"I choose to be Amused!"-An Epic Trip to DL with a side of Oz(3/17-4 NEW POSTS pg17)

[skier_pete]

Pete - that is NOT a good experience at all.

Next time, I'll take you out to some of my eateries....
1. Value for money (by Aussie standards), mediocre service but at least the food comes out quickly.
2. High end food, reasonable service (even compared to the US servers) and the food comes out all together.

Oh, I would definitely take you up on that one!

I should point out, my comments don't really include Melbourne, because we actually never went out to eat IN Melbourne. And really, the food we had at your house and our other friends house was the best of the trip. (That and Carthay Circle!)

And I also should point out, there were a few exceptions, which I will get to eventually.

 

[skier_pete]

Wow - it's been two weeks since my last update. Lots going on, including Thanksgiving and having internet problems, along with Photobucket problems! I also can't believe I am up to 21,000 hits. I don't think I've ever had that many on a TR - not many people posting, but a lot of you must still be reading. So, don't worry, I have not given up. I'm gonna get to the end of this trip!

I will try and get back to updating twice a week. Here's a doozy, representing 3 days of the trip, and the next post will have part of a fourth!

First off – a few pictures from our visit with Princess In Oz and her family.

On to days 15 and 16, which were the weekend of August 4th and 5th. I’m going to sort of blow through the weekend. On Saturday, we decided to sort of have a day of rest. DW went off shopping with BFF in the morning. I stayed at the house with DD, we went for a walk down to a nearby park to play for a bit. It was a little cooler today, maybe 50 F, still no rain, but it was coming. In the evening we had a lovely dinner prepare by our host. I got up the nerve to take a couple of snaps.

DW bought a Mud Pie for dessert. I know this because it said right on it “Mud”.

On Sunday, we spent the day with the family. First MIL served us a huge breakfast. Then we went to church, after which we had more food at the coffee hour. Of course then from their we went to MILs Parents (yes they are still alive and in their 90s!) and they of course served ANOTHER huge meal. (Yup we were somehow expected to eat 3 times in like 4 hours.) I was so full as to be uncomfortable, but I also didn’t want to be rude and refuse to eat. After eating, the grandfather and I took my DD to a nearby park. (Today was the one “iffy” day for weather, it rained in the morning a little, and then shortly after this it started raining and kept raining all day. Really the only day the whole trip we had bad weather.)

After lunch we went back to MILs house, because at night we were invited to BBF and DH house for yet ANOTHER huge meal. (We loved the hospitality, but c’mon people!) DD was very excited because the brother and sister-in-law of our friends were going to be there, and they had two girls about her age. The older one had written her a nice note when we arrived and left a few presents, so Adriana was very excited to meet her. (The only bad thing about this trip is the limited amount of time DD got to play with kids her own age. It’s on vacation that I often regret the most that we weren’t able to have more than one child.) The adults watched the footy game (Australian Rules Football) while the kids played.

Dinner was once again fantastic, though I could hardly eat anything I was still so full. I took a very small portion of several things. Here’s a few pictures of the family at their house. First DW with BFF.

Next up the two of us with BFF’s DMIL.

I decided not to share pictures of the whole family, but they were all so great, we really had a wonderful time. We stayed until about 9 PM and then headed back. (It was around a 20 minute drive.)

Day 17: Flying off to Cairns

We had to leave for the airport by 9 AM, so time for one last meal and we were off. This was our longest “in country” flight of the trip, lasting a little over 3 hours. We were moving from the Southern-most region of Australia, to up in the North. The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Cairns about 3 PM. Coming out of the airport it was warm and sunny and the air felt so good. The airport was surprisingly small, though I later found out they’d only even HAD an airport here for about 25 years. The drive into town was less than 10 minutes. By this time, I was starting to feel really comfortable with driving in Australia. The whole “driving on the other side of the road” thing takes a little getting used to, and also centering yourself properly in the road, but as long as you are an alert driver and pay attention, it’s not bad at all.

We found our hotel. The Novotel Oasis right in the town of Cairns. It was a nice enough hotel, though the room was a lot smaller than what we had in Sydney. We checked in and got our bags up to our room. We had no real plans for the evening, so we decided that we would go for a swim. In doing so, we found out one of the real disadvantages of visiting a tropical resort region in the wintertime. Apparently, they do not heat their pools here. So, while the pool area was very large and very beautiful, the water was C-O-L-D. I spent the first bit of time booking our plans for the next day. Then we went for a swim. (I will have some snaps of the hotel later.)

