Cairns and The Great Barrier Reef

Geoff is a water baby and throughout our trip has regularly been looking for any opportunity to get wet and underwater. So, at the urging of a few close friends, we took the plunge and booked ourselves for three nights on a live-aboard boat charter to the outer reef. We departed Cairns early one morning and motored out for 2.5 hours to a select outer reef and then spend the next three nights living on board the boat moored in the vicinity while diving at every opportunity. It felt extravagant and certainly knocked our remaining Aussie budget for six, but it was something both of us really wanted to do. The reef is reportedly changing with global warming and the opportunity to see it in its present colourful abundance may not be around for much longer. In order to make the most of the trip Geoff had booked himself a refresher course with a dive centre recommended to us (he had last been underwater in 2006 while in Kenya!). It not only gave him lots more confidence but also gave us a quiet admin day in which to get our affairs in order and to get a feeling for the tropical city of Cairns.

The reef seen from above. It is difficult to express the scale of it other than viewing it from the air

Cairns is a small city surrounded by the most beautiful rainforested mountains. It is far enough north that even in early spring the heat and humidity felt oppressive. Like so many of the other Queensland towns/cities we visited it had a fantastic sea-front public space called The Esplanade. A notice board advertised a number of free public events in the Esplanade, including a 5.30pm Zumba (google it if the fad hasn't hit your shores yet!) session nearby - where Geoff joined about 200 other people in the park to shake it up, and a bouldering session running from 5pm which we also raced to find. These public activities are presumably sponsored by the city, but brought together a huge cross section of people, from young families, tourists, a woman's AFL team, and a few policemen idling their time. These were simple activities, requiring minimal additional infrasructure to what was already there. We thought Cape Town could benefit hugely from such public, community driven activites. Imagine mass zumba or yoga on Greenpoint common, or bouldering and volleyball in Keurboom park? 

The Cains Lagoon.

Awesome free public bouldering on the Esplanade

Cairns also felt the most gritty of any of the Australian cities we had visited. Funnily enough we felt more at home there than anyone else as a result. There was vagrancy, and beggars, and a seedy feel about it, and as a result It felt far more "real" than the polished and extremely clean impression we had got of almost everywhere else. Maybe contributing to the feeling of grittiness was the dense horde of flying foxes that were living in the enormous fig trees lining the streets. Entire trees were rendered black by these large rodents. The obvious drawback of a large population of bats habiting the tree above your rental car is the thick, gooey, and potentially acidic shower of guano that accumulates as the foxes have their waking ablution. We still had a lot to learn!

A tree hung with flying foxes.

The next morning we were off on our charter boat headed to the Norman Reef. The weather had turned nasty overnight and we woke to rain and wind. Thankfully the rain passed, but the sea was very choppy with the wind and both of us were feeling largely under the weather as the boat heeled through heavy seas. It was a relief to finally reach the reef, where we were buffered from the swells and to finally get into the water - which wasn't swaying as much! Geoff dived at every opportunity and Lucy, who was less confident in the water, snorkelled.  And every opportunity was 5 times a day!  We had a 6am, 8:45am, 11am, 4pm and 7pm diving slots and we made full use of them!  (We were probably the only ones on the boat to make all the dives!).  The boat would moor at a dive site on either Norman or Saxon reef and there would be fantastic diving and snorkelling.  After 2 or 3 dives at a location, the boat would move on to a new site.  The setup on the boat was fantastic - the crew friendly and attentive, the food great and there was loads of it!

Geoff excited for his first dive of the trip!

Lucy took to the snorkelling immediately, and very quickly established herself as a questioner to be reckoned  with. The guides were often flummoxed by her observations and questions and as a last resort could only refer her to the library on board in which she gradually worked through.

Another beautiful sunset on board.

And then there was the diving/snorkelling. WOW!  Neither of us had dived on a coral reef before and we were blown away.  The diversity was amazing.  While on the boat we tackled the onboard library and read up on the reef which really enriched our experiences in the water.  The coral is beautiful, so many colours and textures. The fish were incredible, from little electric fish about 20mm long up to the big barramundi cod and flowery cod each about 1m long. We had close encounters with lionfish and the beautiful hump-headed maori wrasse, about 1.5m long, 600mm high and almost human like in temperament. Lucy got particularly close to turtles and white tipped reef sharks. We really enjoyed the interactions on the reef and the behaviour of the different organisms. The turtles and brightly coloured parrot fish who bite off pieces of coral which you can hear being ground underwater and see the toothmarks left behind. The butterfly fish that pair for life and are always flitting around the coral together. The angelfish who always stay in the shadows of an overhang. The anemone fish and "nemos" that live in the fatal tentacles of their anemone. The schools of zebra fish hanging in the shallows. We could go on and on, in short it is a different world and was fantastic to experience first hand.

