Daintree and Crocs!

After the more relaxing day at the Botanical Gardens, we decided to go full tilt the next day and hit several attractions at once.  After renting a little Holden at Thrifty, we made our way up to Mossman Gorge, part of the Daintree National Rainforest.  The drive up was stunning, another of those driving twisty mountain roads along a cliff that drops into the ocean.  A bit nerve wracking, but worth it.  We passed our kangaroo on the way--it was still there two days later on the side of the road--Ewww!

We got to seem some live wildlife as well.  We were treated to the rare sight of a cassowary on the way to Mossman.  They are native to Australia, and they are pretty much only in the rainforest, so even locals don't see them very often.  Not only did we spot one, but it came right up to our car and pecked the tires!  That actually made us a bit nervous as they are aggressive birds known to attack humans.  Here's an up close pic of this very unusual looking bird:

I also got a short video you can click here that shows it inspecting our car:

From 2011-10-09

Mossman had several hiking tracks including to a river, and a loop through the rainforest, so we ended up hiking a couple of hours.  It was very pretty but very hot.  Here's the river:

You aren't technically supposed to swim, and I can't even remember which big bad Australian thing was supposed to get you here, but eventually we got so hot, we did at least stick our feet in.  Here's Daniel sitting on a rock trying to keep cool:

It was a little surreal sitting in the rainforest with our feet in the water and all these technicolor butterflies flying around us.  Of course the blue, green, or red ones wouldn't cooperate, but this more sedate orange one was obliging:

Here you can see the three of us toward the end of our hike, when we were absolutely dripping with sweat.  That's a giant fig tree in the background.:

The rainforest at Daintree was impressive.  It's actually the oldest rainforest in the world, as it escaped some volcanic eruptions and an ice age that got the rest of the world's rainforests at some point.  When we emerged from the forest we saw a decidedly newer invention, and a welcome one:  an ice cream truck!  It actually had softserve instead of just popsicles, so it was even better.  Here's another good pic of the rainforest mountains:

After Mossman Gorge, we took a river cruise on the Daintree River to see if we could spot some crocodiles.  This was our boat, piloted by a great old guy with wild stories who had been giving the same cruise for years, so he new all the crocs' hiding spots and even had names for all of them.  

We got to see two.  I was so busy taking pictures of the birds, I didn't even realize there was a croc sneaking up on them (the bump closer to the left hand bird):

Eventually, he got enough out of the water for us to get a better look.  This one our guide said was 7 years old, so a good size, but not a huge fat one yet:

On our way back, we could go a little closer to the other side of the river, where we found a baby croc that he said was just born this year.  He still looked plenty big to us:

Still sweating buckets, we decided to keep head to Cape Tribulation, where the rainforest meets the ocean, and about as far north as you can get in Australia without a 4 wheel drive.  Even, so we had to take a cable ferry across the river in order to reach it.  You can see on the right hand side of it the cable track it follows to keep the platform steady so they don't have to tie it up each time it goes back and forth:

It was worth the effort, because I think Cape Trib might have been the prettiest beach yet.  The water was really warm, although you couldn't swim because of jellyfish and crocs.  You really weren't supposed to even walk with your feet in the water because of the crocs, but we were feeling dangerous :)  I just walked along the edge, but we actually saw two kids swimming in the surf.  I don't know if they didn't see the signs everywhere or what, but they did get out pretty quickly, so maybe someone told them.  I mostly looked for shells while Daniel walked pretty far up the beach.  He's the distance speck in this picture:

We ate at an Irish pub in Port Douglas for dinner, where I had a fish pie, which was definitely a new experience, but it was good.  We were so pooped when we got back to the hotel, we basically went straight to bed.

Cairns Botanical Gardens

So, I'll get the exciting news out of the way first, and then the rest of it is just going to be pictures of pretty flowers, so if you don't like that, you can just read the first part.

