Let me just say right now that we are way out in the middle of a big, dark nowhere, and it has been a long and difficult road to get here.
I mean that about the long and difficult road both literally and figuratively, but let's take "literally" first.
Welcome to the Australian outback. Our first taste of it came unexpectedly this evening as we drove to our planned destination: Undara Volcanic National Park. About 100km back we were driving on the road called "the Kennedy highway"1 when we came upon the sign:
Seems the "highway" is an occasionally-maintained road with only one lane actually paved.2 Cattle share it-- we nearly hit a herd, twice-- and evidently it is also regularly used by "road trains," which are basically semi trailers with not one, not two, but three cargo trailers behind the truck. They barrel down the road with no fear, no heed for the minuscule campervans driven by terrified foreigners who are convinced that they are lost in the Outback.
Then, just when D was complaining that we hadn't seen any kangaroos or wallabies on this trip, one sprung across the dark road before us. Ten minutes later, another one. They really do exist out in the open, it seems!
Eventually, after this long and stressful drive, the nothingness of rural Australia ("the bush") opened into, well, nothingness with little camper lights behind the trees. Evidently, we've reached the park, although it's hard to tell at the moment because it's really dark. Will let you know next week if it isn't.
As for the figurative sense of "long and difficult road to get here"-- well, as of last writing we had suffered the first major disappointment/frustration/setback for our tropical vacation.3 The subsequent change in plans left us with an extra day (Wednesday) in Cairns, sans campervan. So, we booked tickets on a day trip that would take us up a nearby mountain on a scenic railway through the rainforest to the little town of Kuranda. After an hour or two in Kuranda, we'd board an overhead cable car (like they often have in amusement parks, to go up and over the park from one end to the other) and glide in a little six-person gondola over the top of the rainforest halfway back to Cairns. At the end of the skyrail, we would spend three hours at Tjabukai Cultural Park, a little "park" designed and run by the descendants of the aboriginal tribes that used to live on this land. Then, we'd catch a bus back to Cairns in time for a two-hour "Reef Teach" by a kooky Irish marine biologist. And that's a pretty full day.
On the train Wednesday morning, D's sister called from the US with the news that their mom had been taken to the ER for emergency surgery on her abdomen three hours before. The noise of the train and the poor signal of D & Chad's mobile phone in the area made it an even more nerve-wracking conversation than normal. Fortunately, by the time the train reached Kuranda, we had gotten word that the surgery was to remove a perforated appendix,4 and that it had gone well and D's mom was in recovery.
Our hour in Kuranda was spent on a payphone calling D's father on his way home from the hospital, and by the time we got on the SkyRail gondola, things had more or less settled down.
SkyRail was seriously cool, and at Tjabukai park we each got to try throwing a spear and a boomerang. Reef Teach was almost but not quite as wacky as we'd expected, and we learned a super lot about the plants and animals we were about to see.
Thursday morning, up before dawn, onto the boat and out to the legendary Great Barrier Reef itself. In three days we were in the water eight times5 at four different dive sites. We saw clownfish in their anemones (like Nemo!) and Moorish Idols (like Gill!). Giant sea clams with sparkly blue edges really do exist, and so do green turtles and white-tipped reef sharks. we saw them all!
Simply put, the reef is indescribable. It is one of the few things we've ever done that is unlike anything else. And, we made friends, too-- Nick and Island from San Franscisco!
Saturday afternoon we came off the boat, stayed the night in Cairns, and then got up Sunday morning to pick up the campervan we had booked. Sunday evening we drove it6 on the winding tight curves of the Capt. Cook highway north to Port Douglas. After a lovely dinner at EJ's fish and chips restaurant, and a two-hour, ice-cream driven planning session for the rest of our trip, we crept into our campground ready to crash for the night... only to discover that the plank of wood that was supposed to support the second bed just wasn't there. With no actual camping equipment, except a thin sleeping bag for each of us, we were pretty much without a place to sleep.
So, we banged on the campground manager's door until he woke up and put us in a cabin for $50 more. And Monday, we drove back to Cairns instead of driving north as we had planned. By 1:30pm on Monday we had made it back up to the town of Mossman, where we were supposed to take a 10am walk with an aboriginal tribal elder through lands that the Kuku Yalanji people7 still own. We bumped that back to Tuesday morning (today), took a crocodile-spotting small boat cruise on the Daintree River instead,8 and then drove as far north as we were allowed to go in a rental vehicle, to Cape Tribulation.
We had booked a campsite just south of the Cape at Noah's Beach: site #8. Of course, in keeping with our bad luck, the campground was full and the site markers jumped from #7 and #9. Site #8 was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, we pulled in next to the SUV in front of #7, closed the curtains, and went to sleep for the night.9 This morning we drove south again, stopping in Mossman for our walk with the aboriginal guide, then taking the inland road through the Atherton tablelands, which look very very different from the coastal regions just 50kms east.
So far, the van has started, eventually, when we turn the key.
We've had to buy ice for the fridge because it
isn't actually keeping anything cool, but if
that's the worst of
what's left for us on this trip...
we'll take it.
;)
- D
-----
NOTES
1By
"highway"
they evidently mean
"road used by more than one vehicle in a day."
But seriously, we quickly learned that the standards for roads and road names are not
quite what we are used to in the States. In Queensland, the governmental agency
responsible for maintaining the roads calls itself
"the Department of Main Roads."
Not
"highways," not
"interstates," not even
"transportation."
Main Roads.
2Can you guess which lane is paved? Wrong. Half of each
lane, or one lane-width in the middle. Makes for fun driving over the crests when you
can't see
what's coming at you.
3
Here's a refresher: we learned that for medical reasons we
couldn't take the SCUBA class that we had booked. :( Sigh.
4Perforated.... so that
it's easier to cut out, yes?
5There was a ninth dive that we could have gone out for,
but it was at 6:15am and we decided to sleep in instead.
6Driving it was a new step for us in driving on the wrong
side. The van was a stick shift, and although we both drive sticks at home,
we've never had to shift with our left hand. Fortunately, the pedals
aren't reversed too.
7The Kuku Yalanji people are related to the aboriginal
groups that run the Tjabukai Cultural Park.
8Yikes! We spotted three of them!
9Oh, did I forget to mention the wonderfully romantic walk
along the starlit and empty tropical beach? We did that, too.
Back to the GAA page!