When we returned to the room it was just getting dark, and we got to see one of the more impressive bits of our trip. The air was absolutely swarming with fruit bats. It turned out that their was a park about a block from our hotel where during the day all the fruit bats slept, and at night, they took off, hunting for fruit. It was quite a spectacle seeing the air filled with bats. Because it was dusk, they were hard to see, but really cool. I later took some pictures of the bats in their trees. None of them came out great, but here are the best:

We ended up going down to the Esplande for dinner. We were originally going to try a seafood restaurant recommended to us, but the prices on the menu made me gag ($40+). Turns out of all the places we went, Cairns was probably the most expensive. We ended up going into this restaurant that was up on the second floor. Many of the restaurants here were open air, but by the time we were eating, it was dark, and sometimes a bit chilly to eat outside. In this case, our meal was at Casa de Meze. The hostess on the first floor was an American girl, so we decided to try it. The meal was OK. I had a steak which was decent. DW had shrimp, which she was grossed out that still had the heads on them, but beyond that, they were overcooked and not very good. DD had spaghetti as usual. $85 for a mediocre meal. Yum!
We did stop for Gelato on the way back to the hotel. There was about 268 Gelato shops in Cairns, so we seemed to get a lot of it. It was pretty good most places we tried. (I think DD had some every day we were there.) After that, we headed back to the room to relax, we had a busy day planned for the next day.

Continued in Next Post.

 

[skier_pete]

Though we were at the ocean, we were really here in Cairns more interested in seeing the rain forest than the water. So, today we booked a tour that would take us up into the tablelands of the rain forest.

The tour started out with a bus from our hotel. I looked at the possibility of driving myself, but the difference in cost was only $3 per person. The bus took about 45 minutes to drive in circles and pick up people at various hotels. (Cairns did not seem to be very large. My guess is about 20 blocks long by 10 blocks deep for the main part of town.) They dropped us off at the main train station in town, to ride on the Kuranda scenic railway:

The Kuranda scenic railway is a rail ride on a track that was built in the late 1800s. It connected the coastal areas with the rainforest/mountains, and at the time was the first and only method of transport into the interior of Australia. Now, it is mostly used for transporting tourists, who take the 2+ hour ride up into the rainforest to the tourist town of Kuranda. Our group was given a single car on the train, and though the train itself wasn’t that crowded, our car was full enough that we had to split up at first, with DD and I sitting in one seat, and DW sitting one seat over.

The first portion of the ride, which took about 30 minutes, just drove out of town towards the village of Freshwater, where we stopped to pick up more passengers. (Ones that weren’t staying in Cairns.) This ride took us along the sugar cane fields, which we got really used to looking at over the course of our week in the tropics. LOTS of sugar cane!

For the tropical rainforest, the area seemed awful dry (I guess this is not the wet season, which is probably a good thing.) However, there were lots of tropical trees.

From there, we started heading up into the mountains. The train took a path that was carved out of the rock, with several dozen bridges as well as 15 tunnels. There were some pretty sharp switchbacks as well, which allowed for shots like this.

DD in the train car while going through a tunnel (see the window on the right):

More views to be seen from the train:

This one bridge made for a great shot of the train, and on the other side, a huge cascading water fall.

A view back along the tracks.

DD complained that the ride was “boring” and while I am not one much for scenic rides – I am all about the destination – I did think this was worth doing one time, if just for the views of the coastal plain…

…and the Barron River.

The train made a stop at the Barron George. This would be a gigantic waterfall, except for the dam holding the water back. So, now its just sort of a big rock wall:

We spent a lot of the ride up talking with a lady from Oregon who was traveling around Australia with her son and husband. Meeting fellow Americans seemed pretty rare, so we talked quite a bit. We also exchanged taking family photos. (She will come back again later in the story of the day.)

To be continued...

 

[PrincessInOz]

Pete - I think I forgot to post those pictures of us. Apologies! (Nice to see them up on your TR, though)



Was the chocolate mud cake nice? Sometimes they can be really rich!

Being so close to the fruit bats...did it smell?
Your railway trip in Cairns looks great. Looking forward to more.

 

[skier_pete]

Pete - I think I forgot to post those pictures of us. Apologies! (Nice to see them up on your TR, though)



Was the chocolate mud cake nice? Sometimes they can be really rich!

Being so close to the fruit bats...did it smell?
Your railway trip in Cairns looks great. Looking forward to more.

The mud cake was very rich indeed, a little too chocolate for my taste.

The fruit bats didn't really smell too bad. There was a lot of guano on the ground under the trees. DW didn't want to walk under them because of that. (I always wonder how bats don't s**t on their own heads. ) They were also very noisy. Even during the day you can hear them, but especially after dark!

