Hello, all! For those of you who don’t know, we’ve settled in lovely Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. We’re no longer travelling :-( but have been back in the workforce for three months now. Not that we’re making excuses (but we are), it’s been a very busy time for us since we finished our travels in Australia: first finding jobs, then moving, then kitting out our house while readjusting to work life, then having to buy a new car after we had ours stolen. Well, we’ve finally settled in and have started to dedicate some time to getting our blog up to date.
Our
last major post was the two weeks that we spent travelling with Christina up the east coast of Australia. So, we’ll pick up the story after we dropped her off at the airport….
DaintreeWe left Cairns as it was still too windy to do a reef trip and headed up the coast into the wilds of the Daintree National park. This park is a narrow strip of rainforest that decends into either lovely sand beaches or rough rocky outcroppings. The coolest bit about this park is that the environmental conditions haven’t changed since the days of the dinosaurs, so some of the same plants that were growing then are still growing now. Talk about Jurassic Park! Now only their distant relatives (like the beautiful kingfishers) live to enjoy it.
Camping in the park was a welcome reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the east coast. Some of the most atmospheric walks were through the mangrove swamps, too bad that these were also the walks where we almost got eaten alive by midges, mossies, and who knows what else. Speaking of being eaten alive, we saw our first wild saltwater crocodile here, and he was lounging on the beach just north of our campsite! Good thing we decided not to go for a swim! The goannas here were also quite big, some were about a meter long. The first one to visit our campsite sent Karen up on a chair (Ben told lots of stories about how they climb up on people when they get scared…I wasn’t taking any chances). They are really gorgeous creatures up close, lots of speckles and spots.
CooktownBefore heading back to Cairns, we decided to check out the end of the road for major Australian towns on the east coast - Cooktown. From here on, the Cape York Peninsula extends another 500kms or so, but there are no sealed roads and only a fewsettlements. On the way to Cooktown, we stopped at Kuranda to see the the waterfall - very impressive!
Cooktown's claim to fame is that it is the site of the first European "settlement" in Australia.... but not by choice. Captain Cook was beached here for two months after running into the Great Barrier Reef (the amazing thing is that he made it that far before hitting it!) . We went up to the top of the same hill that he did to survey the river and harbor - a lovely view though really windy!
Before leaving Cooktown, we took Ben's aunt's recommendation to try to see some of the aboriginal art in the area. We booked a tour with a local elder (Willy) and he took us to see his homeland. The tour was a half day and absolutely wonderful. Willy shared his history and culture with us, and was very open to questions. All of the art he showed us was from his family. Also, as he walked us through the wilderness, he told us the traditional use of this tree or that plant. After we asked if you could really eat green tree ants, he pulled a nest out of a tree (it's the bundle of gum leaves all stuck together) and told us to dig in. We were pleasantly surprised to find out they actually taste good! Somewhat like crunchy lemon/lime sherbert. It comes from the formic acid that they produce - they bite and spray the acid when attacked. We also had the good fortune to be joined on the tour by Tracey and Jackie, a like-minded traveling couple from the UK, who were traveling Australia in the opposite direction. We've since kept in touch and look forward to meeting up with them again!
CairnsWe returned to Cairns to the fabulous news that the wind had finally subsided and we could get out to the reef - now all we had to do was pick a trip and what a momentous task that turned out to be. There is a staggering number of choices, but we were lucky to pick a good one. We went out on the Falla - an old wooden pearl lugger (isn't she lovely?). She's not the fastest boat out to the reef, but her crew are great, and her captain is really enthusiastic about the reef (he actually owns the boat). They take you out to two spots on the reef to snorkel (or scuba if you'd like, but we didn't as you can see so much just by snorkeling). The reef can only survive a certain depth under the water as that allows the right amount of light to penetrate. You can see it as the dark forms through the beautiful blue water. One of the most beautiful species that populate the reef are the giant clams: Karen is next to an empty shell and Ben is next to a live one (they have a vibrant purple mantle.
While in Cairns, we learned that Tom and Nicky (Ben's brother and his girlfriend) were returning to Australia after their time over in the UK. They were flying into Darwin, and as we were planning on heading there anyway, we thought we'd see if we could meet them. As such we had a really quick return trip down the east coast to Townsville and the road west. The highlight was Big Crystal Creek, a swimming hole that lived up to its name with crystal clear waters - beautiful! Also nice was the view we got of Hinchinbrook Island that we shared with a local (brush-turkey).
The Overlander's WayHow can we explain the joys of driving west under the Australian sun in a car with no air conditioning and a huge front windscreen? I don't think we can. Perhaps we can clue you in by saying we created an interior sunshade by elaborately pegging Karen's sarong to the dash, the side windows, and the collar of our shirts so the only things protruding above it were our heads and Ben's right arm on the wheel. Under the sarong, it was party time.... just kidding. Under there it was bearable if we hosed ourselves regularly with a spray bottle of tepid water. Character building, that's for sure. The only things we had to distract us on the way were how close we were to running out of gas and the anticipation (200-300 kilometers worth) of seeing what tourism goodie the next town would dish up along the "Overlander's Way" (tourism Australia's name, not ours).
