Australia Part 2: Rainforests, Reefs and Opera

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Big as your face spider

After arriving in “Tropical North Queensland” we beat the heat and humidity by lounging in the Cairns (pronounced “cans”) Esplanade lagoon pool (I have been swimming more on this trip than in the last 10 years combined) before checking into our apartment in Trinity Beach for six nights.  We rarely stay in one place for that long so staying put in a nice apartment is a real luxury. The next day we went to “Hartley's Crocodile Adventure” where we fed colorful cassowaries (which are called dinosaur birds because they’ve been around forever) learned about crocodile farming, went on a lagoon boat tour where 5m+ crocodiles jumped out of the water to grab chicken parts, and braved a torrential rain storm so Xander and Liam could feed freshwater crocodiles (“freshies”) chicken heads.  We also saw a reptile show where Xander, Liam and I got up close with a python (Jim would have nothing to do with that particular opportunity) and saw a crocodile attack show where an insane guy was in the pond with the huge “saltie” salt water crocodile demonstrating its death role capabilities. Of course we watched Crocodile Dundee after that.  That movie holds up surprisingly well—except for the fashion.  What was everyone thinking in the 80s?

Painting boomerangs at the Aboriginal Center

In Cairns we also went on a Skyrail Gondola/Kuranda Railway trip above and through the tropical rainforest where we got to see big-as-yo-face spiders as well as go to the Mossman Gorge in the Daintree rainforest, where we went on a “dreamtime walk” with an aboriginal guide who regaled us in stories of the healing powers of bush medicine.  We learned more at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, where we painted boomerangs and learned to throw spears (something Xander and I were much better at than using a boomerang).  Aboriginal people have been in Australia for over 40,000 years (!) and are the world’s oldest continuous living culture.  We got to see traditional dances and music, including a didgeridoo demonstration where the musician showed us “recycle breathing” where you can continuously blow out by taking a breath through your nose while blowing out from previously puffed up cheeks.  Try continuously blowing bubbles through a straw to practice (just make sure someone is there to laugh at you trying).

Parrot fish

We attended a “Reef Teach” seminar led by an extremely entertaining and enthusiastic marine biologist who greatly increased our knowledge and anticipation with information on fascinating topics including deadly jellyfish, fish that live in sea cucumbers butts, Christmas tree worms, nudi-branchs (check out pictures of these amazing looking worms) and flatworm penis fencing.  Needless to say, we were very excited to spend our last few days in Queensland on a “live aboard” boat on the Great Barrier Reef where we had the opportunity to snorkel five times a day for three days.    The “GBR” (Australians shorten everything) was amazing and one of the highlights of the entire trip.  We saw all kinds of incredible creatures-- graceful sea turtles munching on jelly fish, white tipped sharks, gorgeously colored parrot fish chomping on coral, bossy striped sergeant fish getting right in your face, huge Maori wrasse bigger than Liam, enchanting Christmas tree worms that quickly shrink back into their holes in boulder coral when you pass your hand over them,  sea cucumbers pooping out sand, almost the entire cast of Nemo, and so much more.

When we weren’t in the water got to meet other travelers from around the world, including several who had also “quit their life” to travel for an extended period of time.  Three cheers for instant travel friends.  At night the divers jumped out into the dark water and we watched the eerie glow of their flashlights reflecting up from underneath the water to illuminate the silhouettes of 3m grey reef sharks swimming around them.   Wow.  Our world was still rocked both literally and figuratively for days after leaving the boat.

We had quite a drama (or “dre-ma” if you want to say it Australian) when we realized that Liam had left Jim’s tablet computer on the boat on the reef.  The reef encounter people were able to rescue it, but due to our travel schedule, they had to ship it back to the states—where it will hopefully reach Tracey in time for her to bring it back to us when she meets us in Vietnam in April.  As Xander optimistically noted, we’re getting a lot more efficient in the time we share on our remaining tablet—and it’s not like both kids are in the hospital or something (shudder).

Sydney Harbor Bridge

After our GBR adventure we flew back down to Sydney, where we spent a few days exploring this green and vibrant city.  We walked over the Harbor Bridge and took a tour of the Sydney Opera House— which we learned contains more steel than the Sydney Harbor Bridge, is covered in ceramic tiles, and is self-cleaning in the rain.  Sydney was a wonderful city to spend time and we wish we had more time to spend (as we wish for almost every place).

Today we arrived in Hong Kong after one of our biggest travel days that included a layover in Singapore.  The Singapore airport wins the prize for nicest airport we’ve been in to date.  It included a butterfly garden, free movie theatre and gaming center.  After a few days in Hong Kong we’re heading to Beijing to meet Jim’s Mom Carol for a few weeks in China.  It’s both exciting and intimidating to travel farther afield from our comfort zone!