Geoff with his 'buddy' Althea

With looks like this Lucy might just pass as the next bond girl...

After an initial struggle with motion sickness we found our sea legs and really enjoyed the magic of being at sea.

Night dives were offered which gave Geoff the opportunity to swim with the big predators. Each diver is armed with a little LED light which exposes colour in the corals at depth that the suns rays can't reach. Large trevallys (similar to a large tuna) have learnt to hunt by the light of the divers torches, thus when you spotted a beautiful coral fish, effectively blinded by the torch, you had to be careful to move your torch before the poor soul is devoured. Reef sharks up to 3m in length also congregated beneath the dive boat at night which made surfacing a rather exciting experience!

This was definately one of the highlights of our trip!

A typical map of the dive sites we were exploring. Geoff was particularly keen to explore swim throughs, tunnels and caves.

The Mangroves and mud-flats on the return to Cairns

We highly recommend a trip to the reef and if you have the opportunity, staying on a live-aboard really maximises your reef time.  Many people only spent a day or maybe one night on the reef, but we found that we only slipped into the routine halfway through the 2nd day.  We were also impressed with how much you could see as a snorkeler and its debatable whether scuba diving or the snorkelling was better considering how shallow the reefs were.  Or maybe we're just saying that both were fantastic!

The Atherton Tablelands

Another Big Object.  This time the Big Mango in Bowen which is were mangoes were first grown in Australia.

Bowen Lighthouse - this one's for you Bendy!

The Atherton Tablelands lie on the plateau just south west of Cairns and form the southern end of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.  The Palmerston Highway takes you up and away from the coast and through beautiful wet tropical forest with big trees covered in epiphytes (plants that live on other plants using them as a platform to gain height).  These include the big basket ferns, stag horn ferns, orchids, etc.  The excitement in the car rose with every minute!  We love big forests.  We stopped to stretch our legs for a walk down to Ellinjaa Falls and a little further down the road to the Millaa Millaa Falls.  The latter is one of the most photographed waterfalls in Australia and features in the Qantas advert.  It was a lovely tranquil place with big tree ferns and a quiet stream. 

Ellinjaa Falls

The famous Millaa Millaa Falls. It was already dusk so we couldn't stop of a swim in this exceptionally photogenic spot.

We were back in Tree Fern country :)

The light was fading so we headed on to a small town called Yungabarra and booked into a great backpackers called On the Wallaby.  It was refreshing to stay at this friendly establishment where there are no keys for the rooms and the door to the street stays open all night!

Early the next morning (at 5:30 to be precise), we were packed up and headed out in the misty rain to the creek that ran through town to look for platypus which we'd heard live there.  As it became lighter, we heard a splash in the pool we were sitting at and saw a tiny creature paddling quickly along.  What a strange critter it was!  Almost like the cross between a turtle and a beaver but only about 30cm long.  It was fun to watch him doing his rounds of his pool - flat bill twitching, front webbed feet paddling, back feet tucked in and its wide tail trailing behind!  In a couple more of the pools in the river we saw others looking for their breakfast too.

The rain had stopped and we headed off to find a 500 year-old strangler fig tree in the forest just outside town.  This fig started life either climbing up a big tree, or as a seed being deposited in a big tree. It would have dropped roots, and once established would have used the host tree as its support to climb rapidly to reach the canopy.  Eventually the support tree died and toppled over until it was resting at an angle on another tree.  The fig then sent down more roots from its now diagonal trunk forming a curtain.  The second support tree has now died too, leaving this impressive old fig tree with its curtain of roots making a living wall in the forest.

The magnificent 500-year old Strangler Fig forming a dense curtain only hinting at the previous hosts.

Our last stop before Cairns was Lake Eacham - a deep volcano crater that has filled with water and is surrounded by beautiful lush forest, the water is a deep sapphire blue.  The pretty, winding Gillies Highway took us down off the tablelands and to Cairns an hours drive away for Geoff's dive refresher course at 8:30am! PHEW!

We would have loved to have had more time up in the Atherton Tablelands and it was the highlight of the Queensland coast for us this far.  We would recommend it highly to anyone visiting northern Queensland and is best compared to the Natal midlands with rainforest.

