to register, the guy asked me if I minded the schoolies. Maybe my accent was a give-away, but he kindly explained that for about 2 weeks at this time of year (summer here, in case you needed reminding!) the grade 12s (schoolies) migrate to the beaches to get drunk and party (this is BEFORE their final exams??!!) His campground welcomed schoolies, but he evidently thought that maybe someone of my advanced age might not appreciate being next door to partying teenagers. So back we went to the original camp ground which was lovely (yes, there was an aerodrome behind us, but only for helicopters and pleasure planes!) It was very beautiful - lovely gardens, palm trees and tons of birds and assorted wild life. We stayed there for about 4 days and they baby-sat our van while we went on an overnight sail boat trip which unfortunately wasn’t an unqualified success. For a start, they advertised snorkeling (diving in Queensland is out for John at the moment) but we discovered on getting to the boat that they did not allow fins (to protect the reef, which kind of stuck in our throats when other boats turned up with hoards of tourists all flapping their fins madly and standing on the coral) and you had to wear a stinger suit to protect you from the dreaded jellyfish. So lots of extra buoyancy and no fins meant that even John couldn’t get his head much below the water. You can imagine how thrilled he was about that! Plus the visibility was poor, the captain was new to the boat etc. etc. etc. On the plus side, the other 10 people were all 30ish European couples who all spoke excellent English so the company was good and we had a very nice sail back on the second day and the scenery was spectacular. ‘nuff said! Onwards and upwards (or downwards in our case as we’re heading south). Which leads me to another interesting quirk in our travels. The guide book is for East Coast Australia, assuming that you are traveling south - north. We, of course, are going the other way, so I’m trying to read everything backwards, starting from the end of the book and working towards Sydney. I seem to have got the hang of it and we have managed to find some interesting little places. Yesterday we stayed at Capricorn Caves just north of Rockhampton and did a tour of the caves which were quite amazing. They were found in 1890-something and were originally explored using only candle light. Our guide took us quite deep into the cave system into the Cathedral Cave (no bats there for some reason, but we saw thousands on our way through other caves). It really did look like a cathedral and people even get married there (a bit creepy we thought!) The acoustics are almost perfect and we listened to a CD of Anya (sp?) who has a glorious voice - really beautiful. Then the guide asked us if we wanted to “see” what it would have been like for the original finder of the caves with his one little candle, so of course we said yes. He then blew the candle out (he did warn us first!) and I don’t think I have ever experienced such total darkness. And of course we were a long way underground so I was glad when he lit the candle again! He also asked us if we wanted to do the zig zag and Hartley said yes before we even knew what it was! It turned out to be a narrow slit in the rock that zig zags you out of the cave. The guide gives you a candle (and a lighter!), cheerily says he’ll see you on the other side, and off you go! It actually wasn’t that bad, but glad I don’t have even a whiff of claustrophobia! Of course there were all kinds of amazing rock formations - curtains, stalactites and mites and fig tree roots that grow hundreds of meters down through the rock to find moisture.
We are now at Mon Repos, a tiny little place just east of Bundaberg where there is a loggerhead turtle rookery. We are booked to go on a turtle watch tonight to see the females come and lay their eggs. The eggs don’t hatch until January unfortunately as that would be amazing to see the little turtles make their run for the sea. Our campground is right on the beach and the weather has turned today (rain for the first time since we’ve had the van) so almost everyone else has abandoned ship!

