Australia Adventures: 12. Journey To The Great Barrier Reef

My 'stripper' friend came back to our room one morning and told me that she'd been out to the Great Barrier Reef, snorkelling. A small operator in the village were doing 'Eco Tours' out to the reef to explore. I had planned to go to Cairns to see the reef but here in Cape Tribulation, there were less people and less disturbance to the marine life and just hearing the word 'ECO' just swayed my decision. Of course I favour organisations which minimise the disturbance of the environment and to be honest if you wanted to be 100 % ecologically friendly, you wouldn't even travel and go places and not step foot around Planet Earth - life would kinda be pointless don't you think? so I signed up and was heading out nice and early on a high speed boat transporting me to the rainforest to the reef zipped up in a stinger suit brimming with excitement that finally I will be visiting one of the great wonders of the natural world. 
 

But here's some info about it...courtesy of Lonely Planet. really I didn't know too much about it just that it was just one of Planets Earth's most precious treasures. The Reef itself is actually larger than the Great Wall of China stretching along the Queensland seaboard from south of the Tropic of Capricorn to the Torres Strait which is in the south of New Guinea and is archived to be between 600,000 and 18 million years old - that's pretty damn old! its said to attract about two million visitors a year but marine biologists and conservationists are continuously growing concerned that the Reef is dying out from warmer seas and the oceans rise in acidification because of yep you've guessed it, climate change and global warming.
Now I was one of those two million visitors and I now had the opportunity to see this spectacular showcase of natural beauty while it was here. Lucky I was doing it out here in the Far North area as the reef was only located 30km from the shore whereas in the
southern parts its way out there beyond 300km.

After about a 40 minute speedy journey, our Skipper dropped anchor at a small sand island explaining how to snorkel and all the hand help symbols and all that - I was just eager to get in and slapping my flippers on with an underwater camera - I dived in never having snorkelled this far out in the open waters and was transported to a different world hidden beneath the calmness of the marine ocean surface

Wow! One of my dreams was to the visit the Great Barrier Reef and I was extremely glad that I'd chosen do it but here. I went for a 2 hr snorkelling trip where there are no other boats around and the reef is totally unspoilt. It is like being transformed to another world as soon as your head goes under the water, its magical - swimming alongside turtles and fishes, watching the corals pulsating with collages of colours its a must do in life in general. I even found a star fish!

Sea Turtle

Some more snaps from my underwater camera.....the colours are not done justice

wow greatest biodiversity of an ecosystem on earth....check out some stats

1,500 species of fishies
400 types of coral
4000 breeds of clams
800 echinoderms like those funky sea cucumbers!
500 varieties of seaweed
200 birds
6 types of turtles!

STOP GLOBAL WARMING and come see this!!

Won't forget that. Ticked off the list. Well there's been many adventures so far but that's the general memories of it but I'm heading back south to Cairns now to go explore the rainforest a bit more down there and then hopefully get some more work on a farm...with so many cool things to do your hard earned cash dwindles away so quickly - we'll see.


Hope you'll good! (weather is 30 degrees - nice!!!!)

With Lonely Planet Travel Guide Australia

Australia Adventures: 11. Cape Tribulation and Rainforest Flying

G'day everyone!

Calling from Port Douglas! a swanky coastal town north of Cairns where the Aussie rich folk come to play. Last night I went 'Cane Toad Racing' in one of the bars on the main street, you bid for a cane toad which are Giant Toads which inhabit this part of Australia to place them in the race and then proceed to blow them off a round table, catch them, run across the bar and put them in a bucket - not as easy as it seems! but that was quite an experience dabbling with Aussie quirkiness.

Of course I didn't win.

Well quite a change of scene for me since I left the Atherton Tablelands. All 'cashed up' (as the Aussie's say for having money) I hitched a ride with one of the locals from the Kairi pub to head further north to the mystery of the Daintree Rainforest boarding the two minute cable ferry to cross the Daintree River deliciously riddled with tropical crocodiles and word up hear was that some guy actually swam across the Daintree River as a result of a drunken bet...he did live to tell the tale.

I then travelled 34km by sealed road into the ancient thick foliage of the Cape Tribulation rainforest area - indigenously named 'Kulki' but in fact the area was renamed 'Cape Tribulation' by the English Explorer Captain Cook where his ship ran aground causing 'tribulation' right?