Whitsunday Islands

Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands with their famous white beaches, sailing and snorkelling.  Some of the islands in the group are privately owned and have resorts on them, of which Hamilton Island is the most well known with its 3000 bed hotel and airstrip - some of the major airlines fly in once or twice a week!  Most of the islands however belong to the Whitsundays National Park and have only a few hiking trails and basic campsites on them.  The main islands lie about 40km offshore and there is a limited ferry service out there (once a day at midday), so camping on the islands with our tight schedule was unfortunately not possible.  So we settled for a day trip instead on a big semi-inflatable.  We had a moral debate about this as big fast power boats with screaming passengers in a beautiful and tranquil place aren't really our cup of tea, but we didn't have any other options.  In the end, it wasn't too bad and we were able to see a fair bit on the 120km round trip.  Our skipper and guide were very knowledgable and kept up an interesting commentary of the islands and the resorts that we passed.  We stopped at a little island in the channel and snorkelled over the coral there.  It was our first coral snorkelling experience and it was fantastic!  The visibility was great in the lee of the island despite the breeze being quite strong.

Out to the islands on a semi-inflatable for the day

Looking good in snorkelling kit.....

The next stop was the Hill Inlet where we were dropped off on a brilliant white sand spit bordered by an picture postcard turquoise sea.  We headed up a bush track to a lookout where we could see the ribbon of the channel going up Hill Inlet with the white sandbanks all around.  It looked like tourist brochure! The forest through which we walked was lovely and the grass trees had flower stalks over 4m tall.  From the look-out we could also see the long white curve of Whitehaven Beach which is the most famous beach in the area and was where were headed next for a lunch stop.  

Our boat just drove up to the sand and flipped a ladder over the front for easy access on and off the boat (the colours of the water and sand were amazing!)

The beautiful Hill Inlet

We had opted for the "bring your own lunch" option and so headed up to explore the campsites and to have lunch in the shade looking out on the fantastic beach.  We laughed at one of the guides from another boat going down the beach calling "All you sun bathers, time to RO-TATE."  After lunch we went to explore the rocky headland at the edge of the beach and glimpsed perfect beaches tucked into every little cove.  We also found some really impressive old Hoop Pines.  During the last Ice Age, these islands were part of the main land and so they share the same vegetation, however the islands have largely been excluded from fire for so long that the Eucalypt component is much lower and the tropical forest trees much more dominant.  Eucalypts thrive in fire prone areas, woodland trees don't.

Lucy with one of the lovely old Hoop Pines.

The islands are beautiful!

On the way back to Airlie Beach we saw humpbacked whales and White Breasted Sea Eagles - the 2nd largest eagle in Australia.

Airlie Beach is not the cute little seaside town that many of the other coastal towns are - its more like a backpacking strip mall and luckily the Lonely Planet had warned us of this.  It does however have a fantastic lagoon (artificial pool with palm trees and grassed landscaping) overlooking the bay with its muddy mangroves.   We enjoyed cooling down and relaxing there and often we were some of the only people doing so!  There is also a lovely 2,5km long boardwalk from the lagoon along the seafront to just in front of the caravan park that we were staying it.  What a lovely alternative to walking along the road!

The Airlie Beach lagoon

Airlie Beach is a popular springboard for sailing and motorboat charters to explore the islands.

Sunset on a deserted beach - everyone else was in the pubs....

The tide goes out, exposing sticky mudflats - hence the artificial lagoon.

Whenever we saw these shops or their ferries, we had a certain Queen song stuck in our head for the next couple of hours:  "Is this the real life? Is this just...."

We had a really beautiful sunrise the morning that we left.

We thought this nursery had pretty good advertising!  (the nursery's name was Plants Plus)

We now had just over 500km to go to Cairns and a little more than 24hrs to get there.  Many people at the campsites had spoken very highly of the Atherton Tablelands and it sounded just up our street so we made a beeline for this detour.

Cruising up the Queensland coast

Noosa lies just north of Brisbane, on the sunshine coast and is a quaint little town at the mouth of the Noosa River.  We stayed at a lovely campsite on the rivers edge and got up early for breakfast on the beach.  It was our first time on a natural beach on the east coast and the warm water was lovely.  We spent the morning exploring the Noosa Heads National Park with its lovely walks along the coast and through some great indigenous forests. We particularly enjoyed the temperate rain forest from which enormous trees rise effectively out of sand dunes! We also had our first encounter with a whip bird - which has probably the most intriguing call we've ever heard. We can simulate the call pretty well now - but it is hard to explain in the blog. Time alas wasn't on our side and after a morning exploring this remarkable place we had to start making tracks up the coast.