 

[khertz]

Very nice that your friends made sure you were well fed before you left, but it sure does sound like a LOT of food!!

That train ride looks so fun! The scenery is just beautiful.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

With respect to pooping, the bats hang on with wing claws, flip themselves over, poop and flip back. You have to be careful in Qld and northern NSW not to park under a tree that might attract fruit bats to feed during the night as that poop is so hard to get off a car-it sets like resin and is so acidic it eats into the paintwork. As a protected species if you get a colony decide to move into a group of trees near your house there's nothing you can do despite the noise that can go on all night, every night. Glad you enjoyed the train trip-waiting to hear if you caught the skyway back?

 

[skier_pete]

Very nice that your friends made sure you were well fed before you left, but it sure does sound like a LOT of food!!

That train ride looks so fun! The scenery is just beautiful.

Ugh, so much food. I actually can't remember a time ever feeling less like eating again in my life.

The train ride was a lot of fun really. I don't know that I would've wanted to go down on it as well, but it was worth the trip.

With respect to pooping, the bats hang on with wing claws, flip themselves over, poop and flip back. You have to be careful in Qld and northern NSW not to park under a tree that might attract fruit bats to feed during the night as that poop is so hard to get off a car-it sets like resin and is so acidic it eats into the paintwork. As a protected species if you get a colony decide to move into a group of trees near your house there's nothing you can do despite the noise that can go on all night, every night. Glad you enjoyed the train trip-waiting to hear if you caught the skyway back?

The things you learn on the DIS!

We DID catch the skyway back...more on that below!

 

[skier_pete]

Picking up at the end of the train ride you find yourself at the top of the mountain in a small “tourist” village. I call it this, because it is a bunch of shops, restaurants, and tourist traps aimed at separating travelers from their money.

There were also signs that Perry the Platypus had been here recently.

There was lots of tourist souvenirs around, though we didn’t buy anything:

We offered DD her choice of ONE tourist trap, we looked for some sign of which one to choose:

Not surprisingly, she chose “BIRDWORLD”, where they had, you know, lots of birds. They gave you a bag of food when you go in to feed them. Some of the food was more popular than others. None of these birds liked carrots!

This one conure just wouldn’t leave me alone!

Was BIRDWORLD “worth” it? Well, it was like $25 a person, and probably not really, but for DD it was well worth it. I wish I had just taken her myself, as DW is not a big fan of birds, and would’ve preferred to browse the shops. You notice no pictures of her…well just this one.

We were on a bit of a schedule, since we were going to take the Skyway down to the bottom of the mountains, and then we were going to an aboriginal museum. So we didn’t really have time to shop, but instead just went to get some lunch. We settled on this place.

The food was decent and reasonably priced. (As in only $37!) The best part was the big hunk of Lammington we got for desert. As mentioned before a very light white cake, with chocolate frosting and a coconut sprinkle coating. This was probably the best dessert we had all trip! Yum!

Day 18 to be concluded in next post!

 

[skier_pete]

Since we had to be down to the bottom of the mountain for a certain time (I think it was like 3 PM.) we went over to the Skyway, which is basically a gondola that goes from Kuranda down to the base of the mountains. It’s probably about a 60 minute ride, and there are two stops you can make in the rainforest to get out and look around.

Well, no sooner do we get into our cab and leave the platform than the thing breaks down. In other words, it stops with us dangling about 60 feet in the air. We try to pass the time by taking some pictures and joking around.

After about 10 minutes they make an announcement in about 28 languages saying that there is a problem on the tramway, and they need to send a crew out to fix it.

Meanwhile, DD is getting a bit nervous about being stuck on here. We reassure her that everything is perfectly safe. Inside I am going all buggy trying not to show any signs of panic. I know I’m a skier and I go on these things all the time, but I have a bit of a phobia of heights – especially bad of heights over water. Luckily we were not that high here, and also the car hadn’t made it to where we cross the river, because I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done had we been stuck over the river. (I suppose spent the whole time in a panic attack.) Because in the end we were stuck there on that thing for over 45 minutes before it started to move again. And then after it started to move again, it stopped again, TWICE – for only about 5 minutes each – but still. By this point, we were all feeling sort of like we just wanted to get out of this thing. Still, we were trying not to show nervousness, so took some pictures. The view was pretty spectacular:

Well, by the time we got to the first platform stop, and debated about getting out and looking around. We had wanted to do this, but we realized at this point we only had about 10 minutes before the show we had paid a bunch of money to see was going to start, and it was still a good 30 minutes down the mountain. So we had two choices…skip seeing part of the Skyway in hopes of not missing the entire aboriginal cultural center and show (called Tjapakia), or see the Skyway and miss more of Tjapakia. Well, DW was REALLY looking forward to the cultural show, and we’d already spent the last 90 minutes staring at the rainforest, so we decided to just keep going.

