Nemo = Found

We had an amazing day on the outer reef today. After a slightly stomach-turning ride out, we arrived at the Agincourt Ribbon Reefs – some of the northernmost reefs accessible by day boat. Sarah did a few dives and then joined Jonathan as he snorkeled around. We purchased a waterproof case for our digital camera so were able to capture photos and video from underwater.
We saw an incredible diversity of wildlife – sharks, clownfish, turtles, rays, barracudas, and about every type and size of fish imaginable. We even saw some fish that we have cooked for dinner (slight pang of guilt, but we got over that quickly). We saw a lion fish, played with sea cucumbers and stuck our hands in a giant clam. The coral was unbelievable and it’s hard to imagine that we only saw a drop of it. The reef extends for over 2500 kms. A picture can’t do it justice. It really needs to be seen!
On the ride back to shore we chatted with a traveler who was a year ahead of Sarah in undergrad – and was even in Kirkland house (what a small world!).
It was a perfect completion to our trip. Exhausted from our day in the water, we returned to our favorite camp spot. Tomorrow morning we’ll do a quick inventory on the camper, Jonathan will spend some emotional alone time with it before we say goodbye and we’ll head to Cairns for a night in a hotel before our way-too-early flight on Saturday.
See you all back in the states soon!

Unwelcome U.S. import: Cane Toads

After a rainy afternoon in the camper, we had a night on the town in Port Douglas – which started at the local Cane Toad races. Hosted by a Steve Irwin-esque bloke, the races consisted of 6 toads that were placed on a table. The jockeys, randomly selected from the audience, had to coax their toads off the table by blowing party blowers at them, making the toad jump into their hands and placing the toad in the victory bucket. Overall, very amusing. Sadly, our tickets did not get called to be jockeys and I resisted the competitive urge to pay $40 for one in the last “auction” race. We did, however, get to play with them afterwards. We learned that they were an ill-advised import from the U.S. The sugar cane famer who introduced them (to get rid of the destructive cane beetle) brought 100 to Queensland. They did not in fact get rid of the beetle and with no natural predators in Australia, have multiplied population figures that exceed that of the human race. Yikes.


The Roster

Jockeys trying their best to get the stubborn toads to move

Sarah has had to kiss a lot of toads in her day...now it was Jonathan's turn. He chose the most petite one.

Port Douglas

As we wind down our trip we are taking it a bit easy. We grabbed sushi and ate on the beach one day, and followed that up with a long drive deep into the rainforest (4WD track of course). When Sarah finally yelled UNCLE!! (actually, she just looked really barfy) we turned back and headed to our standby camping spot. The only friend we met this night was related to Kermit (see below). Jonathan harassed him during a photo shoot and he still just sat there. In fact, he was still there the next morning.
We spent another morning shopping in Port Douglas, explored some coastline and giant fig trees near town and grabbed a bite to eat on the main drag before some rain came in. If the rain stops, we plan to participate in some Cane Toad races at a local pub this evening…we’ll let you know how we fare.

Sarah & the giant curtain fig, which Jonathan clearly had to climb

Digeridoos in a local aboriginal art shop

Kermit was about 6" long (a GIANT green tree frog, literally)

The Friendly Campsite

For the first time since we’ve been camping we decided to stay in the same place for a second night. We were wiped out after our day on the water so returned to the campground where we had met our motorcycle friends. This night we met additional interesting people – a young German couple who was completing a similar trip to ours (Sydney north) and a British guy who was mountain biking Cape York. We had heard about the Brit earlier on our trip – a couple we chatted with mentioned meeting him and that he had biked the Rockies last year. We had quite a long chat with him and it was interesting to hear his impressions of England, America and Australia, and how they compared to ours. Later that evening, we chatted with the German couple (Anke & Eicher) and compared on our trip. They were quite friendly and by the end of the night we were Facebook friends and had a place to stay in Germany should we ever visit.

