The northern town of Darwin is known for it’s proximity to two national parks, Litchfield and Kakadu (love that name). Unfortunately, due to timing, I was only able to visit Litchfield.
Before the tour, I spent a day wandering around Darwin, enjoying the man-made beach, taking a nap in the grass and making new friends. There was a night market by another beach that night, where crowds gathered to watch the sunset, taste local and remote food, and buy locally made artisanal crafts.
Afterwards our group went to a couple of bars, where I quickly learned that despite it’s small size, Darwin is a big party town. Lots of bumping and shoving, as international egos kept trying to outdo each other. It also didn’t help I was still carrying my daypack around, but it was enjoyable nevertheless.
The day tour of Litchfield started with watching crocodiles nearly jump completely out of the water to grab dangling meat. It was impressive to see them lift their huge bodies so high out of the water. Apparently they naturally learned this technique in their youth to reach low hanging birds in trees by the river. Some interesting facts about crocodiles:
They can lower their heart rate to 1 beat per two minutes
If a limb is severed during combat, they can stop blood from flowing into that region, and thus survive without the limb
99% of crocodile offspring are eaten in the first year after birth, sometimes by their mother
The next stop was a massive termite mound, which took the little guys dozens of years to build. Not much else to say about that.
The remaining stops were waterfalls, starting with a beautiful double waterfall into a clear pool of water. We paid no attention to the “Beware of crocodiles” sign and gleefully jumped into said pool. The last stop were cascading waterfalls, were you could relax in one of several pools and enjoy a water-based back massage.
Darwin marks the end of a month in Australia, and I really enjoyed my time here. Despite it’s distance from Canada, there are many similarities but the climate is much better. In fact, you can spend the entire year circling the country while always wearing a t-shirt and shorts. How awesome is that?
Cairns was all about tours, and I was really happy to have spent a week there. The city itself has a cool vibe and it would have been easy to stay much much longer. But let’s start with the tours.
Cape Tribulation is area in Daintree National Park and boasts wonderful beaches, crocodile boat tours and intriguing walking areas through ancient rain forests. Along the way there, we stopped at a natural reserve, which is similar to a zoo but much more open – the animals within specific zones can interact and play with each other, while wild birds can fly into the reserve to rest and feed.
We were introduced to a baby crocodile, a huge snake, a koala, some kangaroos and wallabies, and taught about their specific lifestyles. Hand feeding the gentle kangaroo was fun, and you could pet her furry little heads. One mom allowed me to get quite close to the joey (baby kangaroo) in her pouch. Their temperament reminded me of deer, even when they started shoving each other out of the way to eat more from my hand 🙂
The Cape itself was another world; a nature walk through the forest exposed the weirdest tree roots. Some species of roots survive underwater by reaching upwards, creating natural snorkels. Other roots twist and turn like elevated frozen wood snakes.
The next tour was a white water rafting trip on the Tully River. Unfortunately I was coupled with five girls from Sweden and the Netherlands. Damn, why is life so tough? Our guide, Wackey Dee, was a long time rafter and knew all the ins and outs of the river, constantly challenging us and showing us rafting tricks.
At one particular rapid, the boat overturned and everyone was propelled into the water. I was under for many seconds before realizing it was a washing machine, and was pushed and pulled underwater in a circular motion. My life jacket wasn’t doing it’s sole purpose to bring me to the surface and there was a moment of confusion, then fear. As I started running out of breath, a thought flashed across my mind; is this the stupid way I die?
I was wearing a GoPro that the day and captured the moment on film. It doesn’t look as long or as dangerous as I experienced it, but when I did finally surface, I had to lay in the water and relax for a few minutes to contemplate what just happened. It’s interesting how I felt more alive for the rest of the day.
The following two days and one night were spent on a boat, scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef. This event completes another item off my bucket list, and I’m ecstatic to have accomplished it. The tour was a total of five dives, one of which was at night.
That was big for me. The reason I started scuba diving was to face my fear of water. As a child, I used to get anxiety attacks when swimming in freshwater lakes; I kept fearing I would awaken the local sea monster and he would come for me. It was a fear based on an over-active imagination, and I named him George to patronize the situation.
As I began to scuba dive, I discovered it wasn’t water specifically I was afraid of, it was dark water where you can’t see George coming. But during the day, you can see for many meters in the clear blue ocean, and it’s very mediation-like; you just need to relax, focus on breathing and enjoy the time.