By the time we got to the bottom, we were about 15 minutes late for the performance, which was a 5-minute walk away. But before we went, I wanted to talk someone at the station for about getting some refund for part of out day. We paid about $400 US for the three events today (Train Ride, Skyway and Tjapakia) and only got to experience part of two of them, not through any fault of our own. I wasn’t expecting a full refund, and I actually wasn’t expecting them to give me any here, since I booked through a tour company, but I just wanted something in writing that said our day was disrupted by this breakdown. (Understand that the Tjapakia show was the last performance of the day, and we couldn’t go see a “later” showing instead.)

The guy I spoke with told us not to worry, and just go over and catch the Tjapakia show and come back. The problem was he wasn’t answering my question about whether we could get a notice in writing about missing part of the show due to the breakdown. He just kept saying “ No worries! Go see the show.” This is the closest I came to being the UGLY AMERICAN – as I retorted back (not shouting, though) “Well, I do have some worries, this was a pretty expensive day.” Well, he finally convinced me – go see the show, and then come back and he’d take care of things.

So, we went over to see the cultural center. We completely missed out on the dance performance, which was really what DW had wanted to see. We were able to see a demonstration of the food (or Bush Tucker) that the tribe would gather in the woods. Then we got to see a spear and boomerang demo, in which we were promised that we would be allowed to try them. The spear we were allowed to throw a whopping once, and the boomerang twice. (I was sort of disappointed in this whole thing – I figured it would be a tourist trap type place, and it more or less was.)

We then went in and they had a didgeridoo demonstration, which was sort of cool.

They were supposed to have a kid’s program where the kids could learn to play it, which was scheduled at the same time as another performance. I let DW go to the performance, while I took DD to the didgeridoo lesson. We went into the store, and instead of having an area for this, they just had one of the people in the store kind of showing her. She actually tried it for a good 20 minutes.

She wanted to get one, but they were 100s of dollars and I said NO WAY. We did let her pick up a returning boomerang, which you can see here.

We have since tried it out a few times, and I’ve gotten pretty good at getting it to come back. You need a HUGE field though.

In the meantime, back while we doing the boomerang demo, the lady from Oregon and her family came running in. They had the same problem with the tram, except they were just behind us so they waited the 45 minutes to get ON. They decided to stop at the stops on the way down, and therefore missed more than we did. So, when all the stuff was done at Tjapakia, we went together back over to the tram.

Now, understand, I was never asking for a full refund here, but I was hoping to get some compensation. So, when we went back, I again asked for something to prove that we missed a good portion of the show, and that we could go to the travel company to get something back. He gave us each a letter saying the ride was disrupted, so I was happy at this stage. We said goodbye to Oregon, and went to wait for our bus.

When we got back to the hotel, it was probably about 5 PM, and it had been a pretty long day. We were not in a mood to go in the freezing pool, so I went down to the travel desk to fight for my refund. Well, the girl there said that the letter the Skyway people had used wasn’t really the right letter to indicate I had missed out on anything. (Grrr!) However, she and the tour company worked with me, and they refunded us the cost of the Tjapakia portion of the day, about $90. This was plenty for me. As I said, it had not ruined out whole day, but had put a big damper on a portion of it, and at $400 it was probably the 3rd most expensive day excursion of our trip (Mt. Buller and the Reef Cruise both cost more.)

In the end, this was probably the worst thing that happened to us on the trip, and really it wasn’t that bad. If I had to do it over again, I am not sure I would do the same thing. I liked the train ride, but the Skyway was not worth the cost. If we ever come back again, I think I would just drive my car up to Kuranda. As far as Tjapakia, I am not sure if I would do that again either or try something different.

We still had dinner ahead of us. We decided because the day was so expensive, we would go cheap and simple tonight, and found a place that served pizza called Pizza Trattoria. Not unlike the pizza we had in Sydney, it was pretty good, but a very thin crust with not a lot of flavor to the sauce. We got a small cheese for DD and a large for the two of us. It cost $39 with my 1 beer. (I use this particular meal to demonstrate to people how expensive food was there. I spend about $50 on pizza for my Super Bowl party each year, and feed 10 adults and 8 kids. And it’s better pizza.)