Australian Cuisine

Though we’ve written about all the things that could eat US (sharks, crocs, mosquitoes that actually are eating us) there has been a lot of interest in what WE are eating (whether cooked in our camper or eaten at a restaurant). We thought we’d give a rundown of the cuisine here:
Fish & Chips galore. The Aussies LOVE their fish and chips (fries). They are everywhere. Usually it’s beer battered barramundi, a local freshwater fish, but it is nearly always fried. Blooming onion not included.
Wedges with sour cream & sweet chili. These are delicious. They are thick, wedge cut fries served with sour cream and this thai sweet chili sauce that adds a little zing.
Lots o’ lamb. We knew lamb was big over here. We’ve had it a few nights – in stir fry, grilled lamb chops, etc. They are also big on kabobs and we’ve had the lamb version of those too. Not all that different than spiedies! Lamb and beef sausages are also quite delicious.
Lamingtons. These Australian desserts are like little slices of pound cake covered in chocolate then rolled in shredded coconut. They are ok.
Tim Tams. Little bites of heaven. These cookies are chocolate biscuits covered in chocolate and come in many varieties. We wish they were available in the states.
Vegemite: We actually haven’t had a lot of this, but this concentrated yeast extract is everywhere.
Seafood: Surprisingly, there is not the plethora of seafood we’d imagined would be in this region. We’ve had “bugs” – weird lobster-like shell fish and lots of prawns (no shrimp here and no one would ever say "throw another shrimp on the barbie"!) and Jonathan made some great fish (called Sweet Lips (just like me)) the other night.
Crocodile and Kangaroo. We’ve seen jerky of both of these meats but have opted not to try. We like the live ones better.
Beverages: We’ve mentioned before that the boxed wine is big here. Beer is oddly expensive - $15-$20 for a 6 pack. Toohey’s New (beer type) is our fave.

Cooking for ourselves – mainly we’ve had cereal for breakfast (Jonathan vetoed eggs after one try since it’s a pain to do the dishes). Lunch is often a sandwich and fruit (kind of like elementary school). For dinner we grill some seafood or steaks or make some type of Asian stir-fry.


Surf & Turf - a steak and a "bug"

Jonathan still gets his sugary cereal overseas

mmm....tim tams

lamington

box of wine

Shark Bait – Ooh-Ah-Ah!

Monday we took our first trip to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Though we had snorkeled a bit on fringing reef further south, this trip was more elaborate. We boarded a large catamaran that sailed out to the Low Isles reef – part of the GBR. This reef actually has two permanent islands associated with it so after the catamaran moored, we took smaller boats in to the shore, from which we snorkeled around the beach/reef. Right away we saw green turtles, giant clams, all colors of soft coral and lots of cool fish – butterfly fish, parrot fish (Dory), angel fish, etc. Though we didn’t see Nemo we DID see a bunch of reef sharks. They were all about 6-7 feet long and really neat! I was a bit nervous when we saw the first one, but after the next few it became less rattling. Jonathan tried to catch a big 2’ fish that was quite interested in us, but the fish was a little too slippery for him.
Even though it is not stinger season, I chose to wear a HOT lycra suit(which provides protection from marine stingers or box jellies) – it was also 100% UV protective and you can never be too safe. Below is a pretty picture of me getting into it. I wanted to take it home so I could be a smurf for Halloween…no luck though.
No photos of the actual underwater stuff yet (we had a non-digital camera).
We are going to the outer GBR on Thursday and are looking forward to what we’ll see out there! Grab shell dude!

Self portrait on the catamaran

Think this will pass for professional attire when I start working?

Another boat sailing to the Low Isles

Life is rough for Jonathan

Adventures of a different kind

Leaving Archer point we took the Bloomfield Track back and spotted another large croc sunning itself on the bank of the river. We also stopped and took a long hike out to the reef to do a little exploration. The tide was out which meant that it was about a 10 min walk to the ocean. On the way we saw some tiny sand crabs with brilliant blue shells. We stopped for a bit in Cape Tribulation for some wattleseed flavored ice cream (local produce tastes like coffee!) but seeing as Sarah was carsick (and a little cranky) we soon continued to Port Douglas with hopes of booking a reef tour the next day. We stopped in at the local tourist information agent and booked a trip to the inner reef on the Low Isles for the following day. We decided to stay at the local Big4 campground. We have stayed at a few of them so far this trip and they are all very nice. Upon arriving at our camping spot I quickly realized two things 1. three motorcycle campers were directly across from us and 2. For the second time in 24 hours our cooler was a mess. The first time the terrible roads (and my driving) vibrated the lid off the jam and mustard. Also, something shattered the eggs or they were vibrated to their death (my bet). This time the roads vibrated the cap off a beer. After cleaning the cooler I introduced myself to the motorcycle group (dirt bikes) and as it turned out we spent the entire night talking with them. Sarah and I had such fun that we decided to forgo dinner that night! The trio was from Perth on the western coast. Two were native Australians, (one 6th generation – is that even possible?) and the third was from South Africa and had immigrated to Australia. They were all in the mining business. They spoke very highly about the west coast, minimal people beautiful coastline and vast resources. They were on a trip that I would love to try. 3500 miles, Cairns to the tip then on to Darwin and finishing in Broome…WOW. Last year they crossed the central desert which is about the same mileage and as we heard several times that night, “Jonathan, it was very tough”. We learned Australian slang, how to decipher the Aussie accent and at one point in the night all were forced to say “park the car in the garage” just to laugh at 5 different ways of saying it. We learned about Aussie pay, cars and amazing things like how an unskilled laborer can make 160K+ USD working at the Aussie mines. We had so much fun that the campground manager needed to come tell us to quiet down! We also had too many VB’s (Victoria Bitter) and closed the night with 20 year old Scotch that you can’t get in the states! Motorcycle Friends Sarah after being subjected to too much 4WD Early formation of brain coral (when tide is out)