Mission Beach

So this is our new home for the next month. We picked her up yesterday (why are vehicles female?) with some trepidation as we have LOTS of luggage and she looked kind of small. We jammed everything in as best we could and took off south, stopping at Mission Beach, about 150 km out of Cairns. Imagine the most beautiful tropical beach, with swaying palm trees, golden sand, blue sky and gentle waves - that’s Mission Beach. Now imagine the same scene with a question mark over the ocean. Why are there no people swimming? Because if you swim in the open ocean on this coast, you are likely to come face to face (or face to tentacle) with a box jelly fish which (as my children know!!) is lethally poisonous. So - all that beautiful ocean and you can’t go in. Actually, they have areas netted off where you can go, but they are quite small and somehow it’s not quite the same. Anyway, we did take advantage of the sand and the ambience and stretched out for a snooze (and yes, we did go swimming inside the net).
We found a really nice campground and discovered that with a bit of ingenuity (and some cramming) we could get all our stuff nicely stowed away in the van. There are lots of cupboards and hidey-holes and we looked in all of them, but couldn’t find the sheets and towels that we had been promised. We had actually bought some towels for our previous camping trips, but had to rent sheets from the campground. The van is actually much roomier than it looked at first glance, and we are already quite fond of her. The trip to Mission Beach was something of an eye-opener. We assumed that the main highway down the east coast would be at least a 4-lane deal - but no. It’s single lane (both ways) nearly all the way with the occasional very short over-taking lane. It’s quite un-nerving to be driving at the speed limit with a huge great truck right on your back bumper - those guys really like to move! When we could, we pulled over so they could pass, but sometimes we had to go quite a way before ir was safe to pull off the road. Also, there are regular road works (apparently they are “improving” the road) - often we had to wait while oncoming traffic came through, so it took us much longer than we had anticipated.
Our next door neighbours at the campsite were a really nice couple from Perth - Deb and Ray. We had a really good visit with them and joined them for supper. Deb is an OT (Occupational Therapist) so no wonder we got along so well!
The camper was really comfortable and we were woken up at some ungodly hour by kookaburras laughing - which I guess is as good a way as I can think of to get woken up! We ate breakfast watching swarms of huge, iridescent green beetles buzzing around in the palm trees - pretty nice start to the day!
We drove to Townsville today and hope to get to Airlie Beach tomorrow where we’ll probably stay for a few days - we’re going to try to go sailing/snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. Not sure if we will be able to dive - I did enquire about diving when we were in Cairns, but Queensland is apparently quite strict about your medical status (good thing!) and John would have had to have a medical to say that his pacemaker was OK for him to dive with. So diving may be out - at least for the time being.

Atherton Tablelands

We had a lovely day today! The sun shone (most of the time) which was a nice change from the torrential rain of yesterday. We rented a car and drove out to the Atherton Tablelands which are west (and inland) from Cairns. As the guidebook says, it’s a “lush, green, fertile plateau …” Lots of dairy farms, sugar cane, tea and coffee (which surprised us) - and to get there, we had to drive about 20 km up the most windy (as in ‘whine-dy’ - not lots of wind!) I’ve ever been on with glorious views (so of course we had to stop every few feet to take more photos!) We rewarded our efforts with a cream tea at Lake Barrine which is the remains of a volcano - very picturesque. (For the uninitiated, a cream tea is a scone loaded with jam and THICK cream lathered on top - no wonder we are getting stout!) John took some lovely flower pictures there so I thought I’d put one on the blog. Then we went on to Yungaburra (you can’t pass up visiting a place with a name like that) and had lunch there. This area seems to be full of little communities that have got stuck in the ‘60’s - hippie-style VW campervans abound, complete with psychedelic flowers on their sides, as do dreadlocks, bare feet and dreamy expressions of bliss! Just outside Yungaburra, there was a sign to the Curtain Fig Tree - again, how could we resist? I’ve put up a picture of John by the tree (just to prove that I am capable of pushing the button on the camera occasionally), but it really doesn’t do justice to this amazing tree. How it starts is that a fig seed lodges in the high branches of a host tree and puts down aerial roots which eventually turn into this huge “curtain”, by which time, the host tree has bitten the dust. Then we were off on the waterfall circuit - there are many, many waterfalls in the area and I’m sure we visited most of them. Even though we thought there had been a lot of rain recently, none of the falls were particularly spectacular, but there’s something elemental about seeing and hearing streams of water rushing over rocks. When John asked (rather wistfully) if “that was the last one?”, I brought out my trump card - a visit to a dairy farm (called Out of the Whey) which the Lonely Planet had assured me had the best cheesecake in the world, made on site. Another long, windy road - and the cheesecake was indeed amazing (ditto with the stout remark from earlier in the day). When we got back to Cairns, we walked into town to finish our Christmas shopping just in time to watch all the fruit bats wake up and fly off to do whatever fruit bats do. There were literally hundreds of them wheeling about and squeaking. I always thought that humans couldn’t hear bat-talk, but these guys were really loud. You were a little afraid of looking up too much though .…..
We pick up our campervan on Sunday and then it’s off to Sydney. We have a month to do about 2,500 km and there is so much to do along the way. This really is turning into the most amazing trip - we’ve had some wonderful experiences, met some interesting people and had a few fraught moments (e.g. today when John went to pay for gas and couldn’t find his credit card - panic while we turned everything up-side-down only to find that it had somehow got itself stuck onto the cover of his i-touch. Oh, isn’t technology a wonderful thing!