First up it was the old-time charm of Charter's Towers; supposedly the worldwide gold price was set in the stock exchange here at the end of the 19th century. We think another town's claim to fame may have been their petrified dino poos? (or something like that, replicas were tastefully used as decoration for one of the town roundabouts) Then it was miles and miles of wide open spaces dotted with country towns (and the obligatory windmills) topped off by the glory of Mt Isa - birthplace of champions (or so they say). The Isa (as it's known to the locals) is home to a massive metals mine, which when lit up a night looks like a big ship sailing through the town (if you squint... after several beers).
Porcupine GorgeOkay, so it wasn't all strange country towns.... if you drove 70 kilometers off the highway (on a truly dusty corregated "developmental" road - and can you only imagine how hot it gets when you're in a car with no air con and you have to roll up all the windows because of the dust?!?) you arrive at the small oasis of Porcupine Gorge National Park. We walked down into the gorge to find a lovely view of Pyramid mountain (and we couldn't pick which photo was the best, so take your pick). We met a few more Australian locals along the way....
Water HolesBeing in the dry desert of the Outback, you wouldn't expect to see many birds, but we saw quite a few, and they usually indicated that water was nearby. One of these water holes was Bitter Creek (park of Elsie National Park near Mataranka). The photos don't do it justice - what appears as a small stream was an underground wonderland of incredibly clear water fed by thermal springs that was ideal for snorkeling (we saw freshwater turtles!)
Karen really enjoys the fact that there are so many species of parrots native to Australia. Some of the larger parrots that we became closely acquainted with during our travels are the lovely pink and grey galahs (they're all over the country), yellow and red-tailed black cockatoos, corellas (of many different types), and the obnoxiously loud sulphur-crested cockatoos. There's also a rainbow lorikeet, a dollarbird, some cockatiels, and lots of excited mystery birds (that's not their name, we just don't know what they are).
DarwinWe made it to Darwin on the very day that Tom flew in, and were lucky that Ben's cousin Fernanda and Henry were kind enough to host all of us at their house for a week (you can see us all at dinner in the
last post). It was good R&R break. Darwin is a cruzy town with lovely sunsets over the extensive tidal mudflats (they have ridiculously large tidal changes here, up to 8 meters!). Fernanda and Henry introduced us to the green tree frog residing in their fence post - isn't it cute?!
Fogg DamOn the way out of Darwin, we stopped at a dam to see, yup you guessed it, birds. Here we saw a group of ibises (ibi?), some jacanas (also called "jesus birds" because their ginormous feet allow them to walk on the lily pads and appear to be walking on water), a purple swamphen, some sort of finch, and a forest kingfisher (can you tell that we bought a bird identification book?).
Australian spiders on the whole seem to be much bigger and much more likely to be poisonous than U.S. spiders. Here is the biggest one we've seen yet (and it took a LOT of pep talking to get Karen to hold her hand up there for scale).
On the road yet again, Ben pulled pulled over suddenly because he swore that he saw a lizard running across the road on its hind ligs (or as he says it "the characteristic two-legged gait of an Australian frill-necked lizard"). And no, it wasn't sunstroke, it actually was there when we stopped to investigate. He let us get fairly close and take lots of photos, until Ben pushed it a little too far and the lizard gave him a partial frill (the photo doesn't do it justice). It was time for us to leave him in peace. Isn't he a beautie??
KakaduThe gem of Northern Territory national parks, Kakadu may be better known to most of us as the filming location for the Australian portion of
Crocodile Dundee. The park is massive, encompassing dry, rocky outcrops and fertile wetlands full of wildlife (including many crocodiles). Our first walk there was out to see the magpie geese, which congregate here to feed during the dry season. We walked past some eye-catching twisted pandanus trees. The Aborigines use the leaves of this tree for weaving, and the fruits are edible (supposedly - we didn't try any). When we found the water hole, we saw that magpie geese weren't the only ones out there, with ducks and geese and other birds as far as the eye could see. We even managed to spot a rainbow bee eater.
Another walk took us out amongst some cool eroded sandstone stacks, but the main rock formation in the park is the Arnhem land escarpment (the edge of the plateau). Here, at Ubirr rock, we spent a memorable afternoon learning more about the local indigenous people and seeing examples of their artwork.
Yellow Waters Boat Cruise (part of Kakadu)We greeted the sunrise from the deck of a boat (well, from a metal bench seat on the deck of a boat) out amidst the wetlands that form Yellow Waters. The major attraction for this cruise is, you guessed it, birdwatching. Also fun were the lovely water lillies that blanketed the area and the occasional floating log (otherwise known as saltwater crocodiles).
