Perth

Virgin Australia eastbound – ADELAIDE TO SYDNEY – 1 hour 25 minutes

Virgin Australia westbound – SYDNEY TO PERTH – 4 hours 35 minutes – 2036 miles

On October 24^th we experienced our first glitch in transportation when our direct early morning flight from Adelaide to Perth was cancelled.  Instead of heading west we were re-routed east to Sydney for a 2.5 hour layover before heading west to Perth.  Instead of arriving in Perth before 8AM we arrived at the Goodearth Hotel after 5PM.  A huge billowing cloud of smoke and bright orange flames licking the vegetation were clearly visible as we started our descent for the approach to Perth airport.  This was our first and hopefully only glimpse of a bush fire.

A view of Perth from along the Swan River

Perth, the capital of West Australia (WA or ‘The West’) is a massive state, more than three times the size of Texas.  Covering about 1 million square miles, it is largely empty with just over 2 million people, 75% of whom live in Perth.  Its early settlers were free settlers who struggled to survive in the inhospitable environment with little water and with soil mostly devoid of nutrients.  These settlers eventually appealed to Britain to send the ‘better class’ of convicts over to help them out!  Gold discoveries in the 1890’s finally led to a wave of prosperity that kept the colony alive.  While many of Australia’s other state capitals still have many of the grand buildings of that era, Perth’s are mostly gone or hidden in the shadows of the skyscrapers that were erected in the 1960’s and 1970’s.   Another building boom is in progress today with massive projects in the works at Elizabeth Quay along the Swan River and near the Perth Arena and railway station.

We arrived at Kings Park just in time to join a walking tour of a small part of this 1,000 acre Botanic Garden on a bluff above the Swan River.  (Hamish, our tour guide, was a retired obstetrician who engaged in a lively give and take conversation with the female obstetrician and her parents who came from Canberra by way of Belarus.) Since the early 1800’s this area has been set aside for recreation and park lands.  Once known as Perth Park, it was renamed Kings Park in 1901 to commemorate the accession of Edward VII to the British throne.  While it is very much a park for the enjoyment of the people with playgrounds, cafes and picnic areas, it also has a very serious side with a strong ceremonial and scientific role.

The State War Memorial at Kings Park

There are many memorials throughout Kings Park honoring the brave men and women lost in war as well as those who have made a contribution to the development of WA.  The State War Memorial dominating Mount Eliza honors those West Australians lost in World War I and World War II.  Multiple Honours Avenues are lined with over 1,300 white-trunked gum trees planted to commemorate the fallen of World War I.  At the base of each tree is a small plaque bearing the name, age and battle where the soldier’s life was lost – a poignant reminder of the price of war.  Unknown to us until today – no other nation lost more men in World War I as a proportion of its population than Australia.  This little known fact explains the somber presence of so many WWI memorials throughout all of Australia.

One of the 1,300 plaques along Honours Avenue

 

Another memorial overlooking the Swan River is dedicated to those West Australians who lost their lives in the terrorist bombing of the nightclubs in Bali in 2002.  It is positioned in such a way that the rising morning sun shines brightly through two walls and warms the large stone tablet bearing the names of those young people who perished there. 

Banksia in bloom

On a happier note, many wildflowers in the park were in the last stages of bloom.   The red kangaroo paw plant and the banksia were particularly colorful.  The banksia blooms resemble bushy bottle brushes; the tips of the new shoots of the Mungitch variety supposedly produce a tasty chewing gum but, in light of all the benign looking things in Australia that we know can kill you, we weren’t going to try it! 

The Jacaranda trees were in full purple bloom.

 

Gija Jumulu

The Boab is a native tree that drops all its leaves during the dry season.  Even though it looks dead it is very much alive, surviving on the large amount of water stored in its swollen trunk.  The Gija Jumulu is a 750-year-old Boab that was transplanted to Kings Park from the Kimberley Region of WA in 2008.