Senses

Xander-The fluorescent blue of the Ulysses butterfly flashing across the canopy of the cairns rainforest; The white water of the Crystal Cascades, cascading down a short bluff as the sun makes the river glimmer picturesquely; the sharks ferociously jumping out of the water for the small bait fish as the night diver jump in a few feet away; the rays of sun shinning picturesquely on a brown epaulette shark hiding beneath a coral plate  

Jim- Listening to the knowledge of the local guide explain potential uses of plants through the lush rain forest and realizing we always have more to learn and explain in the world; the beautiful florescent orange, blue and white of the 2 cm long nudi branch; swimming against the rushing flow of the waterfall providing a welcome refreshing stop along the rain forest path; the impressive flowing design of the smooth soft wood lining the walls, ceiling and surrounding the 10,000 pipe organ in the main concert hall of the Sydney opera house.  

Liam- My skin seemingly melting off my body and my toes slowly burning away as I walk across the scalding hot pavement to jump back into the refreshing lagoon pool in Cairns; The small droplets of water sprinkled around the gigantic spider web as I shirk away from its ginormous black and yellow banded creator; the surprisingly strong current of the Crystal cascades pushing me backwards and forcing me to stay in the same place as I try to swim closer to the waterfall; the empty open turquoise ocean abruptly turning into a fish, coral and vibrant color filled reef that made me stop in a dumbstruck awe 

Carolyn- The colorful  "emu in drag" cassowary poking its head aggressively towards my fingers as I hand feed it rotting mango and shy away from its huge clawed feet; The strange smell causing me to look up and see thousands of huge fruit bats hanging from the trees lining the street in Cairns-- all of which were gone into the night when we came back later in the evening; Bobbing up and down as I watch the green sea turtle lackadaisically munching on a huge jellyfish then gliding serenely away on our sunrise snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef; the curved expanse of multicolored white-ish ceramic tiles reflecting the sunlight off the majestic Sydney Opera House.

Australia Part 1: Beaches, Wildlife and Warnings

That which does not kill you… does not live in Australia.

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The Australians we’ve met (who have all been friendly, funny and welcoming) have been keen (and sometimes delighted) to regale us with warnings about the many lethal dangers of this incredible country.  Conversation with hotel manager:  Me: “Can we swim at the beach?” (wondering the water was too cold)  Him: “Oh yes, we haven’t seen a shark in a few days”  (actually he said “all summer” but still).   Dangers include not only Sharks, Snakes, Crocodiles, Spiders and Rip Tides, but also:

·       Jellyfish:  The box jellyfish is the most venomous creature in the world.  A marine biologist who was teaching us about the reef said that a sting from one of these will cause the most horrible pain imaginable, but only for 60 seconds because that’s how long it takes its toxins to kill you.

·       Birds:  Colorful Cassowary birds (described as “Emus in drag”) can disembowel with their raptor-like toenails.

·       Snails: innocent looking cone snails have a tooth (a tooth!) that can shoot out like a harpoon, impale your foot and shoot you full of neurotoxins.

·       Trees:  Some trees have seeds so large they can drop on your head and kill you.  We thought they were kidding about this one until we saw a foot+ sized pinecone.

·       Drop bears:  You may think koalas are cute and cuddly… (you may catch one of these on snipe hunt ;) )   

Grand Pacific Drive to Wollongong

That’s not even counting the many other things that can bite or sting you and cause excruciating pain.  This all compared to New Zealand, where the biggest threat is driving on the other side of the road (which they have in Australia as well).  I guess that’s why stuff like bungee jumping was invented in New Zealand—they needed to increase the country’s fear factor.  In any event, Australia is awesome, even if we’re trying not to touch anything. 

We started out in south of Sydney in Cronulla, staying with awesome friends of friends where we tasted kangaroo meat and got to explore the bays and cliffs around the coast that are covered with stunning houses that have “inclinators” (used to get to the water) that  look like roller coaster tracks plummeting down to their same-colored boat houses. In the Royal National Park the kids jumped off a 10m+ high cliff at Watamolla.  Why am I more afraid of heights for them than I am for me?  

Next, we headed down South on the gorgeous “Grand Pacific Drive” along the coast where the winding road is built out over the sea to protect against cliff landslides.  In Wollongong we had a wonderful stay  with the hospitable Murphy family. Xander and Liam don’t get the opportunity to hang out with too many other kids, so they reveled in the opportunity to play WWE on the play station and boogie board with 10-year-old Antony.