Video of Jonathan crossing one of the rivers in Lakefield NP

Video of camping at Archer Point - Far North Queensland

“Everything’s wild up here, mate”

When we started this trip I wanted to make it to Cooktown. I really wanted to make it to the tip of Australia but it’s a long way and Sarah’s goals were not the same as mine. Since we made it to Cooktown a little faster than anticipated I was able to convince Sarah that Lakefield National Park (just a little further north) would be a nice place to go. Lakefield has several draws: 1. The Termite mounds are taller than Matt Scudder. 2. It’s remote….I mean remote, 100 miles from Cooktown and literally NOTHING in between. 3. It’s only accessible during the dry season (now). In the wet it’s flooded, becoming a bog (with crocs) and the river crossing are impassable. In looking at the difference between the dry and wet, I viewed a picture on the internet that was of a bridge with a truck on it. The truck was stopped on the bridge, a sign 30’ above in a tree said “we were here in the wet, in a boat”. One other draw for me was to see what the roads on Cape York were really like.
We left Cooktown and within 20kms, just after an emu dashed across the road we turned toward Lakefield NP. The road started off just fine but quickly deteriorated to a washed out or washboard surface like I have rarely seen. I have never seen it for that distance. Also, very quickly after turning on to the road we hit our first water crossing. As I was inspecting it a truck drove through! He had no problem and neither did we but you always want to make sure when the croc signs are before the river you are crossing.
On a side note, I have Old Man EMU suspension on my 4runner at home these shocks are made in Australia and are very well built. When I was looking at a catalogue here I was appalled to learn that the warranty on those shocks in Australia was 2 years and about 20,000 miles. I thought if those shocks don’t last 100k I am going to be mad. WELL, I now know why! I can’t believe they can last that long! For the first time in my life I learned what shock fade is. Shocks fade because they heat up so much from use that they basically quit working. Our heavy truck felt like a boat, we had to stop and give it a rest a couple of times or hope for a water crossing.
We made it to Lakefield, the road deteriorated even more to the point where my ear drums were ringing…the only solution for washboard was to go faster...it was GREAT!
The termite mounds are unexplainable, I cannot convey how many there are, they amount of termites in the area is enough to change the landscape from dense forest to savannah. Those buggers eat a lot. They go on for as far as you can see and are enormous!
Sarah and I drove to one of the watering holes in the park, where most people camp. We wanted to check out the wildlife and see if it would be a good place to stay for the night. We drove a couple of miles to down a sand track and crossed a tricky hole (limiting our quick escape) and came to a camping spot with a few trucks in it. I parked to “check out the scene” and Sarah knowingly stayed in the car. I was no sooner out of the car looking at the locals than I realized that I was not worried about the wildlife. I looked at the locals, very glad that I had taken off my collared polo shirt (not all of them were wearing shirts) and said “hello” as I walked over to check out the watering hole. On the walk back to the car could tell that the locals were interested to see what I was doing so I went over to say hello. This group looked rougher than the Red Hot Chili Peppers although they were likely younger than me-definitely decendents of pirates (or maybe they were). Tattoos, dreads, piercings, missing teeth, a lazy eye and techno music pumping…I was slightly nervous.
Me : what are you guys catching
Them: nothing yet mate
Me: what’s in there
Them: why don’t you put on a snorkel and have a look (from the guy with the eye with wings tattoo on his chest)
The conversation improved from here and the guys were very nice once we talked a little more.
Me: wow, what a place, it’s wild up here!
Them: everything’s wild up here Mate! (said the guy with the lazy eye)
After ending our conversation on a good note including some suggestions for where to go I walked back to the car….Sarah wasn’t interested in spending the evening with the boys so we headed back out.
It is truly wild up in Lakefield national park. I only wish we had more time to head further north!
We went a little further north in Lakefield and then decided to turn back to the south for the night. On the way back we again heated the shocks to a point where the truck was nearly hard to control at speed and crossed the deepest water hole of the trip, not bad but lots of fun. We stopped briefly in the town of Laura, population 80 and drove on the Cape York development road. This is the only road up Cape York, it’s badly corrugated and has water crossings.
We stopped to see some aboriginal rock paintings and continued back to the Cooktown area. We tried a 4wd road that went to Archer Point. This point was unbelievable, rolling hills coming right out of the sea and free camping anywhere you wanted to park. Sarah and I picked the middle of three hills the tallest having a lighthouse on it. We spent a very nice but breezy night on the point and enjoyed the sunset.