We really enjoy the walking tours of the various cities we have visited and Tony’s walking tour of Perth lived up to our expectations.  From the outdoor court of Forrest Place, the site of an ancient aboriginal meeting place still bustling with activity today, to the Supreme Court, the Horseshoe Bridge, the train station and the cultural areas of downtown, Tony had some good stories to share about his city. 

Roos along St. Georges Terrace

Water labyrinth at Forrest Square

 

The walking path along the Swan River was a delightful route to get from the Goodearth Hotel to Elizabeth Quay.  Many families were out enjoying the beautiful morning and the bike path carried plenty of riders of all ages.  The park was abuzz with activity preparing for the Indian Festival of Lights.  Closer to the quay temporary fencing enclosed the massive construction site that would eventually yield a much anticipated entertainment district.

Bell Tower

The Swan Bells Bell Tower, billed as one of the world’s largest musical instruments, overlooks Elizabeth Quay and the many ferry landings there.  Twelve of the eighteen bells housed in the tower are from the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London’s Trafalgar Square.  The bells, cast between 1725 and 1770, have rung out to mark many milestone in the history of the British empire. They were given to the citizens of Perth to commemorate Australia’s bicentenary in 1988 and continue to ring out historic occasions and New Year’s celebrations.

All the walking made me hungry and we returned to William Street to lunch at Jamie Oliver’s newly-opened restaurant Jamie’s Italian.  It did not disappoint!

Another day, another wine tour!  This time we joined Ivan from Swan Valley Tours for a seven hour excursion to the Swan Valley, Perth’s Valley of Taste.  Winemaking started here 180 years ago.  Five wineries (Pinelli, Sandalford, Houghton, Lancaster and Swanbrook), one brewery (Mash), and one chocolate factory (Margaret River Chocolate Co.) later, we were back in Perth.

 

 



Unbeknownst to me, Frank was taking pictures
as I was trying to avoid contact with greenery that
might have had been home to red-backed spiders at
Lancaster Winery toilets!!!

Sandalford Winery, founded in 1840, is one of the oldest and largest privately owned wineries in WA.  Their expansive lawn also serves as a concert venue attracting major acts like Santana, Sting, Carole King, Sheryl Crow and Michael Bublé.  Houghton Winery has been producing award-winning wines for over 175 years.  We enjoyed dining alfresco at their café with our friendly group of tasters – a mix of Aussies, Brits and Americans.

When the preferred mode of transport for world travelers was passenger ships, the town of Fremantle was the western gateway to Australia.  Millions of migrants arrived here by ship and today more than 40,000 cruise ship passengers arrive per year.  We were strongly encouraged to visit Fremantle by just about everyone we met who had been to Perth.  So, being swayed by opinions of perfect strangers, we set about making plans to visit this town south of Perth.  We were shocked at the posted prices for hotel rooms there so we instead hopped the train from Perth (fare $1.80 each one way) for a 25 minute train ride to Fremantle.  And are we ever glad that we only chose to spend a few hours there!!  While the Western Australia Maritime Museum and its associated Shipwreck Gallery were top-notch, there was not much else in town to hold our interest and we were back in Perth within five hours.  (We later found out that Mick Jagger visited Fremantle the same day!  The Rolling Stones are in Perth for two shows this week.)

A view of Perth from Mount Eliza in Kings Park

 

We felt that we could not leave Australia without some knowledge of aboriginal culture so we made arrangements to meet Greg at Kings Park for a tour of the park and its significance to the aborigines.  He himself an aborigine retold the creation story, shared the herbal and medicinal uses of the different trees and plants, and gave us useful information on how to start a fire and find water if we are ever contestants on Survivor.  He also pointed out different locations around Perth and Kings Park and how they were used by aborigines.  Interestingly, many years later the Europeans used these sites for the very same purposes - marrying hill in Kings Park is still the site of hundreds of weddings each year, an aboriginal healing site is now the site of a hospital, and a site where aborigine boys partook in a ritual to officially become men is now the site of a boys primary school.