So, after our fun time in Airlie Beach, we we driving another long day to Port Douglas.  We had just passed through Cairns and were about 40 minutes from our destination when a kangaroo jumped out in front of us.  It was so quick and really small enough that I didn't think it would do much.  I thought it would just sort of be like hitting a fat raccoon, your car bumps and you go on.  Well, I don't know if it's their height or body shape, or just how they jump up when you hit them, but kangaroos almost always hit your radiator and trash it.  We had heard this from friends, and it was the case with us.  We were fine, and the car was able to drive, but we couldn't because without the radiator the car would overheat.  Luckily, a tow truck driver was just across the highway towing someone else, so he came over to help.  He got the gross job of actually removing the kangaroo wedged into our grill.  Then he took Katy and I to the hotel we were planning to stay at the next two nights in Cairns that thankfully could take us a night early.  I also got the Port Douglas hotel refunded after a lot of arguing with a call center in India for hotels.com.  Daniel stayed with the car until another tow truck driver from the same company could get him, which only took about another 10 minutes.  It could have been much worse, but it did lead to a lot of paperwork, calling insurance, staying and two extra days in Cairns, switching hotels, and renting cars twice.  All told that little kangaroo probably cost us about $900.  Stupid roo.

However, it did let us go at a more leisurely pace as we were sort of stuck there while everything got sorted out.  We actually slept in a bit the next day and then went to the botanical gardens, which we hadn't planned to visit, but were glad we did.  They had beautiful flowers I had never seen before.  Plus, that night we ate some very tasty pizza on their esplande and watched a group of local teens called the Cairns Pyros do their best to set themselves on fire.  They actually even jumped rope with the whole rope on fire and hulu hooped with fire.  No protective gear or anything, and occasionally one would yelp, "Ouch, I burnt my hand again!" but then they just kept going.  Katy got a good picture:

And here are all the lovely flowers:

I haven't discovered what that one is called yet, but I believe this one is some type of African hibiscus:

These are all different varieties of wild ginger plants:

There were also these brush turkeys all over:

We've seen lots of stunning butterflies, including the Ulyssus ones that are bright blue, but they usually won't land long enough to take a picture.  I did manage to catch a different one there:

And of course, it wouldn't be Australia until there was a creepy spider about.  We saw so many of these golden orb spiders I stopped taking pictures.  This was one of the smaller ones with a beetle it had caught.

Hamilton Island and Whitehaven Beach

The second day of our tour with Fantasea we took a much larger ship to Hamilton Island and Whitehaven Beach.  This meant there was less bobbing and open air, which I think most people appreciated, but I was a little sad about it.  When we arrived, we saw that Gary the photographer had already cornered Katy who was being very patient and kind with him, but looked pretty relieved to see us.

Hamilton is a resort island, for as Katy said, "A certain class of people."  That was a good way of putting it.  Had I been rich, I would have stayed there.  It was 5 star luxury in the middle of gob-smacking beautiful scenery.  For example, here is a picture of just one of the pools at the resort:

And here's the view from the 22nd story glass elevator of another swanky resort:

And here's the resort lobby:

And here's all their yachts in the marina they drove to get here:

We took the free shuttle around the island and mainly just gawked.  Katy and I also went in a few shops and to a couple of art galleries.  She's a girl after my own heart.  She loves art, taking pictures of flowers, and feels the need to eat chocolate frequently.  I think Daniel was a bit relieved I had someone to do those things with so he could just lounge on the beach.  We found an Australian souvenir store, and I made Daniel wrestle with a croc:

After Hamilton, we board the boat again and ate lunch and then had the afternoon to enjoy Whitehaven Beach, rated one of the top ten beaches in the world.  It has this powdery fine sand that is all silica, so it's really soft and pretty.  Here's Daniel with a fist full:

You can't actually dock the big boat on Whitehaven, so they anchor it off shore, and then take you on this little platform to the beach.  Daniel kept calling it Normandy transport:

But then you arrive at the magnificent beach:  

We decided to take a bush walk for part of the time, so we went into those forests and hiked up.  We were rewarded with an amazing view of the island:

We also got to see green ants (named for their green butt) building nests.  We didn't get too close though, as they are nasty biters.  Our guide told us that the Aborigines eat the green part to help sore throats.  She said it sort of had a lemony flavor but she didn't care for it.  

The rest of the time we swam and enjoyed the beach.  Daniel was a happy camper.

Great Barrier Reef

Our friend Katy (from England, goes to the Anglican church with us) decided to join us for our trip north.  That was nice and she is used to getting up early, so she helps us get moving in the morning.  She also can drive manual much better than me, so Daniel is glad to have another driver.  