It is seriously paradise here and is the only place where the rainforest meets the reef - The Great Barrier Reef that is

Just like a desert island and not replusively crowded like the claustrophic beaches of Sydney - I love it! I was rooming with a girl at a beach lodge who was working as a stripper in Darwin (interesting conversations) and our eco friendly lodge, its electricity powered by generators and solar energy fitting nicely into my earth saving ways.
The lodge also backs onto the beach, I couldn't ask for more. Life is so simple and uncomplicated. I think the photographs say it all.

I Love it Here!!!!!!

Exploring the coastal rainforest area on my trusty borrowed bike, the Government are very clued up about the
dangers of crocodiles that may be lurking in the mangroves and caution of marine stingers that inhabit the waters this time of year. Vinegar boxes are laid out on the beach with clear instructions of treating any unfortunate souls who are stung. Cringe. These things can kill you out here. Was funny to notice the signs here are in English and German....mmmmm

Not that this should put you off by any means, the rainforest life is gorgeous and I captured the rare sight of a Lace Monitor strolling around his domain on the sand and took a visit to a voluntary Bat Hat in the Rainforest Village - avoiding throwing caution to the wind of my awareness for wild Cassowarys (remember, the most dangerous birds in the world they say) which you may see on the way as I rode to the village.

I never did - but there's plenty of signs telling you what to do if they freak out. The simple rule is, leave them alone and they'll leave you alone. Simple. They do look quite cute though, like big bright blue emus.

Well the Bat House is a local conservation organisation which is a cute nursery for fruit bats, I even met two of the residents themselves 'Joker' and 'Edward'....mmmm wonder what inspired their names. 

I signed up for a night walk in the rainforest (highly recommend it) armed with 'Boots' coming in handy yet again with headtorches and was taken deep into the lowland rainforest to see what the night would bring. My guide informed me about the wonders of the Queensland rainforest, things I hadn't even seen out in the Amazonia of South America - pieces of wood that glowed in the dark and a sea of glowing mushrooms on the forest floor, not 'magic mushrooms' by any means. Apparently the Australian Art Producer of 'Avatar' had gathered his inspiration from his travels here. I was also lucky to spy a tree dragon, cleverly trying to disguise itself on a tall slim tree trunk and of course the tree you want to go nowhere near....the stinger tree ahhhhh no really do not go near it.

The next afternoon I had a go at 'jungle surfing' (leads to the imagination) - its a lot of fun. You strap yourself to a flying fox harness and you fly about 25m above the rainforest canopy on a zip wire to a series of towers scattered across the jungle - is awesome you gotta do it, even upside down. Quite rightly I was wearing a helmet saying 'Peter Pan'

To Leave You with...

With Lonely Planet Guide Australia 



                        

Australia Adventures: 10. Dreamin' Avocados, Livin' as a Tourist Attraction and My One Trick Pony (well...Horse)

G'Day Everybody!

Its been a while since I've been near a computer as I've been way out here getting grubby and dirty in the country.

Well for the past weeks I have been working on Avocado farms in a small town called Kairi outside of Atherton in the Tablelands of Tropical Northern Queensland. The town is the complete reverse of life as I am used to in London with it consisting of one road with a pub and a shop....thats it.

The job at the first farm I was initially working for packing avocados into boxes only lasted 2 weeks which wasn't going to be enough funds to get me up to Rainforest and to The Great Barrier Reef so I had to come up with a contingency plan which are really helpful to have on the road when you get unpredictable curve balls like this.

I moved into the Kairi pub manned by a jittery old Aussie bloke named Finn who sat in the laundry room drinking 'XXXX Lager' or 'Toohey's New' the popular Queensland drink in a small bottle 'Stubbie' (contrary to what the outside world thinks, Aussie's don't drink 'Fosters'). The word 'Bloody' over here is used in pretty much most sentences which makes no one utter in disgust as a curse word - even on the beer labels the serving instructions tell you to serve it 'Bloody Cold' ha!

The pub was extremely cheap rent, a tip off I got from another backpacker picking Avocados at my last farm and borrowed one of the locals scooters to cruise around the surrounding potato, peanut and 'Avo' farms that were in season asking for work to the drawling farmers telling me to go somewhere else. I survived nibbling on the corn from the fields and of course on free avocados and faced getting chased by dogs and spooking out rock wallabies in the grass.