The Perth Mint

Just a few blocks from our hotel is the Perth Mint.  Founded in 1899 as a colonial branch of the Royal Mint, its primary purpose was to refine gold mined in WA’s goldfields and turn it into bullion bars and sovereigns for use throughout the British Empire.   Later on it produced large quantities of Australia’s circulating coinage.  In 1970 ownership of the mint passed from the British government to the government of WA.  It is now the official producer of the Australian Precious Metals Coin Program, refining all of Australia’s gold production and issuing legal tender bullion and commemorative coins.

The brick walls and ceiling of the Melting House are embedded with gold dust from 91 years of refining gold!  After a short tour of the mint detailing how prospectors lived and mined for gold, we were treated to a gold pouring performance - under the watchful eye of a guard.  Two hundred ounces of pure molten gold was poured to form a solid gold bar.  It was amazing to see how quickly the molten gold solidified!

With just two more days before our Australian adventure ends, we fled the city and drove 35 miles north of Perth to Yanchep National Park.  What a great decision that was!

The Indian Ocean shoreline near Mindarie Keys

The Atlantis Beach version of King Neptune -
not quite up to Virginia Beach standards!?!

 

Driving north along the Indian Ocean we were flabbergasted by the number of new housing developments under construction.  Heavy road building equipment sat atop the sand dunes poised to turn the coast into luxury housing, malls and shopping centers.  Already the McDonald’s were open for business.  This was not what we had envisioned!  This urban sprawl continued up the coast stopping only at the fringe of Yanchep National Park, then circling around the park and starting up again at the town of Two Rocks.

 

Loch McNess at Yanchep National Park
look carefully and you will see two kangaroos bounding by

 

Yanchep National Park – WOW!!  The park is home to western grey kangaroos and the sweeping lawns throughout the park are littered with pellets of kangaroo poo.  The big marsupials are easy to spot even in the heat of the day when they tend to rest in the shade of the trees.  Come 4PM and a marked drop in the temperature, the kangaroos came out of hiding - dozens and dozens of kangaroos were grazing on the lawns!  Inside the bloated pouches of the female kangaroos sat the joeys.  Their small heads poked out and, from the security of the pouch, they could be seen grazing right along with mom.  Before long the joeys ventured out of the pouches, engaging their moms in comical boxing matches and exploring the lawn, never straying too far.  One brave joey hopped off to chase a bird before bounding back to mom.  It was a sweet sight to see the joeys attempting to return to the pouch even though the moms were doing their best to shoo them away.  Eventually all the joeys were safely back in their pouches, and the adults grazed in peace!  Our balcony at the Yanchep Inn looked over the lawn where all this action took place.  The kangaroos provided plenty of entertainment during happy hour that afternoon.

Grazing kangaroos

Please, ma, let me back in!

The kangaroos were not the only attraction at Yanchep National Park.  While koalas are not native to WA, the park has ten resident koalas living in a protected area of the park just a short walk away from the inn.  They were difficult to spot in the tree tops – they blend so well with the color of the tree trunks and their fat, furry butts give them plenty of cushioning while they laze about motionless, snoozing away the day.  One of them did wake up and put on quite a show for the onlookers.  He/she carefully backed down the tree and proceeded to sniff through the eucalyptus leaves before finding the perfect leaf to munch on.

Two koalas hanging in the tree tops

A comfy spot for snoozing

 

 

Dinner time

Our two month adventure down under is coming to an end.  Tomorrow morning we will catch a flight north to Phuket and a much anticipated visit with Jon, Nancy and Ashley.  Frank has not seen Ashley since their first meeting when she was just two months old.  I was lucky enough to be with her on her first birthday.  But eighteen months have gone by since then and I can’t wait to get reacquainted with this beautiful granddaughter of ours.  You might say that we have saved the best of the trip for last!

P.S.  Let’s not forget that we are also looking forward to seeing Ashley’s parents!!  Please, Jon, remember to pick us up at the airport tomorrow!!