The first day we basically just drove the whole time.  It takes about 10 hours to get to Airlie from Hervey Bay.  We stopped at one of the many rest stops Australia has scattered every few hours to eat our packed lunch.  Because all the roads are only two lane and don’t have much of a shoulder and you can be driving through very monotonous terrain, they have a lot of trouble with drivers falling asleep and causing accidents.  You drive 100 kph and if you get sleepy and drift into the next lane of traffic—you get the picture.  So, they have lots of billboards screaming at people to stop every two hours and they even have driver reviver stations where they serve free coffee.  It can be a bit obnoxious at times, but it does mean they have lots of rest stops, which is handy, since you can go a very long time without hitting a town.

We didn’t get to Airlie until about 8:30 pm, but where able to find our bed and breakfast and Katie’s hostel in the dark.  Airlie is definitely a tourist town, and actually has things open after 7pm, which is quite unusual in Australia.  I didn’t realize since it is a coastal town, that it is also in the mountains.  Beach means flat in my head, but we were driving right along both the coast and the Great Dividing Range.  It sort of reminded me of the south of Spain with the terraced beach houses, as you can see from the pic:

The hill up to our B&B was quite steep, as was the driveway down to our room.   It was a nice room and had a lovely view.  Below is the view from the balcony where we had breakfast.  

They also had a lovely pool I had all to myself. 

And a cat we tried to make friends with.  Clearly from the look on his face, it was against his will.

We walked around a bit that night in the main part of town, and discovered they had a large public swimming area they called the lagoon.  It was a pool that went on for ages, but they made it look more like a beach, and even had sandy areas and the requisite seagulls everywhere.  Here’s a picture:

We went to bed early as we had to be up at 7:00 to catch the bus for our tour.  We had a note left for us at the B&B saying they would have breakfast for us on the boat.  I thought this meant that she was sending breakfast with us, but she meant we would be eating the tour breakfast, which consisted of tea and biscuits (as in cookies)—not very filling or nutritious.  Anyway, we stood at the end of the driveway for about thirty minutes and finally asked the owner if she was sure they were supposed to pick us up.  It was a good thing we called, because the tour had forgotten all about us. 

We were booked on their Reef and Rags tour.  That meant the first day we went out to the reef for snorkeling, and the second day we went on the sailing yacht Ragamuffin to Whitehaven beach.  Well, a couple of days before we arrived, the Ragamuffin sank to the bottom of the marina.  They managed to bring it back up, but it wasn’t exactly seaworthy any more.  Our tour operator for the reef part, Fantasea, thankfully offered to send us on their two island tour the second day since Ragamuffin was out of business.  However, since they had to rebook us, they had forgotten to rebook our transit.  So, they had to send a taxi to come pick us up so we could make it to the marina before the boat launched.  The taxi driver was very friendly, actually driving a Prius, which he admitted was very ugly, but said it ran wonderfully.  He got us there with a few minutes to spare, and we managed to get things straightened out a bit for the tour. Here's the boat we took:

We took one of their smaller boats, and they had 5 foot swells, which meant the 2 hour boat trip to the outer reef was very bumpy.  There were several people getting seasick in the main area, but Daniel had to inform me of this because I went out on top, and sat right against the rail, so I could get the full effect of the bobbing up and down.  I also got soaked from the sea spray.  I loved every minute of it.  My sister Dana looks like she got more of the Portuguese blood than I did, but I got the sea-faring genes.  I was laughing with delight, and you can see:

 It was good to be able to see where we were sailing, too, because it was beautiful.  There were all the Whitsunday Islands scattered about, which are volcanic islands covered in green with white beaches.  I asked Katy how it compared to Hawaii since she had been, and she said it was actually much prettier here as Hawaii is very urban with tons of people.  She said Waiki Beach was just a small strip crawling with people.

We eventually docked at Reefworld, a large floating platform where the boats could dock on either side.  This thing was mammoth.  It had a sundeck on the top, two snorkeling decks where you could sort of gradually get into the water, an underwater viewing area, a place where we had a BBQ lunch, changing rooms, even a waterslide.  I couldn't obviously get all of it in one picture, but this will give you an idea:

Daniel was all for eating first since his tea and biscuit breakfast wasn't holding him, but since they didn't have the food ready, he gave in to snorkeling.  They told us it wasn't stinger season yet for the box jellyfish (the one that can kill you), but there were Irukandji jellyfish that were in season, and while less painful, can still kill you in some instances, and are nearly invisible.  For a list of all the lovely jellyfish that can kill or maim you in Queensland, look here:  http://www.marinestingers.com.au/stingers/

