Sunday, March 29, 2015

Girringun National Park

BSorry, photos for this post will have to wait for a later date.

From the Daintree we went to Girringun National Park. On the way, we drove through about 5 km of unattended forest fire on both sides of the A1 Highway. The fire smelled of eucalyptus and cinnamon. Apparently, the rain forest will expand 125 feet a year so they let it burn to encourage the scrub forest which except in the park, appears to have been cut down to grow sugarcane.  We arrived late, traveling 37+ kilometers without seeing another vehicle (there were only 2 other vehicles in the park that night). I killed thousands of bugs on the windshield and nearly an equal number of cane toads under the van wheels. Cane toads are poisonous and invasive so no karma points subtracted.  We also had to stop at least three times to get cattle to move off the roadway. I'm pretty sure if I'd needed to hit the brakes hard, we may have skidded uncontrollably on a combination of toad goo and cow poo.  The road got extremely narrow and steep and so winding, I was navigating corners by looking out the side windows.  It reminded me of the Thailand zip line excursion.

We woke to Kookaburra (I don't know how I know that but I do) and visited the top and bottom of Wallaman Falls (nearly 1,000 vertical).




 

 

Daintree Rain Forest

Sorry, photos for this post will have to wait for a later date.

After leaving Cairns, we first travelled north to Cape Tribulation in the Daintree Rain Forest, another World Heritage Site and the oldest rain forest on the planet. Based on the primitive plants, I totally believe it. Imagine a 30-foot high fern.  Apparently, this is one place on earth the climate has been stable enough to sustain a wet tropical rain forest. Let's wish it many thousand more years. It is pretty remote, we had to take a little ferry to get there.

We walked about a mile each way on an amazing beach to a 2-mile boardwalk bush walk (hike). On the beach we crossed a creek full of fish that walked on their front fins. Bizarre creatures, typical for Australia. The beach we were on was fairly remote and refreshingly virtually free of plastic.  It was loaded with pumice stone at the high tide line. I always thought pumice was volcanic, but perhaps it is a product of the reef. I'll have to check when I find reliable wifi.


Strange crab holes surrounded with spherical pellets of sand

Weird walking fish
 

The rain forest is something else. It is all about competition for sun. Everything is looking for a leg up.  New growth on the forest floor sends out spindly tendrils 20 feet or more to find another plant, tree or structure to attach to. When it finds one, barbs on the tendril grab the host and it continues upward in search of sun. It is strange to see an 1/8th-inch diameter tendril defy gravity and extend more than 20 feet in the air. There is typically little leaf growth between 5 and 25 feet of elevation.  In places where a tree had collapsed opening the canopy, there is frenzied growth making the most of the sunlight.





We are told the Daintree is a good place to see a Cassowary, a prehistoric looking bird, up to 200 pounds and 6 feet in height.  Our camping neighbors had seen one the day before. We weren't so lucky. None the less, it was a fascinating place.

Great Barrier Reef - a day of firsts

Sorry, photos for this post will have to wait for a later date. 

In Cairns, we woke at 6:00 in the morning to board a Catamaran for a 2+ hour trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We made our first dive on the GBR just after lunch. Jack and I found Nemo (maybe 3/4" long), fortunately with his very nervous looking parents.  The girls spotted sea turtles. Visibility was not great due to the recent cyclone, but the corals are abundant, highly varied and still thriving compared some places we have been.

Our third dive was a night dive (AK, Zoe and Jack's first). Afterward, we found out the kids were terrified. Thank goodness we didn't see sharks which we were told is common at night. We all saw the Southern Cross for the first time through dive masks floating in the Pacific Ocean. Thankfully, I had a mask with corrective lenses.

We spent the night on a big (80-foot, 60-person) catamaran (AK, Zoe and Jack's first sleep aboard) softly rolling behind the protection of the Great Barrier Reef.

After a little grumbling, the 6:00 am dive was the most brilliant. The fish were active and hungry. For some reason the visibility had increased 6 to 8 fold.

We ended up with 6 dives and a snorkeling outing. It was great!  We all eventually saw sea turtles.

The GBR is beautiful like a garden of coral with fishes of every size, shape and color hovering in and around the corals like colorful butterflies, birds or lively fruits. Lots of vivid blues, greens, purples, yellows and oranges.  The corals are fortunately still alive, but showing stress from human activity. Scuba is so unnatural, breathing air from a tank 30 to 50 feet underwater with 2 to 3 atmospheres of pressure trying to infuse water into every pore and passage. It seems more apparent when you are trying to watch out for kids.

We ate excellent food on the boat, but then again we were so hungry and tired after diving, we would have eaten cooked shoe leather.  When we got back to Cairns we splurged and ate kangaroo (kind of like beefy venison), crocodile, and barramundi (a local fish I'm told can eat baby crocodiles, tasted kind of like walleye).