 

 

Indian Pacific Railway - Sydney to Adelaide

Virgin Australia 1408 – CAIRNS TO SYDNEY – 2 hours 25 minutes

Indian Pacific Railroad – SYDNEY TO ADELAIDE – 1,024 miles – 24 hours 5 minutes

Saturday, October 18^th – an early start to our day!  We had a 5:10AM flight to Sydney.  Thankfully, the Cairns airport was less than ten minutes away from the Hotel Cairns so we did not need to get up until 3AM! 

After landing in Sydney and retrieving our luggage, we hung out at the airport waiting to hear from the television production crew from Wildbear Entertainment.  Sam Moor, the producer of the upcoming documentary Making Tracks Down Under, wanted to meet us to begin filming opening segments of the show.  Other members of her film crew were flying into Sydney from Adelaide where they had filmed some background shots of that city.  As soon as Becca, James (sound) and Dave (camera) arrived, we were off to the Circular Quay in downtown Sydney.  Along the way, Becca filled us in on the particulars of our acting debut – what she wanted us to talk about (Why were we riding the Indian Pacific Railway this week?), how we were supposed to interact with each other (Don’t look at the camera!  Act natural!  Be a tourist!), and where we were to stand for the still shots.  The whole thing was beginning to sound a bit intimidating!  Luckily, James and Dave were two very laid back blokes and they put us at ease – somewhat!

We were fitted with mikes, given our instructions and filming began.  The first part was easy as we just had to tote our luggage along the brick walkway near the Rocks section of the Circular Quay.  Then after a short interview with the Sydney Opera House in the background, we were hustled back to the van for the ride to Central Station where the Indian Pacific Railway awaited.

The Indian Pacific Railway is so named because it crosses Australia from west coast to east coast, from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.  Idling at the station, there were 27 sleek silver rail cars stretching for almost a half-mile.  The configuration was so long that it had to be broken apart over two platforms of the Central Station. There are three classes of travel – the platinum, the gold and the red – with varying levels of comfort and services, from plush sleeper cars with gourmet prepared meals to the much cheaper day/night seats with cafeteria style meals.  We had opted for the cheap seats, surprise, surprise!  It was a good thing that these cheap seats were quite comfortable with plenty of leg room since we would be spending the next 24 hours aboard the train bound for Adelaide.

 

The train departed Sydney Central Station promptly at 2:55PM and made its way slowly through the graffiti-tagged stations of the western suburbs before picking up speed.  The Blue Mountains came into view as we enjoyed happy hour in the Matilda Café car.  Decorated in 1970’s style avocado green, Matilda served as the dining room for the red service travelers.  Doug, our train car attendant doubled as the chef – he was definitely a better train car attendant than chef!  Throughout our travels Doug was great at remembering my preferred wine choice.  Yeah, I know it was just a 24-hour trip but wine always makes any trip more enjoyable!

Another short interview with the Wildbear film crew and it was lights out time.  While we slept, the train made the climb through the Blue Mountains and when we awoke the next morning the sun was rising over the barren outback.  By 7AM we had finished breakfast and were arriving in the town of Broken Hill, the Silver City of New South Wales.  Broken Hill is the longest-lived mining city in Australia with its roots dating back to 1885 when the mining of the massive ore deposits of silver, lead and zinc began.  This same ore body has since generated over $100 billion.  While the train took on water and a few more passengers, we wandered the deserted streets of town – Bromide, Oxide, Sulfide and Chloride, just to name a few of the streets that intersected with Crystal Street.  The tour brochure said that the town of Broken Hill had a thriving arts scene that would rival the likes of London, Paris and New York.  HAHAHA! We saw no such signs of art or any other activity in town just a few brightly decorated SUVs noisily parading down an otherwise deserted street.

