Cairns, Cape Trib (April 17-23)

The next locale on my agenda for the East coast Aussie tour was Cairns. Cairns is a very very very touristy spot. As Christine pointed out, there's a travel or tourist information booth every third store. But it's a very convenient starting point if you're heading out to the Great Barrier Reef. We were scheduled to leave for scuba diving and snorkeling out of Cape Tribulation, so our first night in Cairns was just spent wandering around the town. It reminded me of an over-planned community. Disneyland-ish.

But sometimes nature can provide a little authenticity.

These two cars were parked under this tree filled with flying foxes. I touched the hood of the one on the right, and it was cold, can't be sure how long it was there for. But one car was absolutely covered in bat poop. It's unfortunate (for my photographic reasons) that both cars were white, but the other one is untouched. I'd assume it's because the car on the right hadn't been there as long, but several hours later they were both still there and in the same condition.




Because there are fresh and salt-water crocs, swimming in the bay is not advisable. As a result, a giant man-made lagoon was constructed on the waters edge to provide a safe swimming area for everyone. It was really quite impressive.




The next day we headed to Cape Tribulation. Along the way the tour guide explained some of the problems with the wildlife they were having. Like the feral pigs, cats, dogs (dingos), and the cane toad. The cane toad was a particularly troubling little bugger, as he was a recently introduced species. There was a problem with beetles eating the sugar cane crops, and the idea was to introduce a natural solution to the problem. So they imported 48 cane toads (from South America I think).

Well, two things resulted. The cane toads enjoyed the beetles that were causing problems in the controlled lab experiment. However in the wild, they didn't actually even meet the beetles as they never climbed the sugar canes to get the beetles at the top. Secondly they had very little competition on the ground and proceeded to eat everything else that was available to them. And multiply. It reminded me of the Simpsons' episode which had a similar premise. Allegedly they will eat and eat, and given enough food, they will eat until they explode. The tour guide was spewing all sorts of cane toad vitriol, I wasn't sure if that last one was true, or if it weren't true of any species really. I'm fairly sure if you left a bag of dog food open, you'd have bits of dog all over your walls when you got home. And speaking of dogs, the cane toad is poisonous & and a hallucinogen, so pets and overzealous addicts were dying as well.

In any case, one of the proposed "solutions" were cane toad blood sports. Cane toad cricket, golf, & baseball events were some of the ideas pitched. I didn't really get into the debate, but my "captain obvious" moment was that this wouldn't do anything to limit the population of cane toads, but would in fact encourage violence against all animals. In any case, it seemed that all citizens were actively supported in any potential cane toad massacres they were planning. The humane way to kill 'em is less fun I guess, but you're supposed to catch them and toss them into the freezer. As their body temperature drops they're fooled into hibernating. So they freeze to death in their sleep. And you've got dead toads in your freezer. The government recommendation is to wait till garbage day to throw out your toadsicles as they'll thaw and rot in your can otherwise.

I don't know how that cane toad digression took a life of its own, but I'm done now. On the way to Cape Trib we traveled by boat along the Daintree River. We saw a few crocs, and the rainforest surrounding us that I would have imagined more at home in South America than Australia was unending.

By the time we got into our hostel, it was too late to go out, so we used it as catch up time for journals and reading. In the evening as we were making dinner, we discovered a couple of other Canucks, identified by their (our) pronunciation of margarine. Turns out Dan & Alison had only met a few days prior, and started traveling together. And Dan had actually worked at a camp very close to where Christine and Bryce worked. And Alison had gone to one of the camps when she was a kid. Brown people don't camp. It was another small-world-y experience.




We were scheduled to go diving the next day, but the one of two tour operators on the water had some ship problems. So we rebooked with the other company that was scheduled to resume service on Thursday. Now with a new free day, we decided to hike to a nearby swimming hole. There was a croc warning sign on one side of the river, and a swimming hole as demarcated on a map about 100 m away. Regardless, it was unlikely that all of us would be eaten, so I just swam in the middle...




I really like moonshots, and once I invest in a decent fully-sized tripod and a another lens I'll try taking them more often.




The next day Christine, Bryce & I went "Jungle Surfing." It's an overpriced, but fun, zip-line tour through the canopy. I stole a line from Paul in the comments I left for future Jungle Surfers: "Hip-bruisingly good times!"




And in that vein; for nausea-inducingly, arm-paralysingly good times, go on a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef during jellyfish season. To start off, for the first time in my life I had nausea that was induced by motion sickness. The rolling of the boat was not settling well with the muffins and pancakes. When we finally came to a halt, and started getting our gear on, I decided I should force it rather than have the horrifying possibility of spewing underwater into my rebreather.

Needless to say, throwing my business overboard wasn't nearly as productive as when others were doing it while we were moving. It just floated there, waiting for someone to jump on it. Graphic? Not graphic enough? Send a message to our complaints department.

Anyhoo, the diving experience was awesome. We were doing it out of Cairns, as our rebooked dive in Cape Tribulation was also cancelled; its supposed to be a little better from out there. I have some underwater shots that (crap, this future posting problem...) have/haven't been developed, but we bought some overpriced shots from the resident dive photographer on board. It was only when I started snorkeling that I encountered the blue-bottle jellyfish (fortunately not the lethal box jellyfish). I got stung a couple of times, and motioned my discomfort to Christine. I thought she had been stung too, and was signaling to just keep going. Not one to turn and run (unless everyone else is doing it), I pushed on. Then I got stung a couple more times, and then Christine got stung, and we made a beeline for the boat. Even our hasty retreat was met with more stinging.

It's a little less painful than a bee sting but more painful than licking a 9V battery. Once I got on shore the stinging was a little more intense, but then I noticed that my armpits were hurting like crazy. And then my arms started going a little numb. It's like when your arm falls asleep, except without the delightful accompanying pins & needles effect. This was a little worrisome, until my dive instructor, said "Haha, your glands are swelling too! You got the full treatment! Don't worry it'll go away in 30 mins."

30 minutes later it was gone and I was back in the water for a second dive and snorkel, and a second round of stinging.




Back in Cairns, we spent some time wandering again, but it was raining off and on, making the visibility quite poor and scuttling our plans of going up into the hills around Cairns.

This is what Australians call a "ute". Or what we would call, "ugly." Actually I kinda like these half-car/half-pickups. They seem far more practical than stuff like the Explorer SportTrac or Chevy Avalanche. You don't need the gas-guzzling, fender-crushing power of a SUV most of the time, but you do often need a lot of storage capacity. Just another one of those little quirks in Oz.




/update: i've tossed on a few of the underwater that I got developed, and a couple of the ones we bought

Thumbs up is not the right sign to give underwater...it means going up. The correct sign was shown previously.




This is me failing photography 101

about Australia, from Germany