Showing posts with label great barrier reef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great barrier reef. Show all posts

Friday, November 24, 2017

30 Days Down Under - Part 4 - Port Douglas: The Daintree & The Reef


Flying to Cairns & Port Douglas

The most common way to get from Ayers Rock to Cairns (I'll never learn how to pronounce that right the Ozzie way) is to take a long flight to Sydney, mess with a transfer, and then take a long flight up to Cairns - all totalling 8 hours or far longer. There are lots more choices that way and it's far cheaper.
But to save time we chose to splurge and take the only flight direct between the two - Qantaslink - 2 1/2 hours.  Unfortunately, the flight is in late afternoon, so it was after 7:00 PM by the time we disembarked and picked up our car for our drive to Port Douglas; much of the drive was in the dark.

Click on any photo in the blog to enlarge it
On the flight we came across a strange surprise - a help wanted ad in the flight magazine. And look at the advertised wage, plus a ute (4wd utility vehicle)!
What kind of economy does Australia have?

In the Cairns airport we found the Budget rental counter, got in their car, and were off to Port Douglas.  It was a bit confusing leaving the airport, but we soon found our way.

We had read about the many roundabouts on the highway north toward Port Douglas.  We were a bit apprehensive ... in a long past trip to the UK the joke had been that when we approached a roundabout warn me, and even though I was driving, I'd hide until we were past. But this time, even though many were 2 lanes wide with heavy traffic in both lanes, it felt more comfortable.

The road eventually narrowed to 2 lanes with almost no shoulders as it tightly twisted through unknown terrain. Luckily we came across a driver who drove similarly to me, pegged at the speed limit. It was relaxing following the red tail lights rather than trying to peer into the darkness past the headlights' beam, looking for curves or rockfall or the feared nocturnal animal crossing the road.

At Port Douglas we found the Outrigger Port Douglas Holiday Apartments, set amidst its lush tropical gardens, found the manager's instructions to our second floor walkup apartment (we had warned them we'd be late). The apartment was spacious ... kitchen, living & dining room, bedroom ... the rooms arranged in an L-shape around a large patio-balcony ... large sliding doors (with screens) and copious opening windows let in the tropical air.

We unpacked then walked the two or three blocks to Macrossan Street, Port Douglas's main drag, to find a place to eat. The first thing we noticed was a sure sign of a tropical tourist town: a semi-open-air walkup liquor store. We bypassed it ... forty years ago I'd have walked in and picked up several bottles (and those bottles would not have been bottles of beer *if* it was one of those rare moments at that age when I could afford more than brew). But nowadays we drink more water and coffee, having, at dinner, only one glass of wine (Ginny) or a beer or a double shot of whisky neat (me) or the very occasional cocktail (both).

Best of all, our apartment had its own washer and dryer. We'd planned the next day to be a "down day", a chance to wash our clothes and relax after having been on the go for 10 days after leaving home - especially after the dusty red earth of the Red Center, and to shop for food for our breakfasts and picnics (dinners as always were to be in restaurants - who wants to mess with cooking on a holiday), and to explore the more-tropical-than-California town.

We awoke early to dawn's raucous cacophony of birds in the palm and other tropical trees outside our windows.








We'd always known that Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef were on the coast of Australia, vaguely on the western edge of the south Pacific Ocean, but were a bit surprised when we realized that it's on the shores of the Coral Sea, only about 500 miles from New Guinea.


It was more tropical than we expected. The air wasn't just hot;
it was sticky.  Sweat didn't evaporate.  The dryer in our apartment wasn't vented to the outdoors, increasing the humidity. We kept all the windows and doors open and hung stuff to "dry" on the patio when it wasn't in shade.

All of that while realizing that we were there on a *relatively* cool day with clouds hinting at the possibility of a tropical rain. Unfortunately (?) it didn't rain on us.







It was early spring, with summer yet to come, but even then people tended to lounge around pools and wear swimming suits downtown. (We're possibly the only people who came to Australia without swimsuits. I cooled myself off by thinking about being in the Pacific Northwest mountains, dipping nude into an alpine tarn fed by melting nearby snow.)

Sugarcane

Next day we drove north of Port Douglas through Mossman to the Daintree Rain Forest, a UNESCO world heritage site.