The deserted streets of Broken Hill

The Indian Pacific sits in dusty Broken Hill

The art scene in Broken Hill

 

Our train car which had been so peaceful and quiet with ten passengers was now filled to its 48 seat capacity and the loudest, most boisterous individuals took over the seats behind us.  She had a hacking, phlegmy cough; her traveling companion was a sheepish older man who said very little.  But she more than made up for him by engaging in conversation with the man across the aisle from her.  The two would banter loudly and then, all too frequently, they would both break out in rowdy laughter followed by more hacking coughing.  We longed for the peaceful, boring muzak of the night before!

Part of the Outback as seen from our train window

Over the next few hours the train chugged through the dry, dusty outback.  We caught glimpses of grazing kangaroos and skittish emus among the sagebrush and few scraggly trees.  As we neared Adelaide the landscape began a gradual but drastic change with hay fields, orchards and a few vineyards popping into view.

James and Dave at Adelaide Parklands Train Terminal

Becca at Adelaide Parklands Train Terminal

 

Right on time the train pulled into Adelaide Parklands Train Terminal at 3 PM on Sunday.  We retrieved our luggage and, with James and Dave filming, we bade farewell to the Wildbear Entertainment crew and hailed a cab for our short ride to BreakFree Studio Apartments on Gouger Street.  Another travel item – riding the Indian Pacific Railway to catch a glimpse of the outback - crossed off our bucket list! 

We do not have a firm date for the airing of Making Tracks Down Under or if our part will even make the final cut.  But we thoroughly enjoyed meeting Sam and her crew – it added another dimension to the whole rail travel experience.  They were continuing on the train to its terminus in Perth, a trip that would not end until 9:10 AM on Tuesday.

Adelaide, a compact, planned city of 1.3 million people, was settled by free settlers rather than convicts.  The new colony promised its settlers civil and religious freedom, attracting thousands of Europeans escaping religious persecution.  The city’s central business district is a neat grid of wide streets bound by North Terrace, South Terrace, East Terrace and West Terrace and surrounded by parks and greenways.   It is the capital of South Australia, the country’s driest state and yet its most fertile.  On Adelaide’s doorstep are the vineyards and wineries of the Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale, Clare and Barossa valleys, producing some of the best wines in Australia.  Remarkably, one doesn’t even have to travel outside the confines of the city to experience all that these vineyards have to offer!

The National Wine Center, situated on the edge of Adelaide’s Botanic Garden, is a museum dedicated to wine and the Australian wine industry - from the vine to the bottle.  Displays here run the gamut from the anatomy of the grape to corkscrews, wine labels, wine bottles and stemware. The wine cellar has a 38,000 bottle capacity!  But the main draw, at least for these two visitors, is the ground floor tasting room featuring 120 wines to sample.  Admission to the NWC is free but a visit can quickly turn into a pricey outing!  At the tasting bar you exchange your credit card for an identically-sized tasting card that fits into a slot above each group of eight wine bottles.  Decisions, decisions!  After swiping your card and selecting your desired wine and tasting size, you place your glass under the spigot and voila!  You are ready to taste!  Want lunch while sampling?  Add it to your tasting card tab.  Want to buy stemware, wine books, wine magazines?  Add it to your tasting card tab.  When you have happily tasted enough wine, you simply settle your tab – a very adult museum experience.

NWC wine cellar

The National Wine Center can also be an educational experience.  For instance, we did learn that one of the top priorities for the early European settles was the establishment of vineyards for their wine consumption needs.  In 1788, the First Fleet Governor Arthur Phillip planted vines he had brought from South Africa outside his tent overlooking Sydney Cove.  He declared “the wines of New South Wales may . . . become an indispensable part of the luxury of European tables.”  Indeed, Aussie wines have a worldwide reputation for outstanding quality.

 

 

You would think we might have satisfied our craving for wine tasting, but you would be wrong.  The next day we joined a group of twenty like-minded tourists for a day of tasting with John and TastetheBarossa tour company.  Four wineries and nine hours later we returned to Adelaide.  (And so did Miley Cyrus, who was on a concert tour of Australia.  Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones would arrive the next day. But I digress.)