Cairns

Lesson #3 - Cairns is spelled without an “e” (I think I’ve been spelling it wrong all along
Lesson #4 - it rains a lot here.
We got into Cairns 3 days ago, looking rather bulky. It’s amazing how much stuff you accumulate in your travels (apart from all the electronic gear we have added!) To cut down on bulk and weight, we both wore as many clothes. as we could on the flight, which was a little tiresome as we left Alice Springs in extremely hot weather! So there we were, in our hiking boots, jeans, heavy socks, jackets etc. and everyone else in shorts and T shirts. However, the weather is much different here in Cairns. We had a lovely first day when we just wandered around, getting our bearings. And now it’s raining non-stop. It’s a very pretty city, but extremely touristy. We are staying at the central Youth Hostel, which turned out to be a really good choice (even though it produced howls of laughter from my children when I told them we had joined!) It’s a really nice facility, right near downtown, with a pool complete with palm trees. The rooms are small but clean and we have our own bathroom - and WE ARE NOT THE OLDEST PEOPLE HERE! There is lots of white hair around and it certainly isn’t a party place. We had our introduction to communal cooking the other day (see picture!) Everyone gets a little cubby where you can keep your dry goods, and then there are banks of refrigerators where you put your stuff in a bag and hope nobody knocks your milk over. We decided to cook in last night and chose the busiest time - hoards of people, all using every single pot and pan (and probably not washing them up when they’re finished). There are 12 2-burner units plus a couple of ovens and microwaves. Everyone is very friendly and I only got a minimal look of pity when someone explained how the gas rings worked!
We joined the tourist mob the next day and took the sky rail up to Karunda, a village up in the rain forest originally home to many hippies (some of whom are still there, looking a little ragged around the edges). The sky rail is a gondola-thing that takes you above the rain forest canopy and there were a couple of stations where you could get off on the way and walk through the forest and look at some water falls. Not much water in them at the moment (but if this rain keeps up, they should be looking pretty good soon!) Again, it’s tourist heaven with lots of market stalls with every kind of soap, clothes, \pottery, hemp products (!), coffee etc. etc. etc. It was actually quite pleasant and we had planned to do some walking in the forest, but the rains came, so we hopped on the scenic railway that brought us back to town (see picture).
We had planned to rent a car and drive north today up to Cape Tribulation (doesn’t it sound wonderful?!) but by the time we had our act together, the rain was torrential and we had such an interesting conversation with one car rental lady that we decided not to bother. Actually, amongst the more useful things she told us was that if we drove to Cape Trib, there was a good chance we might actually get stranded there as you have to cross a couple of creeks that are liable to flood at this time of year, trapping unsuspecting tourists on the wrong side of them with no hope of getting across. So we have been playing cards, reading and are desperate enough to try the movies tonight!
Amongst other things, we have managed to get most of our Christmas shopping done, so Zoe and Shelly, look out for packages in the mail! You may have to do a bit of wrapping for us! And Zoe - I have just mailed off a very large box by sea mail (should arrive mid-January) with all the clothes that we don’t need! So don’t bother to open it, but please pick it up when it arrives (and let me know if it never puts in an appearance!) John has down-loaded the Garmin lady for Australia and New Zealand, (thanks again to Andy and Zoe!) so when we pick up our campervan on Sunday, we should just be able to sit back and have her tell us where to go. If the weather keeps up like this, we may well make good time south - right now we’re thinking we may just drive until it stops raining!