That night was the first time I ever dove in dark water, something I previously told myself I would never do. It was nerve racking at first, but there were many people in the water, so statistically, if George were to attack, I had about a 1 in 20 chance of not being his first kill; I’m a bit of a gambler and those are good odds 🙂
Once the initial fear passed, the moment became more much more enjoyable. There were some cool big fish that only hunt at night, using our flashlights to find food. I was able to get one of them to follow a zig-zap pattern of my flashlight along the coral for several seconds, like a kitten chasing a laser pointer. Then I pointed the light at some small fish and the big guy took them out. Pointed it again at some other small fish, and they were gone too. It was though my light was a laser sniper rifle, and the big fish was the gun.
The last tour was a waterfall tour in Atherton Tablelands. Again I was unlucky to be travelling with a completely unbalanced ratio of 8 girls and just one other guy. Sigh 😉
Out of the 4 waterfalls visited, the most popular was the Millaa Muilla falls. It’s where a Herbal Essence commercial was filmed so the girls has to take turns recreating the commercial and whipped their wet hair into the hair with the falls in the background.
More interestingly than the picture perfect falls itself was swimming behind the falls. When looking up, I saw one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. The back wall had angular black columns that led up to a grassy area just under where the falls dropped off side of the cliff. The layout of this green area area confused your sense of direction and it appeared as though your were looking horizontally, with the water falling towards you to instead of downwards.
Lounging in Cairns itself was fun. One evening our hostel and it’s sister hostel organized a huge BBQ, where we sampled crocodile, kangaroo and emu steaks. After the meal, a group of us went to a local bar where they had a goldfish competition. The bar auctioned 8 goldfish, each representing a country: Australia, NZ, Ireland, USA, Japan, Canada, two others I cannot remember and a mystery fish. Each fish had a short story about their history and bar patrons bid on each, ranging from 5 CAD (3.5 EUR) to 50 CAD (35 EUR). Of course, I had to represent Canadian and won him at 30 CAD. His name was Puck and apparently he was still getting used to non-arctic water.
Two fish were placed in a long narrow track filled with water, and we used straws to blow bubbles at our fish, to convince it to swim from one end of the track to the other. As the first group competed, I took advantage of them moment and furiously tapped on Puck’s plastic container, sending him into a frenzy. By the time he was dropped into the track, I didn’t even need to blow bubbles; he swam the entire distance by himself like a champion.
Puck won the next race as well, placing him in the finals against the mystery fish. Instead of one lap, we had to two, and I was unable to convince Puck to just keep swimming fast enough. We came in second, winning a bar tab worth 50 CAD. I bought my entourage a round of drinks, good times.
After making some new friends, pushing my comfort zone several times and of course, relaxing in a hammock, I can easily say Cairns was a really cool spot.
Although there’s a ton of water activities available at Airlie Beach, the crappy rainy weather limited my options. After travelling on the overnight bus, I arrived unrested at 7am. It was semi-cloudy, but after examining the rainy forecast for the next several days, I quickly booked a tour for that day.
There were complications with the first tour group – they didn’t actually get my reservation and left without me – but I was able to quickly jump onto other adventure drafting tour. With some wild waves, the raft jumped around like crazy, which completely soaked us and added to the thrill!
After some snorkeling, we made our way to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. This beach is famous for the bright white sand that consists of 98% pure silica. Apparently several world renowned cosmetics companies have tried to purchase sand for their beauty products, and was promptly denied.
Tides constant change the landscape, so the area never looks the same twice. It was lovely to dig my fingers and toes into the almost rubbery sand, and breath the fresh sea air.
The following days had craptastic weather, keeping me from further tours and adventures. Fortunately I met a cool gal from Toronto named Jane. Jane spent many months in New Zealand and was now looking for work in the area for the next 3 months. Tough life! I haven’t met many east coast Canadians in Australia, and we befriended each other pretty quickly.
During one of our walks along a country road, a white van stopped and warned us that a crazy person was accosting travelers. He said the police were on the lookout and that it’s not safe to walk on the road. He then made room in the front seat of the van and offered us a lift. Jane and I looked at each other and both instantly believed we just met that crazy person. After declining politely, we hastily made our way back to town, occasionally looking over our shoulder.
The remaining days were very chilled; we cooked healthy food in the hostel, drank a few bottles of white wine, played cards, had afternoon coffee at the harbour and witnessed some spectacular sunsets. I’ve been neglecting my magic card tricks, so I attempted to perform a few; she was an easy audience on my amateur performance.
It felt comforting to be in good company and to slow down the pace, making the most of the short winter days. A winter in Australia wearing t-shirts and shorts; what a tough life!