Chateau Yaldara

Traveling through the city and out through the Adelaide Hills, we had our first stop at Chateau Yaldara at McGuigan vineyards.  There must have been just as many fragrant roses growing at this vineyard as there were grape vines!  Over the nearly dry Jacobs Creek we found Peter Lehmann Winery where we tasted several wines before feasting on a lunch of meats, local cheeses and olives, and fresh breads.  A short walk away we saw the gnarly 150-year-old vines of the oldest Shiraz vineyard in the country at Langmeil Winery.  A quick stop at Mengler’s Hill Lookout rewarded us with a fantastic panoramic view of the vineyard –filled valley below.  And we weren’t finished yet!  The Seppeltsfield region boasts many fine wineries and the Murray Street Vineyards is one of the newer and smaller ones.  The personable sommeliers at each rustic cellar door combined with the wonderful regional food and fantastic scenery made for a great day out with a fine international group of tourists.  Luckily, John our tour guide did not imbibe with us and was more than capable of delivering a very drowsy group of tasters safely back to our hotels.

Barossa Valley as seen from Mengler's Hill

 

For those of you who might think that all we did in Adelaide was sample wine, here are a few shots of other places/things we saw in the city center!

A DAY OUT street art in Rundle Mall

The Torrens River through Adelaide

 

Eighteen miles southeast of Adelaide is the charming town of Hahndorf, the first settlement in Australia planned for non-British immigrants and the oldest German town in the country.  In 1838 Captain Dirk Hahn and 188 Prussian immigrants arrived in Port Adelaide aboard the Zebra to escape religious persecution in their homeland.  Surveyed as a hufendorf or farm village, the townspeople’s simple crude huts were eventually replaced by stone cottages and the half-timbered Germanic-style houses that are now considered the best examples of this architecture in Australia.  Today, the buildings along Main Street  house an assortment of shops selling authentic German nutcrackers and cuckoo clocks, cellar doors hosting wine tastings, bakeries selling strudel and gingerbread, and plenty of restaurants supplying a cold pint along with schnitzels and wursts. 

Frank having a 'schnitty' day in Hahndorf?

We had two days before our scheduled flight from Adelaide to Perth so buying wine was not practical but that did not keep us from stopping in at Rock Bare Cellar Door.  Housed in a rustic 1845 stone cottage on Main Street, this winery produces award winning white wines from the Adelaide Hills.  The sommelier here encouraged us to visit K1, a Geoff Hardy winery, outside of town and, since we had wheels, we did.  This winery was set in the most scenic of locations and it was easy to see why it hosts a wedding most every weekend of the year.

After spending the night in Victor Harbor, a popular seaside resort on Encounter Bay, we headed for McLaren Vale.  Along the way we passed through the town of Mt. Compass, home to the Compass Cup, Australia’s only cow race!?!  Yes, a cow race!  Plenty of roadside stands in this area were selling bags of moo poo and emu poo – very reasonably priced, I might add!  Judging from the signboards outside the restaurants in all the small towns, Thursday night in McLaren Vale and Adelaide Hills must be ‘schnitty’ night.  And who can pass up a tasty schnitty?  Not us - so we indulged in delicious schnitzel at a bar in the seaside town of GlenElg on Holdfast Bay in Gulf St. Vincent.

A friend of ours, Patti Sutton, lived outside of Adelaide as a child.  When pressed for the address of her childhood home, she could only give us the street name and town.  Now, we would have thought that she could have remembered a house number - she wasn’t that young when she lived here!! Undaunted by lack of specifics, we entered Coromandel Parade, Blackwood, into our rental car’s GPS and hoped that Coromandel Parade was a short street with just a few houses.  Wrong!  So we took some pictures of landmarks along the road to prove that we had gone on this quest to have the whole “Patti Sutton Australian experience.”