I had always imagined Mossman to be a tiny hamlet tucked between trees and waterfalls in a rain forest.  It's not. It's mostly a farming town in the middle of a large and unexpected sugarcane growing area ... and apparently early October when we were there is the middle of harvest.

There were machines that looked like old wheat threshing machines from the early/mid 1900's cutting the cane.  And there was a small narrow-gauge railroad that wended its way along and across the highway, with branches into what seemed like almost every cane farm, trundling trains of cars loaded with cane to a plant in Mossman. It was fascinating, but we were in too much hurry to get to the Daintree to stop for photos, so here are some photos from the web.

(Photos by Craigle (top) and Bahnfrend (bottom)
from Wikimedia Commons)

Daintree Rainforest

This was THE HIGHLIGHT of our stay in Port Douglas, unexpectedly topping the Great Barrier Reef.
"The Daintree Rainforest is one of the most spectacular ecosystems in the world"- Dr. David Suzuki

It's hard to overstate the importance of the Daintree and its history.  It's *interesting* to look at, see, and explore. But when one learns its history and finds out more one is simply awestruck and dumbfounded.

The Daintree Rainforest is estimated by scientists to be between 110 and 180 million years old!!!

Yes. That would make it and its ecology existent before Australia and Antarctica broke free from the former continent of Gondwana and drifted apart.

At the visitor center we picked up a colorfully illustrated 74 page summary of Daintree, its history, ecology, plants, and animals:  Daintree, Jewel of Tropical North Queensland by Lloyd Nielsen, 1997 (obtainable from Lloyd Nielsen, PO Box 55, Mount Molloy, QLD, 4871, Australia or online at this link)

There is lots of information about Daintree online (google is your friend). Some quick summaries include Discover The Daintree and CapeTribBeach.com.au and an especially good one at this link that talks about both the forest and Cassoways

Although we left Port Douglas very early, we were in a hurry. We had scheduled tours with the naturalists at Cooper Creek Wilderness Tours starting at 11:30 halfway between the Daintree River and Cape Tribulation and we didn't know how long we'd have to wait for the cable ferry across the river. It's reported that during busy times the wait can be hours (plural). We needn't have worried; we got there in plenty of time and there was no wait. That gave us time for a leisurely drive, sightseeing, and time to stop at the visitor's center as the road wound its way through the rainforest.

Although much of the Daintree along the roadside is wild, much land has been carved out of it.

Unfortunately Daintree has a long history of dismemberment by humans.  Sugarcane farming expanded into much of the area.  Parts were cut out by logging, others by speculators for small lot development. The severe rainfall and difficulty of access kept much at bay but dismemberment began to pick up in the 1960's. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's and later dispute raged, with some private interests and the governments of the shire (county) and Queensland on one side and the government of Australia and environmentalists on the other side. Much focused on a road proposed through the area in the 1980's.

Gradually the environmentalists began to prevail; the government of the shire reversed course, as did later the government of Queensland. In 1981 the Great Barrier Reef was listed as a UNESCO site followed by the Daintree in 1988.  A government buyback of properties was begun, but has since been discontinued so the fight goes on. See a partial history here and and also here



We drove down the barely-one-car-wide dirt and gravel drive into Cooper Creek Wilderness Tours http://coopercreek.com.au/ , where we got instructions directing us to the launch site for the first part of the tour, a one hour boat tour along Cooper Creek to see mangroves, river life, and hopefully, crocodiles (alas, none were to be seen).

While we were waiting for the boat tour we were joined by a family from the Netherlands.  They had just arrived the previous evening after long flights from Amsterdam to Hong Kong to Cairns.  The parents were exhausted  - they left to sleep; their 20 something son was raring to go. so Tom joined us for much of the day.

Afterwards we piled into our car, Tom showed us a nearby place to have lunch at a beach, then off we went back down the narrow road to meet a naturalist who would lead a smaller group on a fascinating and informative walk through the rainforest.











Like most visitors to the Daintree, we had been hoping all day to be lucky enough to see a cassowary.  At many places along the highway there had been the standard yellow diamond-shaped signs warning of animal crossings . But instead of silhouettes of leaping deer, they showed the silhouette of a cassowary.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Licualawin
Why warn about a bird crossing? They are flightless and big. Very BIG. And although they are ancient birds which have been around through prehistoric eras, they are now endangered, with only about, 1,200 to 1,500 left in Australia - too few to lose one to the car of a heedless driver.