I haven’t much talked about the beer in Australia, but I found myself drinking a lot while I was here. The main reason for this was the high price of soda, which was typically $4 for a small bottle. I found that a beer was usually only $5, and for $1 more, I’d WAY rather have a beer. I tried many of the different beers (Carlton, XXXX, Toohey’s, Hahn’s and VB seemed to be the most popular) of the bunch, my favorite by far was the VB (short for Victoria Bitters) and by the end was pretty much my go to choice. Each beer comes from a different “state”, so there’s a lot of loyalty in each area to their local beer, but we didn’t see much slighing for ordering a Victoria beer. Maybe they figured we didn’t know any better. I found much like in the US, the most popular beers are rather on the light side, though at least they are crappy pilsners like Bud and Miller. They did not appear to have the micro-brew revolution that has taken off in the US in the last 15 years, which has provided us with some fantastic beers here in the states. Overall though – I enjoyed the VB very much, and wish I could find it in the states. (Apparently a shop in San Francisco is the only place you can get it.) I should also point out that there were frequently two sizes – the schooner and the pint. The schooner is the smaller of the two, so I of course usually ordered a pint.

OK, enough about beer, after we ate dinner, we were pretty tired, and went back to our hotel for some much needed rest. (We did stop at the grocery store to buy some food for the next day.)

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Sorry about your disrupted day-actually think you were pretty lucky to get the refund-not that you didn't deserve it just you know how places wriggle out of things like this and blame everybody else if they can! Hope the Oregon family also fought it out successfully.

We actually really enjoyed the Skyway last visit, more than the train which we had done many years earlier. I have never been fussed on Kuranda though - I can just remember it pre-tourist trap, it was a bit hippy central and a bit sad and dowdy then last visit it was just souvy shops and cafes and dubious tourist attractions. Not sure if you could say its improved or not? I love reading Bill Bryson's books and his story of I think its the Smoky Mountains and the tourist village set up on the outskirts and how awful it is, makes me think of several places in Aus unfortunately!

You got some great pics with the parrots though.

We do have micro-breweries but the beers tend to be sold very locally and only available in certain establishments so the big corporation beers are the ones most commonly available. Did you pick up that the size of beer glass you order is called something different in every State?

 

[battymum]

Oh how we loved unlimited soda in the US. Whenever we eat out here, (which is rare with the family) I let the kids get one and then it is water, cause I'm cheap like that. It's probably a good thing though!

And those touristy places get you don't they, in those situations we find ourselves saying "it's not Disney is it!"

I did like the train for what it is, a genuine old time railway, and we loved the skyway, but being stuck in it for 45mins would probably kill the mood somewhat!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Sorry for the disrupted day and I also think that you were lucky to get any sort of a refund.

But you got some great shots of the parrots.

And in defence of micro brewery.....didn't I serve you some of the micro brewery beer at our place? I'm sure I had some leftover from my dad's birthday.......or did I just leave that in the fridge?

 

[skier_pete]

Sorry about your disrupted day-actually think you were pretty lucky to get the refund-not that you didn't deserve it just you know how places wriggle out of things like this and blame everybody else if they can! Hope the Oregon family also fought it out successfully.

We actually really enjoyed the Skyway last visit, more than the train which we had done many years earlier. I have never been fussed on Kuranda though - I can just remember it pre-tourist trap, it was a bit hippy central and a bit sad and dowdy then last visit it was just souvy shops and cafes and dubious tourist attractions. Not sure if you could say its improved or not? I love reading Bill Bryson's books and his story of I think its the Smoky Mountains and the tourist village set up on the outskirts and how awful it is, makes me think of several places in Aus unfortunately!

You got some great pics with the parrots though.

We do have micro-breweries but the beers tend to be sold very locally and only available in certain establishments so the big corporation beers are the ones most commonly available. Did you pick up that the size of beer glass you order is called something different in every State?

I was sort of surprised that we were able to get any refund as well, figuring they would call it "act of god" or something. And I really wasn't expecting even as much as we got. I wouldn't really have said anything if it was just getting stuck for 45 mintues, but missing out on a good portion of two of the things we paid for (the skyway walks and part of Tjapakia) really had me peeved. It didn't "ruin" our day by any means, I was sort of "feeling lucky to be alive" off that thing. (It's never happened to me, but I've known people that have had to be taken off of chair lifts like that because they could'nt get them fixed, and it is a hairy proposition. They use safety harnesses and all, but you have to be lowered to the ground. No thanks!

Yeah, the Smoky Mountains have Pigeon Forge, home to Dollywood and a dozen other tourist traps. Overall, Kuranda wasn't too bad, but definitely taken over by the tourist trade!