 

 

Cairns - the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest

October 13^th

Virgin Australia 1421 – SYDNEY TO CAIRNS, QUEENSLAND – 3 hours 4 minutes

A gray day in Sydney!  And it seemed as if every resident of the city was in line at the airport to check in at the Virgin Australia counter!  We waited and waited and waited as the endless line snaked ever so slowly to the check-in desk where we were slammed with an exorbitant baggage fee – that’s what happens when you don’t read the fine print when purchasing your cheap airfare on Expedia! We planned our departure from Sydney perfectly – the following two days the city was hit with torrential rainfall, high winds, flooding, power outages and even snowfall in the nearby Blue Mountains.

When we arrived, it was a rainy, gloomy day in Queensland, ‘the sunshine state’ of Australia.  Cairns is a small city in Queensland that serves the tourists who arrive in droves to visit the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.  The Hotel Cairns, a plantation-style hotel with white shutters and long verandas set in a tropical garden, is just a few short blocks from the city center.  After checking in we scurried over to the nearest restaurant at the Doubletree Hotel for a surprisingly well-prepared meal of barramundi, the plentiful local fish.  The restaurant and hotel were home to plenty of stranded Japanese tourists – their flights back home were cancelled due to the cyclone ravaging Japan.

Hotel Cairns

 

Frank turned 63 in Cairns and he was beginning to feel like himself again after battling a chest cold and a broken toe!  With temperatures in the 80’s (finally) and plenty of sunshine, we took a stroll along the Esplanade fronting the Coral Sea and discovered that Cairns has no beaches, just mud flats.  At low tide there were dozens of white Australian pelicans comically waddling along the muddy expanse.  To make up for the lack of a sandy beach, the city boasts a seaside swimming lagoon – a huge, inviting in-ground saltwater pool free to everyone.  Further along the Esplanade is the Marlin Marina – from here the excursion boats leave for day trips to the Great Barrier Reef.

Australian Pelicans

Swimming lagoon

Cairns waterfront

The Great Barrier Reef is comprised of thousands of individual coral banks and islands that run along the eastern coast of Australia.  It is 1,600 miles long and covers 133,000 square miles – so large that it is visible from outer space – and it is often referred to as ‘the largest structure in the world created by living organisms.’  It supports a wide diversity of life including 1,500 species of fish!  Clownfish, surgeon fish, green sea turtles, sea cucumbers (resembling large turds), great white sharks, box jellyfish can all be found living here in the ‘rainforest of the ocean.’

We boarded the catamaran Reef Magic III for a ninety minute cruise out to the Marine World activity platform at Moore Reef, 50 KM offshore.  For the next five hours the platform would serve as our base for exploring this area of the Great Barrier Reef.  Non-swimmers could experience the reef from inside the glass-bottom boat or aboard the semi-submersible reef viewer.  Others could scuba dive and snorkel.

Aerial view of Marine World platform on Moore Reef

Marine World platform

 

I have never snorkeled before but what better place to start than the Great Barrier Reef!  Eric, a marine biologist, took timid groups of five snorkelers for a thirty-minute guided snorkel tour of the reef.  He patiently took us through all the pre-snorkel preparations, making sure we were all comfortable with our masks and breathing through our snorkels.  Before we knew it, we were out over the reef viewing colorful staghorn coral, sergeant major fish, surgeon fish and Wally, the Great Maori Wrasse that hangs out near the dive platform.  This fish is huge and blue and encountering him for the first time is a bit disconcerting!  He seemed to be very interested in meeting all the snorkelers in the lagoon.  (Wrasses all start life as females but when the male leader of the group dies, the dominant female changes to a male and becomes the new leader!?!)

The newbies get a snorkel lesson from Eric

Wally and an unknown snorkeler - picture from Reef Magic brochure

 

A delicious hot buffet lunch on the platform, snorkeling, enjoying the fantastic weather and awesome views – what a great way to spend a day!  No wonder that nearly 2 million people a year travel to the Great Barrier Reef.

But the Great Barrier Reef is not the only natural attraction that lures visitors to Cairns.  The other is the Daintree Rainforest, the oldest surviving rainforest in the world.  Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns, is where the rainforest meets the reef.  Abby from Active Tropics Explorer picked us up the next morning and we proceeded up the Captain Cook Highway with 24 other tourists bound for Cape Tribulation.