Cooktown

We pulled into Cooktown in the late afternoon and it was much sleepier than we had imagined. We made it around town in about 20 minutes, stopping at the statue of Capt. James Cook and then driving up to the Grassy Hill where he looked out 339 year ago to see his “dire circumstances”(damaged boat and difficult terrain). From this vantage point once can see all of Cooktown, the ocean, reef and islands offshore as well as the winding river inland. Today, there is a small lighthouse on this spot. We read the plaque at Grassy Hill and, deciding that a shower would be a enjoyable treat, went on to a campground in town. Pulling into our spot we disrupted our new neighbors, Lionel and Irene, from their wine and cheese happy hour (4:30 early bird special). We were again the novelty of the campground. As we set up camp, a 75 year old German man and his wife came over to inspect out set-up. The man was quite proud of his own 4WD camper and basically took Jonathan hostage showing him all the intricacies of his vehicle. At one point, the wife said in her thick German accent “oh no, here comes zee motor”. The men were examining the workings under the hood. After extricating Jonathan from the grips of the German gentleman, we sat down to dinner and ended up having a lovely (and very long) conversation with Lionel and Irene (mostly Lionel). They were intrigued that we were young and American and traveling as we are. They are Australian and Lionel was a former electrical worker who had retired, bought a small camper and spent their time traveling around the country. Boy they had stories! They had traversed both Australian deserts and been to pretty much every corner of the country many times. We found out later in our conversation that they were 80! We chatted well into the night, and they answered many questions we had about things Australian (wildlife, hunting, politics, etc.) Finally Irene said “Lionel, you talk too much” and took him to bed.
We went to bed as well (though it might have been the latest we stayed up all trip – 9 PM!!). In the morning we bid farewell to all of our friends and after a quick stop at the towns Saturday AM market, we again hit the road.

Cooktown Lighthouse - not quite as glamourous as those in the U.S.

Jonathan strikes a pose by the Captain Cook statue.

After while Crocodile (and the Bloomfield Track)

On to the far North as they call it here. Sarah and I were not interested at spending the day on Cape Tribulation as we were planning to come back through. After a low tide walk on some exposed reef we headed up the Bloomfield track. The track is part of the reason that we decided to rent the 4wd campervan. North of Cape Tribulation for 100kms the road is 4wd only. We set off and after only a short distance a stopped to walk out through that rainforest to the ocean. We met an Australian couple who had been on the road for 8 years…they joked about how they would let the “backpackers” (AKA us) walk first when we got close to the estuary (croc habitat)! They were joking and we chatted for a while. I walked over towards the estuary were I spotted something in the water. It was small but after a long while looking at it we concluded that it was a small croc! Our Aussie friends agreed, it was about 3’ long.
On the walk back I found a coconut and husked it with a little help from a rock….I’ve been less pumped on a 5.11 climb than husking that thing!
The bloomfield track was excellent…really, it was much less challenging than I hope for, we are in the dry season. Sarah did need a Dramamine but was a good sport once she fell asleep! The track was very steep in spots…and had a few creek crossings but nothing to really get the “knickers in a knot”. The track took us to Bloomfield falls…surprisingly similar to Ithaca falls minus the crocs and the snakes. Like any other place we have been, I felt the need to go to the furthest point available….even though it required a little maneuvering (Sarah observed from a safe distance….) Because of this I did get to see a really neat 2.5’eel just relaxing in a shallow pool likely trying to stay warm. On the way back I took the alternate route via a long jump and then a “safe rock” that turned out to be a little slippery. I caught myself before the camera went swimming and I only got a little wet... in true Steve Irwin style, I just wanted to tease the crocs. (kidding totally safe)
CROC! Sarah spotted one! It was sitting about 2 miles from the falls, out on a sand bar sunning itself without a care in the world. It was big, 10’ to 12’ and luckily nowhere close to us! With our binoculars we could see it very clearly! Really a neat animal but I have no desire to be in its territory!
We then continued through some aboriginal lands to the Lions Den! On a Friday night I might pick swimming with the crocs over this place! This was one of the historic roadhouses on Cape York track. Even in the middle of the day it’s a sight to be seen. This place has been THE roadhouse stop to make if you are headed north up Cape York. Everyone stops for at least a tinny!