Our little tent right next to the lagoon.

Geoff lining up a catch for palm cone of potentially lethal proportions. We estimated the spiky cone to weigh close on 10kg!

Looking north from the Noosa Heads. Notice the prop roots on this curious palm.

A Blue Tongued Lizard (70cm long) which we and the poor runner trying to pass us mistook for  something a little more scary.

Alexandra beach is a fair walk from the park entrance but easily one of the most beautiful we had found. It had a freshwater stream halfway along the beach, perfect to wash off after a sea swim.

These patterns are dug into the eucalyptus trunk from under the bark by larvae, and are then exposed as the bark delaminates. Some trees were covered in the marks, like tribal tattoos.

Bush turkey - a favourite photographed subject of many asian tourists, but a blot on the beautiful aussie fauna in our opinion.

Rains in Queensland in 2010-2011 broke an extended period of drought and were most dramatically reported with the flooding of the city centre of Brisbane in mid- January 2011. The flooding was however extensive along the entire Queensland coast. It was difficult to imagine torrents of water flooding much of the areas we were driving through, until we started passing flood markers - delineated poles often extending well above our hire car indicating the depth of water above the road so cars knew not to attempt to drive through. The most visible consequence of the flooding however were the almost consistent road works being undertaken to repair damage to the coastal highways and roads, stormwater systems, culverts etc. As a result our average speed heading north was about 60km/h and we made very slow progress. This was not good news considering the 1700km we had only a week to cover...

We had been hoping to stay in the highly regarded surfing hamlet of '1770' but were well short at nightfall and settled in at a quaint seaside town of Bargara - directly east of Bundaberg. We found a great campsite with a lovely surf beach and made the most of the last of the surf beaches we'd find - the barrier reef has a rather dampening effect on the Pacific swells!

Geoff was thrilled to find a selection of novel kids playground toys and set to work mastering them for his evening exercise!

This contraption was refreshingly dangerous by Aussie standards and effectively mimics a half-pipe while offering cables to 'steady' the user. 

An off centred pivot swing allows you to manipulate rotational inertia by pulling your weight into the centre to accellerate it. And boy did this thing spin. Geoff was thrilled to find such a wildly fun toy!

Sunrise over the Pacific

We had an appointment on a construction site up in Gladstone which is an industrial port town centred around the coal and gas industries in Queensland. We'll write more about it in a later blog, but needless to say we struggled to get up to it in time. We continued on immediately after our meeting there towards Airlie Beach - the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, but again fell well short and pulled into Clairview at nightfall to discover another "free camping" site. It is hard to get over the idea that you could camp for free in a well serviced site and not have to worry about cleanliness or safety. Lots of other people had pulled up and were very friendly and well mannered. This is certainly an aspect of Australian travelling life that we found endearing. We were now well and truly protected by the reef and mudflats extended out for miles east of us with brown cloudy water and mangroves. Still beautiful in its own special way.

Dinner at sunset in the campsite with the beach in the background.

Mudflats and mangroves in the morning light.

Brisbane calling

After the cool winter weather of Victoria, we were excited to be in the warmer Queensland.  We had caught an early morning flight from Melbourne to Brisbane and picked up a rental car for the drive up the coast to Cairns.    Brisbane struck us immediately with its warm and lightly humid climate, and the generally relaxed demeanour of the drivers and people we met. It felt like a pleasant city and we were very much looking forward to exploring it. However we first needed to navigate the roads which proved a lot more challenging than we had expected. It seems that each state has developed its own set of road signs and Queenslands were as eccentric as we'd found so far. Our favourite was a huge red sign that said "Wrong Way. Go Back" typically on the on ramp to a road when taken from the wrong side. It was not that the sign warned us of the wrong direction, but the lunacy of trying to do a three point turn on a narrow on-ramp. 

We were based with Mandy and Duncan Goodyear for a few days and one of the first things we did was head up Mt Coot-tha with Mandy for a fantastic view over the city and a nice way to orientate ourselves.

Lucy and Mandy looking down on Brisbane.

It was wonderful for Geoff to meet the Goodyears and for Lucy to see them again, we were treated to a very wholesome barbeque meal and lots of quasi-KZN/Queensland humour.