Just outside of Cairns there were a few barren fields with a small number of grazing wallabies.  We drove through vast fields of sugar cane along the way to Mossman, home of the biggest sugar mill in Australia.  This section of northern Queensland provides 1/6 of the entire world’s supply of sugar. 

Our first stop was along the Daintree River where we boarded a small pontoon boat for a close-up view of the native estuarine crocodile.  Lazing along the river bank – Gump, a young female crocodile.  Prowling along the river – Scarface, a 60+ year old male crocodile.  Gump was none too happy when Scarface appeared, turning towards the water and opening her wide jaws in a menacing pose.

Gump

 

Scarface

Gump reacts to arrival of Scarface

 

Our river guide then spent plenty of time warning us to steer clear of the waters along the beaches and rivers of Queensland as they are frequented by crocodiles.  “If you cannot see a crocodile, assume that it is near.”  He also pointed out all the crocodile warning signs and explained why the signs start out with two words - ‘Warning’ and ‘Achtung.’  Oddly, a disproportionate number of German tourists are involved in many dangerous crocodile encounters.  And more oddly, when we arrived at the beach at Cape Tribulation, who were the first and only members of our group to hit the water and wade out knee deep?  The Germans!!!  Go figure!

 

At Cape Tribulation

 

Crocodiles are not the only thing to be wary of!  On our guided walk through the Daintree Rainforest, Abby gave us more information on the many plants, animals and snakes lurking in the bush of Australia that can quickly kill, maim and cause misery, pain and discomfort to the unsuspecting hiker. 

“Beware the ‘takes-awhile’ vine and its sharp thorns that will stick to your clothes and hair and take quite awhile from which to disentangle yourself.”

“Avoid at all costs the gympie-gympie stinging tree.  While its heart-shaped leaves may be enticing, its dense covering of stinging hairs and saw-tooth edges become embedded in the skin and produce an acid-like stinging pain that can last for many months. It is one of four species of stinging trees and is said to have the worst sting of all.  Once stung, never forgotten.”

“The flightless adult cassowary bird can reach a height of six feet and weigh 84 pounds.  They are generally shy and avoid human contact.  However, they can be quite aggressive when it comes to defending their chicks.  It has powerful legs and may kick when it feels threatened.  The sharp nails on its inner toes can rip flesh and so it is quite capable of killing a human.”

Oh great!  Let’s all take a walk in the rainforest!!!  Or how about a nice dip in the ocean?  It’s not only crocodiles and sharks lurking in the water.  There are plenty of jellyfish that can kill you!  Take the venomous box jelly fish.  It has up to 60 stingers on its 12-foot long tentacles.  A sting can result in cardiac arrest within minutes!  The tiny irukandji jellyfish, the size of your fingernail, is also capable of delivering a deadly sting.  But not to worry.  Many municipalities in Queensland install jellyfish netting that stays in place from November to May when the threat is most pronounced.  These nets are attached to floats and extend down to the sandy ocean bottom, supposedly creating a jellyfish-free zone where swimmers are safe from jellyfish stings.  Really?  What kind of netting is going to keep a jellyfish the size of your fingernail out of the swimming area??  I think we will stick to the hotel swimming pool!

That is not to say that there was not beauty in the rainforest!

Canopy of palm trees

Basket fern

 

On our way back to Cairns we stopped at this lookout for a beautiful view of the Coral Sea.

 

The Coral Sea - somewhere out there Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin
came to his untimely death

 

The television documentary Making Tracks by Wildbear Entertainment, an Australian based production company, will be filming aboard the Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth when we are traveling the Great Southern Railway this weekend from Sydney to Adelaide.  Each episode focuses on one of the great train journeys through Australia.  We have been in contact with Sam and Rebecca of the production crew and are set to meet them when we arrive back at Sydney airport on Saturday morning.  They are even giving us a ride out to Central Station to meet the train.  Stay tuned for more. . .