And I did not notice that beer glasses had different names!

Oh how we loved unlimited soda in the US. Whenever we eat out here, (which is rare with the family) I let the kids get one and then it is water, cause I'm cheap like that. It's probably a good thing though!

And those touristy places get you don't they, in those situations we find ourselves saying "it's not Disney is it!"

I did like the train for what it is, a genuine old time railway, and we loved the skyway, but being stuck in it for 45mins would probably kill the mood somewhat!

Soda is one of the biggest money-makers in a restaurant, even in the US. It's because it costs about 5 cents a glass. That's why I couldn't believe the prices for soda there! Especially even in the grocery stores.

Sorry for the disrupted day and I also think that you were lucky to get any sort of a refund.

But you got some great shots of the parrots.

And in defence of micro brewery.....didn't I serve you some of the micro brewery beer at our place? I'm sure I had some leftover from my dad's birthday.......or did I just leave that in the fridge?

Actually, yes you did give me one of those, it was quite good! I was pretty sure you guys had microbrews there, but in the US, they are pretty easily found in bars and some restaurants - not so much the chain restaurants but most local places. Buffalo has several excellent local brewers (Buffalo Brewing Company & Elicottvile Brewing Co to name two). You can even get the microbeers at the local Hockey and Baseball stadiums.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Actually, yes you did give me one of those, it was quite good! I was pretty sure you guys had microbrews there, but in the US, they are pretty easily found in bars and some restaurants - not so much the chain restaurants but most local places. Buffalo has several excellent local brewers (Buffalo Brewing Company & Elicottvile Brewing Co to name two). You can even get the microbeers at the local Hockey and Baseball stadiums.

Next time you're in Melbourne, I think I need to spend more time with you so that you get a taste of the local flavour.

 

[skier_pete]

I'm really trying to keep the updates coming. (1) work is slow right now, so now's a good time to do it, (2) if I don't get it done soon, I might never finish. We're up to Wednesday, August 8th, and there's "only" about 10 days left of the trip, so it feels like I could maybe get this wrapped by January sometime.

Today we spent staying around town. This was going to be our last down day of the trip, with the final 10 days being a busy push to the finish. We ended up staying in for breakfast and hanging out in our room for a bit.
Here’s a shot of our room. Pretty small really, and the view was nothing much to write home about:

The lobby of the Novotel Oasis. There were always dozens of people hanging around trying to get in the free wi-fi, which was limited to the lobby and pretty much no-where else.

The pool area:

After a while, we decided to take a trip down to the lagoon. Now Cairns is an interesting resort town. It’s got a beautiful water front esplanade, but really has no beach whatsoever. In fact, instead of beach, there is nothing but mud-flats.

I suppose as a tourist destination though this isn’t a big deal, since we found out that for the majority of the high season – the water is full of deadly box jellyfish which are so small you can’t see them while they are killing you, and will mostly discourage you from swimming.

So, Cairns wisely decided to get around that lack of a beach by building their own. This huge lagoon that is probably about 200 feet wide by 1000 feet long, with a beach/zero entry area and a deeper “pool” area. We packed ourselves a picnic lunch and went on down to the water. When we got there, it turned out it wasn’t yet open. Luckily, we arrived about 11:45 AM, and it opened at noon.

They also had some really cool fountains that sprayed water out into the lagoon. You can see in the first picture below out beyond the edge of the lagoon to where the ocean/mud flats are.

It wasn’t the best beach day ever, but that didn’t stop DD from enjoying the water and the sand. She liked that part of the water had a sandy bottom. She dug a hole in the sand under the water, and would laugh when I would pretend to fall into it.

This was probably one of the more cloudy days of the trip though the clouds seemed to mostly stay inland. The water itself was plenty warm though, and there were enough people enjoying the bits of sun. Really a nice area, and almost nicer that going to a real beach.

We spent a few hours there, and then headed back to the hotel. DW wanted to go out and do some shopping, so I hung out with DD while she played her DS. We had dinner at a place called Outback Jack’s, which was clearly a chain. I guess we were hoping that similar to our own US Outback chain, the steak would be really good here. No such luck, the food was just OK, but at least they brought it all out together! After dinner, we went back to the hotel and did a couple loads of laundry, trying to clean everything enough to make it through the last 10 days of the trip. (Boy, when you live out of a suitcase for 4 weeks, they really start to *stink* after a while.)