Cassowaries can stand 6 feet tall, weigh 130 pounds,  jump 7 feet high into the air, and can run 30 mph. They have a reputation of being dangerous -  the middle of the three claws on each foot is sharp and can slash 2" or more deep - and they can kick - hard.  Luckily, they eat mostly fruit and only small animals like snails and frogs.

Because they have the reputation of being dangerous, and because they look (and are) prehistoric, youtube is full of videos about them: here - at the beach and here - a mini documentary and  here - being stalked

Our naturalist explaining: some trees use their roots as a buttress 

The naturalist told us there is a chance we'd see one. There was a female and several nesting males nearby and it was about time for their chicks to hatch and for them to be out and about.

Yup. The males sit on the eggs and tend the young.  A female cassowary will mate with several males; the last male is the one who sits on the eggs for about 50 days.  In the meantime she'll seek out other males and start over again.

He also assured us we'd be fine, be calm if one came around, that they are usually docile, more interested in eating fruit, and usually attack only in defense when disturbed or frightened.  The only person known to be killed by one had been chasing and harassing it ... he was killed by one kick that sliced his torso open from top to bottom.  Alas, we didn't get a chance to see one nor to be disemboweled.

He pointed out the the dangers of the  gympie-gympie plant, the stinging plant.  The hairs have a neurotoxin that is excruciatingly painful and keeps up until every one of them gets removed by a wax hair removal strip.  The pain is said to have caused people and animals to kill themselves.

He also pointed out the dangers of the pretty purple fruit that we often came across on the forest floor - cassowaries eat copious amounts of it with no ill effect (and they plant more by passing its stone in their droppings), but its skin contains a powerful neurotoxin to most other beings ... do not touch and if you do, wash immediately and do not touch your mouth.

I knew Australia was notorious for having more species of poisonous snakes and spiders and jellyfish than any other place on our planet. Damn. Even plants too.


At the end of the walk we hooked up with Tom's parents, said goodbye, and started back to Port Douglas, wishing that we could have planned to stay longer.

The Great Barrier Reef

The next day we got up early to walk to the harbor to take the Quicksilver cruise to the Great Barrier Reef.  What a change from the previous day ... from laid back walking in the rainforest to a one hour ride on a speeding catamaran holding over 400 passengers to Agincourt Reef - a platform on the Great Barrier Reef.  It was windy, so a bit rough.

We sat at a table with another couple only about a decade younger than us. And on the reef and on the way back ended up sitting and talking with them too ... we had a lot in common and had enjoyable conversations about our countries (they were from Sydney AU) and about travelling. They invited us to dinner when we were to pass through Sydney a week or so later. (Unfortunately, when we did get to Sydney, our plane was scheduled to arrive in the mid evening, our plane to Queenstown was scheduled to leave early the next morning, and Ginny's coughing was still bad, so we had to cancel.) 
One of the other things we had in common was that both our wives were affected by the motion of the boat ... they didn't get horribly seasick, but enough to make the trip unenjoyable.

Before we came on the trip we had debated how best to see and experience the reef. We both wanted to experience the outer reef.  ... But ... If outdoors people tend to arrange on a scale from more mountain oriented to more water/sea oriented, we're both on the mountain end of the scale. And if travellers are arranged on a scale from those who like to do things with big groups and those who don't, we're on the don't end of the scale.
If we were really into the sea and either snorkeling or diving, we would *definitely* have chosen a very small and active cruise to a more remote portion of the reef.  But Ginny definitely didn't want to snorkel (and she was justifiably nervous about getting seasick).  I'd have liked to snorkel, but it was no great deal to me to miss it.

Quicksilver has their large platform with various things to do to experience a curated part of the reef including looking out from a semi submersible and walking through an underwater passage, watching the (less colorful than expected) underwater  life.  So Quicksilver became our plan.

Am I glad we did it? Yup, given our interests.  Would I do it again? Nope.  What could have been better: snorkeling with a small group in a more remote place.