Uluru

Lesson #2 - Three days in a bus with 20 Germans in 40 degree heat, traveling 1,300 kilometers with AC/DC blaring on the radio most of the time is enough. We just got back from a 4 day trip with 20 Germans etc. etc. etc.! We started out with a very long drive from Alice Springs to Uluru (otherwise known as Ayers Rock), arriving mid-afternoon - probably the hottest time of the day. So of course, we put on our heavy boots and walked around the rock! Actually, we only walked about ½ way round, but it was incredibly hot. We got used to carrying large amounts of water with us wherever we went - you just have to keep drinking. Uluru is (I waited here for a while, trying to find the right adjective - amazing? fantastic? extraordinary?) but I couldn’t get the right one. Uluru just IS - it’s huge and imposing. Close up, it’s full of weathered caves and cracks - the most impressive view is what you see from a way away when you can see the whole rock. We did get that view later on when we joined about 2,000 of our closest friends for champagne to watch sunset (see picture).
The next day we got up at 4 a.m. (hurray!) to watch the sunrise at the Olgas, another amazing rock formation quite close to Uluru (see picture). Not quite all our friends from last night were there. We went on a walk called the Valley of the Winds which gave us fabulous views, and we understood the wisdom of getting up early and doing the walk before 10 a.m. - did I say before how hot it is?
Day 3 saw us at Kings Canyon which was actually our favourite of the 3. Again, we got up at 4 a.m. and we didn’t grumble a bit after our experience yesterday - you really do not want to be out in the sun too much after about 11 a.m. The walk at Kings Canyon started up with a very steep climb (locally known as Heart Attack Hill, which had me a little worried, but John’s “little helper” seems to be functioning beautifully and he leapt up the hill way quicker than I did!) Kings Canyon is much more spectacular than either Uluru or the Olgas, we thought. It’s the same rusty red colour, but the canyon walls are full of unexpected trees (palms, for goodness sake!) and you get amazing views from way up on the canyon rim. It used to be the site of many Aboriginal ceremonies, but now there are so many damn tourists, the Aboriginals don’t want anything to do with the place which is pretty sad. Their old way of life is quickly dying - we met quite a few elders who told us about how they used to subsist in the bush which is actually full of things to eat and drink even though it looks quite barren. These old ways are quickly being lost to modern life. We slept under the stars our last night of camping, something I’ve never done before. There are NO BUGS (people in Saskatchewan will understand how amazing that is!) and it was really neat to lie on your camp cot and look up at the stars. We were visited during the night by some brumbies (wild horses), and we could hear donkeys and dogs in the distance - but we slept really well!
Day 4 (this was when we started to come a bit un-glued!) saw us at Wallace Rockhole where we learned about the dot painting method which you see in a lot of the Aboriginal artwork. We actually got to do some dot painting (yes, John did a really nice one!) and after doing our little bookmark, we really had gained an appreciation of the amount of work that goes into the paintings that you see and we can now understand some of the symbolism.
We had 2 guides for this tour, Jason and Marcus - both really nice young men. Marcus was along as the German interpreter as a lot of the other 20 people didn’t speak much English. He was cute - very spiky hair and lots of metal in his lips and ears but quite delightful! Jason was huge - 6’ 8” and 280lb (used to be a bouncer in a bar!) He was such an interesting person - aged 25 with a very “interesting” background, but so inquisitive about everything. He was incredibly well read and told wonderful stories about the history and natural history of everywhere we went. Each camp site was the same - 2 man tents (see picture!) and although Jason did all the cooking, we all chipped in to help with clean-up after meals.
We are now done with tours for a while, although we’re thinking of spending a night on Fraser Island and also on Kangaroo Island - people have told us that both are really worth doing. I’m actually writing this in a bar where John and I are the only white people (other than the barman). The juke box is playing “Achey breaky heart” and the dogs are racing on TV! We have 3 hours to wait for the bus to take us out to the airport, and we’ve been turfed out of our room at the hotel! We’re gaining lots of cultural experiences! We’re off to Cairns today where we’ll be staying at a Youth Hostel (yes, my kids laughed when I told them where we were staying!). Then we pick up a campervan (thanks, Lindsay!) for a one-month trip down to Sydney.