For those of you who care (if we have any twitchers in the audience), we saw (we think) another jacana, juvenile and adult nankeen night herons, a juvenile kite (?), white-bellied sea eagle, a female darter (or anhinga or snakebird) in the tree and a male darter drying his wings, a cute-as azure kingfisher, the best shot we got of the famed jabiru (or black-necked stork, they can be up to 1.3m tall), and a couple of egrets (check out the last shot - that egret just nabbed himself breakfast!). Well, we saw lots more than this, but these were the shots that turned out okay.
Gunlom (also part of Kakadu)For any diehard Crocodile Dundee fans, this is the waterhole where Paul Hogan spears a barramundi and spit roasts a goanna. Having camped here we can verify that there are big fish (maybe barra) swimming here with you. This waterhole was one of our favorites. After 40kms of dirt road to get here, this lovely deep pool flanked by a sandy beach on one side and a sheer cliff on the other was soothing to the eyes and the body. Many an hour we spent swimming and cooling off here - and under the waterfall, the bottom is way deeper than we (Ben and Tom) can dive down (the prospect of meeting a freshwater crocodile was enough to keep Nicky and Karen out of the deeps).
If you ever visit here, be sure to climb up the cliff to check out the sequence of pools leading up to the cliff edge (and waterfall). There was no worry of crocodiles up here (unless they were really good climbers), so we thoroughly enjoyed lounging around and exploring the super smooth and intricately detailed rocks that made up the different pools. Heaven!
LitchfieldWe finally said goodbye to Kakadu and headed over to the neighboring Litchfield National Park. Litchfield is much smaller, but very charming. We were given the advice to swim every chance we got, and we did exactly that. There are multiple beautiful water holes here, with supposedly no crocodiles (are you picking this up as a recurring theme?). Each is beautiful and different and wonderful to explore. If you ever go, swim as much as you can, and bring a snorkel because the water is clear! One word of advice, to survive the ferocity of the Australian sun, wear a long-sleeved shirt while you're swimming. We kid you not. When it's this hot, all you want to do is stay in the water, but you will get burned before you know it. Tom and Nicky even wore their hats while swimming. Really, the sun is that strong!
Some common critters we shared the water holes with included this beautiful water dragon (probably 2m long tip to tail), a multitude of dragon flies, and during one lunch - while Ben cooled his feet in the stream - a school of little fish and this curious freshwater cray had a grand old time harvesting his leg hairs.
Despite its relatively small size, you travel through quite a few landscapes while walking in Litchfield. From cool, green creeks to blistering, exposed rocky savannah. We also visited a paperbark swamp (the bark of the paperbark peels off in chunks consisting of multiple sheets of paper thin bark - hence the name). The last two photos are of cycads, an ancient seed plant (from the time of the dinosaurs) that Karen was very excited to be able to identify from her biology class.
And of course, no park would be complete without photos of birds! (and other winged creatures). A literal stone's throw from our campsite, we spied this excellent example of a bower. If you remember, we found a
bower of a satin bowerbird (a blue bird) back in Lamington National Park in Queensland. Here in the Northern Territory, the bower birds are grey (they're called great bowerbirds) and the decorations of their bower are also grey. Isn't that fabulous? We're sure that female bowerbirds really get off on grey can tabs - don't you? Other sightings include a common koel, some blue-winged kookaburras, and bats (huge, bloodsucking fruit bats! Okay, they're not really bloodsucking, but don't they look like they should be?)
Nitmiluk (formerly Katherine Gorge)We decided to bypass the main attraction of Nitmiluk, which is boating in some fashion through the many gorges of the Katherine River. Instead, we visted the Edith Falls section of the park and enjoyed more hiking followed by more swimming in the large waterholes. We had lunch with a curious ibis and a red-winged parrot before heading to spend the night in the very basic Douglas hot springs. You might think us mad for wanted to swim in hot springs, but at one point in the river (pictured in the last photo), the scalding hot water from the spring comes down the left side and meets the chilly river water. This means that you have the luxury of "dialing in" the temperature you want to lounge in just by moving side to side.
Mighty Australian TermitesWhen you visit the top end of Australia, you cannot fail to notice the ubiquitous termite mounds. We mean it, they are everywhere. But, they are not the same. Trust me (from Karen), Ben made me get out of the car so he could take a photo of every one. Looking back, it was worth it because they are amazing, varied, huge, small, different colors, different shapes, each with its own personality. So to showcase the spectrum of Australian termite mounds, here is a meager sampling of Ben's extensive termite photo library:
Little mounds:
Big mounds:
Magnetic mounds (the mound itself is not magnetic, but the termites build them all in a north-south orientation for optimal temperature control):
Mound on a hill (and up the side as well!):
Ice cream mounds:
And, castle mounds:
So here ends our first effort in clearing out the blog backlog. Our next installment sees us travel west from the nothern territory to Broome in Western Australia, with all of the ruggedly beautiful Kimberley in between. Stay tuned!