So even though the stinger suits were optional, I thought that sounded like a pretty good option.  They are not flattering in the slightest, though.  They were neon pink and blue and were like a spandex bodysuit covering your whole body with mittens for hands and the only part of your feet not covered are covered by your flippers.  They even had a hood you could put on so only your face was showing, but we didn't do that.  We also put on life jackets just so we could float along easier and not get tired.  Some people had on wetsuits in addition to the stinger suits and life jackets because the water did get cold after you had been it it awhile, but the stinger suit sort of insulated you a bit.  They had a professional photographer that got a picture of us snorkeling.  His name was Gary and he really liked Katy, so we saw a lot of him.  We paid $20 and got this one picture; she paid $20, and he gave her about 25 pictures, but then she was a favorite subject for him.  I was a little miffed by the pretty girl discount, but then I didn't have to hide from Gary for the next two days, so in the end I was fine to get one picture and peace and quiet.

Snorkeling was amazing, and I stayed out longer than anyone on the whole tour.  Eventually it was just me all the way at the end of the marked snorkeling trail, and the Fantasea staff following in a little boat asking me every ten minutes if I was still okay.  Yep, just looking at all the fishies.  At one point a grouper bigger than me swam pass, which freaked me out slightly, but I reminded myself that it wouldn't eat me and just enjoyed it.  They said they occasionally get sharks and stingrays that they swore would not bother us and would be a real "treat" to see, but if a grouper freaked me out, I don't know how I would have handled a shark.

Eventually I realized I was shivering from the cold water and shaking from lack of food, so after a little over 2 hours, I headed back to the platform.  I got a few good pictures from the underwater viewing area:

I also took a short ride on their semi-sub, you can see here:

The bottom of it is glass.  It looked like this on the inside: 

You can sort of see all the viewing portals on either side.  I got a picture of the coral, but the colors are sort of distorted:

We were pretty tired by the time we got back, so we ate a quick dinner and headed to bed so we could get up and see Hamilton Island and Whitehaven Beach the next day.  I think this was definitely my favorite part of the trip so far.

The big bad gecko

So, for those of you that read Daniel's post, "Is that coming from inside the house?" we wanted to update you with our discovery.  No, it wasn't coming from inside the house, and it wasn't even some evil bird.  It was this little guy, an Asian House Gecko:

Lest you think we are complete pansies, I put a link here to a video we found, so you can see where that would be unnerving.  I still can't figure out how they make so much noise being so small.  As you can see from the video, they can be a bit aggressive when cornered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijcTa_eHHHE&feature=related

That hissing is not the chirping sound it normally makes, much quieter actually, and I just can't find a clip of the exact right sound, but at least you can see one in action.  Hopefully we'll eventually be able to capture the sound.  While this one posed nicely for use, it wouldn't make a sound.  Even as I'm typing this it is taunting me, making the noise, then once I start recording it stops again for 20 minutes.

Footy Finals

Today was Australia's Superbowl, the Australian Rules Football Grand Final.  We've caught bits and pieces of the games on TV, but honestly we had no idea what was going on.  Our friends Paul and Rhonda offered to explain it to us, so had us over for a complete footy (as it is called) experience.  They took their teaching role seriously, and so I actually feel like I know enough now to enjoy a game.  We were barracking for the Geelong Cats.  You say barracking, not rooting, since rooting is slang for sex here, which was news to us.  Geelong is a city near Melbourne, pronounced Ja-long.  Paul grew up there, and some of his cousins played for the team at one point.  Queensland has two teams, one in Brisbane and another on the Gold Coast, but both were pretty bad this year.  AFL started in Melbourne, so generally there is at least one team from the Melbourne area playing in the final. This year both teams were from Melbourne.  The other team was the Collingswood Magpies (those swooping birds), and Paul informed us they were sort of like the Yankees of the AFL:  the team with a lot of money that that wins a lot and thinks they're awesome and everybody else loves to hate.