The Beach & The Drive

























Before leaving we had to hit the beach at least once, so we walked the four blocks from our apartment to Four Mile Beach.  The signs at the entry add excitement, but the locals are comfortable using it and stinger season had not yet started. Although it was cloudy and a bit chilly there were some playing in the water. I wadded in. I'm used to the ocean being cold. The warm water was great!

4 Mile Beach - Port Douglas - See the kayaker?

We had lots of time so we mosied down the coast to the Cairns Airport, enjoying the scenery and the beaches that we had missed when northbound in the dark.  The Captain Cook Highway and its view reminded me of California Highway 1 north of San Francisco in the 1960's. There were pockets of development, but long stretches with unpopulated beaches.

At Rex Lookout, a hang glider was soaring on thermals,  jumping off, soaring down, then letting the thermal take him high over his takeoff & landing spot.  He had a sign out offering to sell tandem rides.


Last stop on our way to Cairns airport to fly to Melbourne: a picnic in the park at Palm Cove.











Sunday, October 29, 2017

30 Days Down Under - Part 1 - Overview & Index

The traveller's dilemma

If you're going to fly over 16,000 miles round trip, and likely won't get a chance to be back again, you're faced with that inevitable dilemma: do you experience a few places - maybe just one - and experience them in more depth, or do you experience as many places as you can, but much more superficially.

Australia is BIG.  Click here to compare size
How does one begin to choose?

For better or worse, we decided to experience as many different places as we could while remaining at least a few days in each place - a whirlwind "taster".  So for the most part we limited ourselves to a minimum of 3 days, 4 nights in each location (always leaving a full day in between for traveling - that usually left us an "extra" afternoon or morning)

Since we're in our mid 70's, it's unlikely we'll get a chance to return. But if we do, we'll face another dilemma: which of the places should we explore more?  ALL of them are vying for more exploration.

Us in Sydney (photo by Graeme of "Bike Buffs - Sydney Bike Tours")

Us (Me and Ginny) at Circular Quay in Sydney

Australia and New Zealand Trip Summary

This overview will summarize our trip, to be followed by more detailed comments about each place, in separate subsequent parts. (With apologies in advance: the various parts may be finished more slowly than I'd like.  Check back as subsequent parts get added)

We wanted to visit the hot areas in Australia, but wanted to avoid the heat.  We also wanted to visit the cooler, wetter areas of Tasmania and south New Zealand, but wanted to avoid inclement weather.  The compromise: go in mid spring (late Sept. and most of October); visit the hotter areas before they heat up, and the cooler areas later, hopefully after their weather has moderated.

Day 1-2 - Fly Seattle to San Francisco to Sydney
Days 3-6 Sydney (incl. the day that we arrive, jet-lagged, at 7 AM) (for part 2 Sydney click here)
     Highlights: Bike tour of Sydney, experiencing a multi-cultural world-class city
     Regret: Didn't spend several days in the Blue Mountains
Sydney Harbor from Harbour Bridge
Day 7 - Fly Sydney to Uluru
Days 8-9 - Uluru (For part 3 - Uluru - click here)
     Highlight: Experiencing and circumnavigating Uluru by foot
     Regret: Didn't spend a couple of days or more in the outback
First view of Uluru - formerly known as Ayers Rock before reverting to its indigenous name

Day 10 - fly Uluru to Cairns, drive to Port Douglas
Days 11-13 - Port Douglas, The Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree (for part 4 click here)
     Highlight: The Daintree Rainforest
     Regret: Didn't spend more time in the rain forest
Under the Daintree Rainforest canopy - a UNESCO World Heritage site

Day 14 - drive Port Douglas to Cairns, fly to Melbourne
Days 15-16 - Melbourne (see Part 5 here)
     Highlight: A grand city
     Regret: Didn't spend enough time here, nor did we get to Phillips Island
Flying in to Melbourne

Day 17 - fly Melbourne to Holbart
Days 18-20 - Hobart Tasmania and Port Arthur (see part 6 here)
    Highlights: Port Arthur and stumbling on Jamie Maslin and his book "The Long Hitch Home"
    Regret: Didn't spend much more time exploring Tasmania
On the boat from Hobart to the (in)famous MONA - The Museum of Old and New Art

Days 21-22 - Fly Hobart to Sydney to Queenstown
Days 23-25 - Queenstown New Zealand (see part 7 here)
     Highlights: Milford Sound, bicycling to Gibbston Valley, watching bungy jumping
     Regret: not spending 2 weeks exploring the South Island and not being Jack Benny's age
Milford Sound Day Trip - A rarity - it was sunny!