 

[skier_pete]

On Thursday, the day dawned and it was a bit overcast, looking like rain. We never really did get any, but it made for a grey morning. Today we had plans for two events, we had booked a walk with an Aboriginal guide through the Mossman Gorge national park, followed with a River Cruise to look for Crocodiles.

We drove up to Mossman, which took probably a little more than an hour. It was a pleasant enough drive, the road went along the coast, at times with very little land between us and the water. It was a bit windy, but not much traffic.

We arrived at Mossman Gorge and went to the visitors center where we met a bus that took us up into the rainforest.

The guide was a young woman who told us about here ancestors living here in the jungle. What I found interesting is that the lifestyle as described seemed considerably different from that we saw at Tjapakai a few days before. Much more nomadic, where they would live for 6 months in the jungle, and then go down to the ocean, and then return to the jungle, but not back to the same location. The rainforest itself here was very hilly, and I could imagine would be difficult to trek through.

The path had various examples of aboriginal living as you went along. This was a tree that they would use to make tools from the broad roots.

And here’s the native house that they would build. What’s really interesting is that these folks are really only two generations out from this point where they were living like this. It’s not like in the States where we think of this being 100s of years ago.

And here is a set of various indigenous fruits:

The Mossman creek, where folks go to swim in the warmer months:

Another local playing the didgeridoo for the dumb tourists:

DD thought she would be bored, but she was actually having a good time.

After we finished off here, we headed to Port Douglas, which is a small tourist town perhaps 30 minutes away. DD actually fell asleep on the car ride, but when we got to the dock where the Lady Douglas riverboat was docked, we needed to stop and have some lunch. We ate at a little outdoor café which I can’t remember the name, but the food was pretty good. Another $60 for a quick lunch. We had to wrap up sort of quick to make the boat, though we didn’t have to worry about missing it, since we could see it from our seats.

The Lady Douglas is a riverboat somewhat reminiscent of the African Queen (from the movie) but of course more modern. There were probably 40 passengers on board for the cruise, and pretty much all the seats were taken. The river cruise really goes up the mouth of the river where people dock their boats during Typhoons. Some dock them better than others:

The area is really mostly mangrove swamps and roots, and is home to saltwater crocodiles. They are rather loner type animals, so we didn’t see many. Really only two on the two hour cruise:

SMILEY

GINGER

Also very cool was spotting these:

This is a pair of Papuan Frogmouths. They are similar to owls, and are extremely rare and only found in this part of Australia as well as New Guinea and Papua. You’ll sometimes see their cousins, the Tawny Frogmouths, in zoos in the US. They are nocturnal, so almost impossible to see in nature. Very, very cool.

DD also had a lot of fun on this ride. She met this little boy from England, I forgot his name now, but they had fun running around the boat. (The boat had a bar with the first drink free, so the adults were having a good time too!)

Since really they were the only two kids on the boat, the captain let them take a turn at steering. I much prefer when they let her steer on the jungle cruise.

After heading back down the river we rode out into the bay a bit before the cruise wrapped up. As I said, it was 90-120 minutes long, and it was just long enough. It wrapped up around 4 PM, which gave us enough time to drive back to Cairns before dark. We stopped twice on the way down. Once to take a picture of these Ospreys building a nest on a telephone poll.

And then again we stopped to check out one of the beautiful deserted beaches:

While we were there, another couple pulled up. They were from Germany and were touring the South Pacific with a one –day stop in Australia (?!?), so we exchanged taking pictures with each others cameras:

Once we got back to Cairns we rested a bit before going out to dinner. We tried a Chinese/Vietnamese place that was pretty cheap, and not very different from what we would get at home. Dinner was only $47, so that was a nice break.

Tomorrow: A long, long drive.

 

[skier_pete]

Today was the only long drive of the trip. When originally envisioning the trip, I had pictured several days of driving, but once we got down to the actual planning, it made much more sense to fly around. This was the one exception. I wanted to do at least one extended drive on the trip, and had decided I wanted to see Airlie Beach and check out the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef from there. In hindsight knowing what I know now, I might have just done the Reef from Cairns, and flew down to spend more time in Brisbane, but I still am glad we did it this way.

So, we left from Cairns fairly early in the morning, I forget the exact time, but it was around 8 AM. As we started driving, we looked through the tourist things at what there was to do on the drive down. One thing mentioned that we thought might be interesting was Paronella Park, it was this Spanish castle and gardens that was built 100 years ago and now is a tourist site. Well, we took about a 20 minute detour to get there.