3 sisters and 2 goofballs, blue mountains

On the Great Ocean Road

We drove down to the Shoalhaven zoo, where we met some of Australia’s ool indigenous animals, including wombats, cockatoos and koalas.  The craziest thing about that zoo is that it had “adventure walks” where you could scramble up and down rickety ladders and over boulders into bat caves, flinching anytime you brush against anything tickley because it most certainly is something creepy crawly that could kill or maim you.  Great fun.  (actually it was) We hiked in the Minnamura rainforest, home of beautiful lyre birds, that can mimic anything they hear--  the one we saw sounded like R2D2.  I guess it saw the new Star Wars movie.  Based on local recommendations, we went to the Jambaroo Water Park (“where you control the action”), water rides are named after some of Australia’s more notorious deadly creatures (Funnel Web, Tiapan) and signs warn “Sharks have been spotted in this pool.  They come out when they smell pee.”

Enjoying the rain at the 12 Apostles

From Wollongong we headed north west to the Blue Mountains, which get their name from the blue haze from the eucalyptus trees.  Here we enjoyed the steepest railway in the world (complete with Indiana Jones music and seats on which you could adjust the angle from “laid back” to “cliffhanger”) and a relaxing day at a great guest house where we were visited by cackling kookaburras, cheeky yellow cockatoos and brightly colored rosetta birds.

Adventures near Melbourne

Next we flew down to Melbourne on the southern coast of the country, where we tested out our boomerang throwing skills at the aboriginal center and drove along Great Ocean Road to the “12 Apostles” on a rainy day where violent waves emphasized why now there are only 6 rocky pinnacles.  We went on a surprisingly successful wild koala hunt where we spotted several of these fuzzy balls of fur swaying high in the eucalyptus trees.  Koalas sleep 20 hours a day and are high pretty much all the time they’re awake from the eucalyptus.  What a life. 

Squeaky beach, Wilsons Prom

We made our way back up to Melbourne and enjoyed the Melbourne museum before spending some days with the awesome Nolan family, who had stayed with us in Colorado several years ago.  Yeah travel karma.  Great to catch up and laugh about culture differences—why do we call a toilet a “restroom” and how could anyone be excited to see squirrels?  We even got to see wild kangaroos-  which seems to akin to seeing deer, but still pretty cool for us.  In our last adventure down south we drove to Wilsons Promontory, a gorgeous national park along the coast.  We hung out on aptly named squeaky beach (so far our favorite beach in Australia), where the sand grains are perfectly sized to squeak when you walk on them—picture if you will, us stamping along the beach trying to “squeak” the song “Eye of the Tiger.”  We also saw an echidna (a small cute spiky animal that Liam calls an enchilada) in the bush.

At a nearby beach the next day we saw what we thought was a change in the sand color from white to dark, but what turned out to be tens of thousands of dime sized soldier crabs making their way down to the ocean, and burrowing down under the sand when we stepped near them.  Cool and kinda freaky.  On the way back to Melbourne, eagle eye Jim spotted a huge koala low in a tree on the side of the road.  We conquered our fear of drop bears for just long enough to snap about 1000 pictures.

Friend on the side of the road

Our Australian adventure continues up North...

Senses:

Carolyn: The boil of the waves crashing over my head and tossing me around on Wattomolla beach in the Royal National Park; the buzz of “mozzies” in my  ear and the sweat rolling down my back as I scramble up a rickety ladder into a dimly lit cave on a "walk" in the shoalhaven zoo; the pouring rain permeating my raincoat as we walk along the beach underneath the towering sandstone apostles alongside the tempestuous waves; the thousands of tiny crabs scuttling along the beach spiraling their way quickly into the sand as we approached, hinting at the huge population hiding below our feet

Xander: The greenish saltwater branching into the current out to see as we cruise next to the sandpit in cronulla national park; the dark white wall of mist blocking the blue endless sea along the Great Ocean road; The platypus’s fur glimmering in the sunlight as one of its hind legs twitches as it is scratched on the belly at the Healesville animal sanctuary; the barnacles stabbing into my feet as I climb up the jagged rock to jump off and have the sand squeak beneath my feet at squeaky beach in Wilsons Promontory

Liam: The boomerang I threw excellently soaring straight back at me until it hit the top of a tree; The bright flashes of color catching my eye as green parrots and red rosellas swoop down from the trees and come and dig their evily sharp claws into the soft underside of my outstretched arms; our car's bright yellow lights reflecting off the kangaroos’ glassy eyes, creating a field of bouncing red dots as the kangaroo "mob" springs away; the platypus’s stubby back legs paddling it along the small river enclosure as it flopped up onto the zoo keeper’s hand for yet another belly rub

Jim: The caahs, creeks, beeps, and songs of the long tailed lyre bird practicing its calls in the forest; the wisps of waterfalls covering the cliff edges of the coal rich mountains and dense forest of the blue mountains; the calm and sleepy koalas hanging on tight to the blowing eucalyptus trees, unphased by the world and the group of tourists below; spotting wild emus and echidnas adding to the magic of the squeaky beach.