Day 26 - Fly Queenstown to Auckland
Days 27-29 - Auckland (see part 8 here)
     Highlights: visiting a friend's family's 110 year old farm on the far east end of Waiheke Island
     Regret: not spending more time exploring more of New Zealand's north island
Day 30 -Fly Auckland - San Francisco - Seattle
Auckland skyline from top of Mt. Eden

Update Mar 11, 2018:

While planning our trip we read the book "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes about the founding of Australia.  A very insightful book review from the New York Times comparing the founding of Australia with the founding of the U.S. is here

Just today I learned of another book that we should have read when planning the trip: "A Long Way From Home" by Peter Carey ... a novel about a trio of Australians wending their way through Australia discovering things they had never known about their country. A book review is here


A Random Subjective Impression

Coming from Seattle, perhaps the fastest growing city in the US and maybe one of the richest, a particularly stark difference stood out. In Seattle you can not miss the homeless ... they are everywhere ... camping in tents or makeshift shelters, in encampments in most any unused piece of land, in parks, and sleeping rough in downtown doorways and under bridges.

In our trip in Australia we saw only two homeless people and no homeless tents or encampments.  Although we were in a wide variety of areas (not just normal tourist areas), some of this may be the result of when and where we were. But statistics help bolster my observation.

Washington State, the American state that Seattle is in, has a population of about 7.28 million, of which about 22,000 (0.30%) are homeless.

New South Wales, the Australian state that Sydney is in, has a population of about 7.7 million, of which about 28,200 (0.37%) are "homeless".
Both are seemingly similar..
...But...
The definitions of homeless are not comparable. Australia considers homelessness much more broadly than the US - the figures for New South Wales are broken down as:
  • Rough sleeping: 7% of the homeless
  • Supported accommodation for the homeless (shelters): 18% of the homeless
  • Boarding Houses: 23% of the homeless
  • Overcrowded dwellings: 34% of the homeless
  • Staying with other households: 18% of the homeless
  • Other temporary accommodation: 1% of the homeless

In the US, generally only the first 2 categories (in red) are talked about as homeless.

The sbove suggests that Washington State has about 3 times the number of homeless sleeping rough or in tents or in shelters as does New South Wales (22,000 vs 7,700)

Why the difference?
  • Both have a recent history of ferociously rising housing, property, and rental costs.
  • Both seem to have lots of drug use (sharps disposals were in most public rest rooms in AU)
  • Both have roughly equal unemployment rates (NSW = 4.6% and Washington State = 4.5%) 

I mentioned my observation to a number of people in AU and we speculated why:
  • Australia has a more developed safety net
  • Australia has universal healthcare, including mental health care
  • Australia has much higher wages for the lowest paid employees.  As of 2016: Australia minimum wage: $AU 17.70/hr = ~ $US 12.27 compared to US minimum wage of $US 7.25/hr - and in the US tips count toward the minimum wage, reducing it even further.(in Seattle $11.50/hr to $13.50/hr depending on size of employer)
  • Australia has much less income inequality than the US. Per Credit Suisse, Australia ranks # 2, and the US # 21 (alongside Greece and Austria) for mean wealth per person (a good indication of income inequality) See this article from MSN Money
  • A taxi driver mentioned that the starting salary for a beginning waitress is Sydney would be about $20/hr.
I did notice that almost everything seemed to be more expensive in Sydney than Seattle.  But if that's the price of paying people a living wage, and having a better standard of living for workers, it's a price worth paying.  In the US we have good reason for feeling guilty if not tipping heavily. In Australia the norm appeared to be "tipping is not necessary".

I happened upon this relevant article about homelessness:

Mark Twain once observed: "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
A one month vacation certainly doesn't qualify as "Getting your facts", so the distortion part is easy. But the stark differences should be explored in more depth.

Unfortunately, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed in his book "Democracy in America" about his travels to the US: “everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure”.