(Side note: Once you get out of major towns, this area of Australia is extremely rural. There are houses along the way, and lots and lots of sugar cane and banana farms, but not a lot of towns. The “main” road down the coast is predominantly a 2-lane highway, that one slow car can really grind traffic to a halt. When you go off the main roads, the roads become really iffy. A real habit that they have is that they will pave large stretches of the these back roads as only one way roads. If you run into another car coming towards you, you better slow down quick and get off into the gravel. Sort of crazy from my perspective.)

So, we drove out to this Paronella Park, we were hoping to only take a quick look for maybe 30 minutes. Well, we got there, and first the cost was like $20 per person to get in, and then if you did go in, you had to take a 90 minute guided tour. When we said “No thanks!” they started haggling with us to try and get us to come in. I think eventually got down to like $35 for the 3 of us, but insisted on the guided tour part. We ended up saying no, so we didn’t get to see it, but if you are ever deciding to stop there, let them no you think its too expensive and try to leave!

In the end, I was glad we didn’t stop, because it was almost dark by the time we got to Airlie Beach. But before then we still had a long ways to go. The scenery in Australia can be pretty monotonous. We were in what you would call the “rainforest” but because it was the dry season, all the vegetation was kind of brown and scrubby. We eventually passed through the town of Tully, where we saw a sign saying “Home of the Giant Gumboot!” I had remembered one of my DISer friends mentioning this and I said we just HAD to stop. After missing the “exit” and driving 2 miles past town, we finally found the Gumboot!

The height represents the rainiest year they ever had in Tully. That’s a lot of water. No wonder the road warned of floodouts, because we sure didn’t see much water.

By around 12:30 we had reached the ½ way point in Townsville. We wanted to find a place to eat, but as we drove along, it seemed like the road was going to by-pass the city completely, so we took a chance, getting off the highway. We ended up eating lunch at the Kirwan Inn. If you are ever thinking of doing it, don’t. The place was a restaurant/casino, and when we got in, there was a big line, which took about 20 minutes to order our lunch. We then waited more than 30 minutes for our food. In the meantime, I forgot why, but DW got mad at DD and slammed into the table to stomp off, and in doing so, spilled my beer, sloshing part of it on my pants! DW wouldn’t eat with us, she was so mad, and I wasn’t in a great mood because I was wearing my beer instead of drinking it. The food was OK, we got meat pies that were pretty decent, but way too slow. We wasted an hour and a half on a meal detour that should’ve taken half the time.

So, after that I wanted to drive straight through as we had close to 4 hours to go. The good thing is there was even LESS to look at after Townsville than there was before, so other than a few dead kangroos along the roadside and a giant mango, the drive was pretty uneventful.

We pulled into Airlie Beach just as the sun was setting. It was weird because the area was so absolutely rural, until you got about 2 miles out of Airlie beach, when all this houses and shops suddenly sprung up. Our hotel was right on the water:

Looking back, I barely remember the room, but it was spacious enough. This one went right at the edge of my budget and ran like $199 a night. It was fine for the two nights.

We were all tired, but we still needed to eat something. DW continued to be in a foul mood (almost wrote fowl – that ain’t right) and couldn’t decide what to eat. We ended up going to this pseudo-food court area up the ways. Airlie Beach seemed pretty small, the main town was about 5 blocks long. Our little area was right on the beach. This place had a bunch of more high-end restaurants, but you went up to the window to order, and the wait-staff would bring your food out to you. We tried from a few different places, but the best thing we had was bacon-wrapped scallops from a place called “Salt”. They were delicious, but like $22 for 5 scallops, so the whole meal ended up costing us $85. Most expensive food court ever.

Up next – No Nemo, but a real reef!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Pete - For the life of me, I really thought I wrote a response to the previous post. Love the picture of DD in the pool and it looks like you had a nice time there. If the room was small, at least the pool area looks great!


I love your pictures of the Mossman Creek. How cool for your DD to have found a friend (like ships in the day passing by) so that you could enjoy your drinks on board.

I'm finding it fascinating seeing you tally up the cost of food in Oz. It's like this weird twilight zone reversal of how us Aussies feel about the cost of food in the US. It is just so cheap in your part of the world compared to what we pay downunder. Having said that, $85 for the 3 of you for lunch is pretty expensive.

Looking forward to seeing the Whitsundays from your perspective.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Enjoying hearing your experiences as always. They have made the lagoon area in Cairns nice now. Yes driving in Aus is long expanses of nothing-you should try Whitsundays to Brissie if you thought Cairns south was bad-that's the more interesting part! and I am still reeling over the prices you paid for food. We will have to up my travel budget next time we head north I fear (and that's also why we don't eat out very often and love travelling overseas-'*** we can!)