Jucy

We've rented a "Jucy" camper van "caravan" to drive the 1,100 miles (1,750 km) to Brisbane. I like kilometers, they make me feel 60% more productive.

Jack and I have been sleeping in the "Penthouse", a topper that pops up like a vanagon. I'll be lucky if I don't fall out and break something before this is over. Great views of the wildlife from up there though. We'll add our funk to the hundreds of other hippie backpackers who've enjoyed the Jucy before us..

We are on our fourth day now. We've driven 1,100 kilometers around Queensland, mostly in the narrow lowlands between the ocean and the mountains. Occasionally the mountains have met the ocean or we have made forays into the mountains. See subsequent blogs.

I have to say how nice it is to buy food and prepare it ourselves.

We've seen probably millions of acres of sugar cane, three mango groves, three banana groves, a tea farm and one field of some kind of bean.  As far as I can tell, Queensland grows almost only sugar cane. There are thousands of kilometers of narrow gage (maybe 18") railroad criss-crossing the land for the sole purpose of getting cane to the mills. Apparently, the cane needs to get to the mill within 16 hours or the sugar evaporates.
 
As far as I can tell an almost incomprehensibly vast area of Queensland is prone to flooding. The roads are labeled "Roadway subject to flooding indicators show  depth". The gages are typically 1.5 to 2 meters high. There are also electronic signs telling you what road segments are open ahead. This is Australia's main east coast highway!  Many cars have snorkels, most homes are elevated up to 8 feet above the ground and the roads are armored on the downstream side. Maybe it is just during cyclones, but it would be a sight to see.

I've got to say that Aussie wifi, the iCloud and Blogger are conspiring against me. I think wifi in Australia means two tin cans minus the string.  Even when we have paid extra for wifi at luxury hotels, the wifi in Australia hasn't come close to wifi in a treehouse in Thailand. Go figure?!!  When you are lucky, it takes 10+ minutes to upload a photo. Without wifi, the iCloud turns photos into  offensive vapors (30 days before you lose them), and at slow internet speeds, Blogger often makes you upload photos 2 and 3 times. Sorry, but I may need to abandon blogging until we get to Singapore.
 
 

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Cairns

We flew 2,500 miles north of Sydney back across the Tropic of Capricorn to Cairns in northeastern Australia. It is tropical, laid back and the northern gateway to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). I haven't asked an aborigine, but no one else we've spoken to in Cairns is from Cairns. There are parakeets fussing about in the trees along the ocean boardwalk and during the day fruit bats hanging in the trees along the main drag. At sunset, the bats set out by the thousands. Initially, they all swarm above the tree tops waiting for some signal to leave and then in just a matter of minutes they are gone.  It reminds me of the flying monkey scenes in the Wizard of Oz. The process is reversed at sunrise, but the bats are louder and more boisterous. It sounds like a combination of bragging and parents scolding the young, telling them to go to sleep. These are big creatures also known as flying fox. I'm guessing some easily have a 4-foot wingspan and I'm told they will grow bigger than 5 feet. Thankfully, they are principally vegetarian. Don't let small children walk around with fruit in their hands.

Spring has begun (at least technically) for most of you. Autumn is beginning here. The tomatoes are awesome. I'm hoping it is the tomato season. If not, it's just not fair.


 
 


Sunday, March 22, 2015

Blue Mountains

We stayed in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for a couple of days.  It was not at all what I expected.  For some reason I envisioned dusty towns in valleys surrounded by eucalyptus covered mountains. I got the eucalyptus right and that was about it. In actuality, the towns were on mesas at about 3,000 feet elevation, strung along a ridge between valleys.  It was more like a combination of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Smoky Mountains but with several hundred foot high sandstone cliffs.  Definitely beautiful, but don't step close to the edge.

I drove on the left hand side of the road for the first time in 15 years. I turned the wipers on a couple of dozen times trying to use my turn signals.  We all survived.

The Three Sisters







Don't misstep




Lots of very high waterfalls











Friday, March 20, 2015

One night in Bangkok

After 4 weeks in Thailand, we left our excellent friends and travel companions Todd, Colleen, Jack (the bigger) and Ellie. This trip wouldn't have been the same without their pre-trip planning and on-the-fly logistics. Thank you!  We will miss them.



We returned to Bangkok for the night and stayed in a hotel that felt like you could have found it in an aisle at IKEA.  We felt right at home.  We planned to do nothing, but that made us lonely and homesick (dog sick).  So we pushed everyone out the door and went back out onto the Chao Phraya river taxis and visited Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn). 


Walter


Jack (a monkey) likes dragons and got this photo













Cat's got a flea


We then returned to the hotel, did a late check out and swam for more than an hour (we'd left our bags at the airport). We then spent a couple of hours in the MKB, Siam Centre and Siam Paragon shopping malls before catching a plane to Sydney.
 



Camo Moth