The Lion's Den "Hotel"

Beach camping, the Daintree & Cape Tribulation

From Bramston Beach we headed up to Cairns. We stopped at a mall where we did our grocery shopping and picked up supplies to restock the fridge for a couple days. We planned to pass Cairns and head straight for Port Douglas since we’d spend the last night of our trip in Cairns. Arriving in Port Douglas we were somewhat disappointed to find it very developed and a resort town. We thought it’d be a little wilder. We discovered that the reef trip we wanted to take was booked for the following day so after much “spirited” discussion Jonathan’s plan won out – we booked a reef trip for next week and headed further north that day. Yes – we are doing A LOT of driving (and riding). We reached the Daintree River where we boarded a car barge to cross onto the Cassowary Coast (seriously, they say those birds are everywhere but we have yet to see one!) The road that met us on the other side was canopied by rainforest and steep with hairpin turns that make Skyline Drive look wide. What a cool environment. The vines and trees were so dense it was as if they’d reach out from the side of the road to grab you. 30 kms later, we arrived at our beachfront campground on Cape Tribulation. Unlike other places we have stayed, this campground’s clientele was largely European backpackers – not nearly as friendly as the retired Aussies that we’ve encountered elsewhere. We had a scrumptious steak dinner, a walk on the beach and retired to our small piece of oceanfront property.

Sarah playing on a rope at Cape Tribulation

Kookaburra

Note: A long time ago, when Sarah wanted to go to the Australian rainforest her father said “what, are you crazy? They have bugs there that are big enough to write home” Well, we now believe him. Jonathan caught this small guy by our camper. The others were trying to catch us.

If only they were frozen…

We spent the day chasing waterfalls, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The night before (Tuesday night) we arrived to Jourama Falls (national park) very late. We had gotten a late start after our Magnetic Island adventure and arrived to the area around dark. Jonathan had to jump out of the car to close some windows as we were entering a 4WD road (and the associated dust). As we stopped we were able to smell the potent aroma of the sugar cane from the surrounding fields. After fording two small streams, we finally arrived at the campsite. We had an easy dinner of sandwiches and instant chicken soup as the campsite was overwhelmingly buggy. As we spent the evening inside of the camper we heard every sound imaginable outside. A few times we heard distinct flapping of wings (a ‘swoosh’ ‘swoosh’) that led us to believe the wings and the body to which they were attached were quite large. Our guess was that it was one of the flying fox fruit bats we had seen back in Sydney swooping down for some of the insects around our camper. Nonetheless, it left us with images of pterodactyls dancing in our dreams.

The morning brought a cacophony of bird sounds and some BOLD brush turkeys that harassed us while we ate breakfast. We left our campsite and went for a bush walk to the nearby falls – they were really cool. We walked over streams with huge boulders and followed a well-maintained trail leading to a lookout to the Jourama Falls. They reminded us of the slot canyons from the US west, as there were intermittent pools of clear water before the rocks dropped off again.

Heading out of that national park we made our way, you guessed it….north…but also a little bit west. Our inland detour led us to Wallaman Falls – the largest single drop waterfall on the continent. The 18+ mile winding road that we took to the top made me a bit carsick, but it was amazing to see the change in environment. About halfway up we entered the Wet Tropics – a World Heritage area. The vegetation became very dense and we started to see road signs to beware of cassowaries – these crazy looking endangered flightless birds that live in the rainforest. Apparently they are kind of like velociraptors and can injure (kill?) humans with their huge talons. We didn’t see any in the wild, but had glimpsed them at the Australia zoo a few weeks back.

Wallaman Falls were very impressive - a 900 foot drop. We passed on the lookout point (next to the parking lot, too easy) and instead took a hike through the rainforest to the bottom of the huge gorge. Going back up was not quite as fun, but the view from the bottom was worth it. Jonathan lamented that the falls was not frozen and that he didn’t have his ice axes with him.

Content with our waterfall viewings, we passed onwards to Russell River National Park to look for camping at one of the remote spots. After seeing notices for “extremely high croc risk” in the creek adjacent to the campsites, we (I) decided that it was in fact too remote and we settled for a small campground in a nearby beach town – complete with showers, bathrooms and (hopefully) no crocs.













Sarah laughing and gasping for breath after our hike up the hill from the falls.



One lucky Python! We ran him over with the truck! We wanted to go back to see what kind of snake he was and luckily he was still alive and didn't appear to be hurt! This picture was taken from inside the Toyota!



A very loud laughing Kookaburra sitting on top of a common sign!



What can you do here?