Their daughter plays AusKick, the kid's version of footy at school, and they gave the kids a poster-sized diagram of the players on the field.  Paul was kind enough to tape this up for us and run us through the game before it started.  It was a handy reference to have throughout the game.  He also provided us with a Footy magazine that detailed the season and the different teams for us.  We even went out in the yard in between quarters with a ball and he showed us how to bounce, pass, and kick the ball.  I kicked it a bit too hard and it ended up in the neighbor's pool.  Once we understood how it worked and had tried the basic moves for ourselves, I have to say that this has got to be one of the hardest sports in the world.

I won't bore you with all the rules, but I want to give you an appreciation for it.  They play on a big cricket oval, and it even started because they were trying to figure out what to play in the winter when it wasn't cricket season.  In order to score, it is similar to soccer in that you have to get the ball all the way to the other side of the field to score.  You do this by running, passing (which looks sort of like punching with your fist, not a toss or long pass like in American football), and punting (not soccer kicking, drop kicking) the ball to fellow players.  Can you imagine instead of kicking the ball along the ground or throwing it, you have to punt the ball accurately enough that your teammate down the field can catch it while other players are trying to intercept it?  Punting at a dead run, no less.  They have figured that footy players can run the equivalent of a marathon during a game, yet they also have to be big and muscular enough to tackle (no pads).  Then in order to score, you have to kick it between the goal posts.  You get 6 points if you kick it in the middle goal post and 1 point of it hits the post but goes in, goes through one of the side posts, or if a player touches the ball before it goes through through the middle goal.  Yet, the games frequently have scores like todays final:  119 to 81 (Geelong won).  I was definitely impressed.  And to watch these guys leap for a catch is just amazing.  Here's an example from the game today:

It's pretty brutal, too.  The first picture above ended in the bald guy dislocating his shoulder.  Another guy broke his nose.  I can see why men get into it, but I can see why the women like it, too.  I'm going to be honest here, these are some good looking men, more muscular than soccer players, but not the beefy no-neck guys of American football.  Plus, they play the game in tank tops and short shorts, which is not hard on the eyes.  I imagine I'll get some flack for that, since admittedly I'd give a guy a hard time who watched beach volleyball just to gawk at the girls.  

Like the Superbowl, watching the game is often just an excuse to hang out and graze for hours.  While Superbowl food at home usually involves chili and 7 layer dip, etc.  footy food was different.  You are supposed to eat meat pies, which we did.  We even had the kind with mushy peas, which I actually liked best.  Then you put tomato sauce on the top:

We also had chicken wings that were "ranch" flavored, but this was sort of a spicy BBQ sauce, not Hidden Valley Ranch.  I brought some little quiches, and there was also a big bowl of prawns that you had to peel and dehead:

Even our soda was different, as we were drinking passionfruit soda.  Rhonda also had some Thai chicken meatballs, but we had to cry uncle before then.  She also made a very yummy caramel tart that had bananas in it:

We told them we'd have to do this again come November when cricket starts so we can figure it out and eat more good food.  

We have actually been pretty busy with the social engagements lately which has been nice.  We haven't seen a lot the last couple of weeks scenery wise, but we've been to a birthday party, had people over for dinner twice, been to a barbie, today to footy, and I even went with Julie Ann to Zumba this week.  We even convinced our friend Katie from England to come with us on our trip north next week.  So next week you might get multiple posts and lost of pictures as we do more exploring.  

I suppose I should say a bit about the barbie.  If you are like us, we were dying to know what one was like. It's basically just like a cookout in the States, but the food is a bit different.  Instead of grilling burgers and hotdogs, because beef is so cheap here, every one has steak and beef sausages.  Everyone from the small group was invited, so we had a good crowd and it was fun to get to talk more in depth with people.  

We also finally went swimming at the beach.  Daniel only got about half way in before he decided the water wasn't quite warm enough for him yet.  I did go swimming, but I was worried about running into some sea creature I did not want to get up close and personal with, so I didn't swim long.  Plus, the water was sooo salty just breathing out while swimming left a gross taste in my mouth.  There really aren't that many creatures around, mostly just fish.  We saw a whole school of smaller fish, which I thought was actually kind of cool, but occasionally you would spy a big barramundi and they have teeth and are a carnivorous fish, so I don't want to mess with them.  I don't know that they chomp on humans, but that's the thing:  I DON'T WANT TO KNOW.  I do know that they are a very tasty fish, but I only care to encounter them on my plate.  Tuesday we head for the Great Barrier Reef, so I guess I need to get a bit less skittish in the water so I can enjoy the sites.