Fate smiled on me and I eventually landed myself another job on a neighbouring Avocado farm where the farmer I was working for lent me a bicycle from his family shed so I could get to the farm and didn't leave me totally anchored at the pub. The farmlands were beautiful cycling through them at sunset after work. It was a godsend and with that and my scooter I occasionally borrowed, 'Boots' and I could take some adventures exploring across the farmlands and down to the enormous artificial Lake Tinaroo

A cute thing I have noticed out here in the Australian country is that farmers families harvest their crops and then sell them in a little shack on the roadside with an 'honesty' system where passerbys donate a few dollars in a money box in exchange for a bag of avocados or paw paws. How sweet! can't imagine it happening in London, but the mentality of folk are refreshingly honest and different out here. My boss' son Joel made it his own little business with his dads Avocados and I always found it charming passing his little stall on the roadside after I'd finished work offering a bag of Avos for $2. Bargain.

It has been a far more authentic experience for me living with the locals than living in a backpackers in Atherton or in the city beause I was seeing the 'real' australia - living and drinking (kind of hard not to when you live in a pub) with the small town local characters playing dart and pool against them and in theory treated as one of them (even though at times I did feel quite a tourist attraction being the only girl aside from mature Margy the barmaid in that pub for a long time, you have to tolerate quite a bit) I've come to know everyones dog here as all Aussie farmers have a faithful friend - this one is Schooner who's a regular and is happy to give you a high five...

And some that like to drop by too...

As I was such a 'nice pommie girl in gum boots' 'Boots' were put to good use as we were treated to motorbike rides into the Queensland hills, fishing outings, swimming in the lakes and the Millaa Waterfalls, and an aboriginal led Rainforest walk by a member of the Ngadjonji Aborigine community in Malanda. Most names of places have a very evident and distinct Aborigine influence here - Yungaburra, Malanda, Millaa....kinda cool.
You know I thought there were things out in the Amazon rainforest which were bad but in the Australian Rainforests up here in the tropics, there is a certain type of plant called a 'Stinging Tree' which is pretty much a no brainer for most people. Well they are this small stemmed plant with a heart shape and jagged edges, if touched the folicules from the leaves getting under your skins and cause a rash and burning pain - yikes!

spying a very rare 'Tree Kangaroo'...I was so lucky to see one because they are not out and about often.

Of course, I've had to keep myself entertained in the pub too and was asked to join the towns pool team and travelled around the Tablelands playing pool against other towns which was great excuse to go see other places and meet more Australian folk - besides I was the only 'Shiela' too! I even played against the native Aborigines which was quite a highlight for me - and perfected my house of coaster card building record too of course.....can even hold a stubbie of Cider

Queensland is a beautiful part of Australia, my favourite so far. Just when I found myself starting to dream about Avocados after a month or so, the market for them went down - they weren't selling enough so there was no need to harvest them anymore. I alternately stayed at the pub and started washing farmers cars and even their dogs (would you believe) while they came in to have a drink and cleaning locals houses and sheds for money - some were very generous but not so keen on washing cars anymore! I also helped collect firewood from farms and cut them for the fire and helped out in the pubs restaurant at night in exchange for my rent. So I've been working as the Aussies say 'Bloody hard!'

There is definitely some interesting people living in pubs why they are there, how they got there - many of them alcoholics! but usually if you advertise the fact you need a job, many people will try and give you some leads. Its the kindness of human nature.
Every year, the Australian Sporting World erupts with competitive aggression for something very poignant in their Sporting Calendar called the 'State of Origin' rugby game which is like the World Cup here in Oz. Its an iconic showdown on the rugby pitch in a series of matches between the states of Queensland and New South Wales which the whole town gets into. Being in Queensland I had to go with supporting the 'Cane Toads' and it was a great match to watch for the first time in the Kairi pub with the locals especially because Queensland won.

To finish off this blog I also had my own horse up here...very random I know and this is something I always wanted as a little girl as I love horses. He's not really mine in theory - a 6 year Clydesdale named Pablo, he's gorgeous but doesn't get ridden much by the guy who keeps him in his boatyard and offered me to come and treat him like my own. I've been learning to ride him bareback but he hasn't been ridden in a long time so he's very lazy but I love him. Horses are much more accessible here than they are in the snooty Equestrian world of England where your mother needs to be in the Pony Club....ok bit of an exaggeration but still I can have him all to myself.

But as life is going on, the snowball affect of sadness will be rolling as now its time to play so 'Boots' and I will be saying goodbye in a couple of days and will be leaving the sleepy town of Kairi and the quirky Aussie characters behind to embark on the next stage of my travels up through the Daintree Rainforest enroute to Cape Tribulation and out to the Marine paradise of the The Great Barrier Reef...

 Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!

See ya

With Lonely Planet Travel Guide - Australia