Alice Springs

The pictures are actually from Kakadu National Park, now that we have the technology to put up photos again! We have pictures from Alice Springs, but as you’ll see from the blog, we did lots of museumy things, so the 3 pictures are from Kakadu up east of Darwin. You’ll see our “tent” which was very civilized, the Hartleys by an enormous termite mound and a not-terribly-good picture of a crocodile - I had described what happened in the Kakadu blog - this picture is a still one that John took after the croc had smashed the fish on the bank and managed to break off its head - he has the head in his jaws and the rest of the fish is on the bank. Just to show you how close we were and how large the croc was!
Day 1 in Alice Springs was Museum day. Our hotel is quite a way out of town, so we rented a car for a couple of days - probably a good idea to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road before we have to drive a campervan! So we managed to hit quite a few tourist high-spots.
We got to museum #1 by accident. It was the first Aboriginal art gallery we walked into and it turned out to be the most amazing place. We went in planning to just have a quick look around and ended up staying for about an hour, Aboriginal art varies by region - in Darwin there was lots of “x-ray” art which shows the internal organs of animals. In Alice Springs, there is more “modern” art - finger painting in lines which I don’t find so attractive but is still interesting. However, there was a huge variety of styles in the gallery, and there was a fascinating display of Aboriginal artifacts along with lots of information about their way of life. The owners of the gallery have collaborated with an Aboriginal group, giving them paints and canvas so that they can develop their art and earn some money.
Museum #2 was the Telegraph Station which was the beginning of the town of Alice Springs. We figured that all old telephone guys who visit Australia should go there! It was very interesting (and HOT!) - hard to imagine the lives of the families of the telegraph men who grew up completely isolated from the rest of the world.
Museum #3 was a transport museum - no prizes for guessing who was most interested! There were lots and lots of trucks - what more can I say?
Day 2 in Alice - we went to the Desert Park which was quite amazing. Three different desert habitats were laid out with a really good audio guide so you knew what you were looking at as you went around (note to brother John and sister-in-law Alison - the audio guides were EXCELLENT! There were little numbers posted to tell you exactly what to push and when - no need to scream “No WAIT before you push the green button!” - note to others: John, Alison and I went to Hampton Court near London and the audio guides were less than impressive!) There was a fantastic birds of prey display - owls, hawks and other raptors all free flying which had been trained to demonstrate how they catch their prey. It was really well done. There was also a really good nocturnal house which we went through with a guide and saw all kinds of creepy crawlies (John particularly liked the horny devil!) as well as mammals and snakes. And talking about mammals, there is a group of rock wallabies that live at our hotel. They come out in the evening and the hotel provides food pellets for guests to feed them. Of course the wallabies know that the food will be there and they put up with being photographed and petted. We participated in the photographing but not the petting or feeding! They really are cute little guys and you can get close enough to see the joeys in the pouches - sometimes a head sticks out but occasionally there’s just a really long leg which gets in the mom’s way - pretty cute!
We’ve been eating quite a variety of foods since we’ve been on the road. Nearly all the places we’ve stayed have provided us with the makings for tea (hurray!) and usually there’s a fridge, so we’ve been buying fruit, yogurt and pastries for breakfast. We have found that sharing something for lunch and supper gets us by quite well - servings are huge and eating out pretty expensive, so sharing works well. However, we are both feeling a little stout already as we’re not doing a whole lot of exercise. Our present hotel indicated that there would be a kitchenette, which turned out to be a microwave - so we’re looking forward to when we get our campervan and can have a bit more control over what we eat. We tried kangaroo the other night and agreed that it tasted a bit like liver (which luckily we both quite like). We also had wattle-berry ice cream - no idea what wattle berries are but damn, they taste good!
We leave Alice Springs on Thursday to go on a 4 day trip to Uluru (Ayers Rock) so probably no more blogging for a while. John has just invested in another piece of electronic wizardry which is supposed to allow us to be completely self-sufficient in the wireless internet department - we’ll see. We have had some less-than-wonderful experiences with internet services, so thought we should make our lives easier, but we will soon need an entire extra suitcase for all our electronics!