We were lucky to meet up with many friends while we were in Brisbane.  Matt and Alicia Reid lived in Cape Town for 15 months with their children Isabel and Franklin in 2010.  Matt had lived in Brisbane most of his life and could tell us a lot about the place, while both could explain to us a number of our questions about Australia, and Queensland.  Geoff did his masters at UCT together with Mauritian Johann Poinappen and we caught up with him and his wife Natasha.  They both work in the water industry and it was interesting to get a feel for their niche aspects of the water sector.  For Lucy, a highlight was visiting Barry and Dell Nichol who are family friends of the Nortons and have moved to Brisbane to live close to their son.  It was great for Geoff to get to know them better and we had a lovely afternoon relaxing in their home.  We really appreciated Mandy and Duncan's hospitality and the ability to make ourselves at home in their house.

Geoff, Johan and Natasha

Lucy with Barry and Dell

We spent some time exploring downtown Brisbane.  Brisbane was badly affected by the devastating floods in 2011when the river came down 4,5m higher than normal and 20 000 homes were inundated in the city alone!  By the time we arrived, about 18 months later, there was hardly any evidence of the disaster.  We headed into the city centre with grand ambitions of seeing as much of the city as possible. We discovered the Queensland museum and absorbed a few fascinating hours in the lobby area where a display on Queensland trivia kept us entertained. 

Do you know why most houses in Queensland are built of wood and on stilts? Could you identify a coastal taipan (Australias most lethal snake) or a cane frog (yuck!)? Or have you ever heard of the Surfers Paradise meter maids - who paraded the streets in gold bikinis? Yes, the exhibit got our attention too! Fearing we wouldn't progress far on our tour of Brisbane we headed across to the Queensland art gallery which we had learnt exhibited the works of Sidney Nolan, an Australian artist Lucy had read about. Alas the Prado had taken over the museum and the australiana was temporarily in storage.

In 1928 Bert Hinkler (from Bundaberg, Queensland) flew this tiny plane from London (UK) to Darwin in Northern Australia.  The 18 000km journey took him 15 days and 128 hours of flying.  Her name was the Avian Cirrus.

We continued on to the much talked about South Bank area. The Brisbane River meanders through Brisbane in extravagant bends and the local architecture makes full use of it by creating huge public spaces bordering the water. 

One of the many bridges over the river to downtown Brisbane.

The Nepalese Peace Pagoda on the South Bank.

The Arbor - a lovely avenue along the length of the South Bank.

The fresh water lagoon was lovely to cool down in - all set about with palm trees.

The kids playgrounds not only had slides and swings, but awesome climbing trees too!

We were amazed to see mangroves growing on the banks of the river in the middle of the city!

We headed across to the City Botanic Gardens which are, as all of them in Australia are, free to the public.  There is an informative boardwalk through the mangroves on the bank of the river, some impressive trees over 150 years old and many 'rooty' figs with masses of trunk like roots.

The branch of this fig tree had been cut off from the main tree and was growing just on the roots that it had put down from the branch.

We found the grey mangroves fascinating and were amazed to find the big salt crystals that the tree exudes from the underside of the leaves.

The shape of the flowers of some of the flowering gums are so unusual and simple.

It would appear Lucy had this tree in mind when deciding her outfit for the day!

Geoff found a friend in the gardens...

... these 'dragons' are really crazy looking and we could get quite close to them.

Three kookaburras sitting on a mirrored sculpture in the gardens.

One of the HUGE Indian fig trees.

Geoff spent a day at the Aurecon office downtown and visited one of the three water reclaimation plants in the city. Unfortunately two of the plants are being mothballed as their water is not deemed acceptable by the present provincial political powers at be - politics is fickle all over the world. The remaining one, which he visited supplies purified sewage water to the two coal power stations north of Brisbane, which is more acceptable, but can be diverted to the drinking water system if the need ever arises in future droughts.  Lucy enjoyed exploring more of the gardens and using the free WiFi available an a section of the garden while sitting on the lawn under beautiful trees. 

We headed up to the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens which were created in the 1970's to display all the plant collections in a place safe from flooding.  We really enjoyed getting our first taste of Humid Tropic forests and to see some of the indigenous Australian flora flowering.

This Wattled Plover hid her baby in her chest feathers when we came near.  You can just see the chick's yellow beak sticking out from under the mom's wing and one of its feet.

Now we know why they're called Stag Horn Ferns!

So exotic yet so familiar......

The Banya Pine - their cones weigh approximately 10kg when ripe and the local  Aboriginal people would come from far and wide for large gatherings (and feasts) every 3 or 4 years when these pines had their crop.

In the arboretum we found this Kapok Tree (Ceiba pentandra) with amazing bark.  We figured it could inflict some serious pain!

And then we hit the road north.  Cairns was 1780km away and we had 6 days.....