Off the boat and learning to walk on solid ground. KK picked up a nasty sinus thing; we think it was
a combination of nasty carpet and nasty A/C ventilation on the boat. Our hostel is across the street (and railroad tracks) from the “mall”. A mall like millions of others: Movie theater, food court, Scotch Tape store, etc. There is, however, a chiropractic clinic as well. We are excited to see it is a Gonstead practitioner (Gonstead is a type of chiropractic technique, one that we both use). We know there will be actual chiropractic tables. We wander in to introduce ourselves and borrow a few minutes of table time. The Doc is not in, but the staff rings him up to make sure it’s ok for us to intrude. It’s all good, and we get to adjust each other properly for the first time in weeks!
We are heading north to “The Daintree”. The Daintree North Conservation District is the national park rain forest section of the far north of the York Peninsula. It is where the rain forest runs right into (literally) the Coral Sea.
We are staying at Crocodylus, a safari-tent hostel built into the rain forest. It is amazing; scout camp with much better showers and a pool. There is a self-guided 2.5k trail through the jungle. Every hour or so it rains about ten to twelve minutes. Good jungle rain. Heavy enough you need to pay real close attention to hear someone speak. The 
tents and awnings are in top shape, and no leaks to tinkle in your cheerios. The post rain susurrus (I’ve waited years to use that word in a sentence!) is accompanied by the plink and plop of the jungle canopy releasing the water that didn’t make it through initially.
The jungle is everything that movies and TV make it out to be and more: Chirps, whoops, screeches, clicks, crunches and any other number of sounds in constant flux. Dense greenery abounds. Liana vines can grow upwards of a 
foot a day, and individual vines can reach ¾ of a mile in length. The flora and fauna are not Disneyesque… Almost every plant has another that it will crush, strangle, poison, suck-the-life-out-of, or just otherwise prevent from using the resources it wants for itself. This is not Fantasia with fairy nymphs and dancing buttercups. It’s Little Shop of Horrors, complete with life-size Audreys, and others that make even her seem downright kittenish. Pitcher plants, saprophytes, and all kinds of opportunists co-mingle and compete. When one is trying to walk through the jungle one particularly annoying plant is the Wait-a-While, or Lawyer Plant. Let your imagination work that for a moment… OK- it is a living, or even dead, vine-like tendril. It can be as thin as a spaghetti strand or up to the thickness of a phone cord and be any 
length. (I know there are Gen X/Yer’s reading this that will have no idea what a phone cord even is… Google it.) It is LIBERALLY covered in tiny, incredibly strong sharp barbed thorns. These things will hook anything silly enough to touch them. Think velcro with attitude. Once one has you, you immediately stop, slowly back up, and delicately unhook whatever article of cloth, pack, hat, glasses or anatomy that has been ensnared. The real trick is too not draw too much blood while maneuvering a highly flexible bit of vine that will be just as happy to puncture you as much as your stuff. As mentioned before, even a dead one has the ability to grab on.
Then there is the Strangler Fig family. This particular tree-vine species is a special kind of nasty. It is beautiful to look at, and gives the illusion of symbiosis with its “support” tree. A seed will find a nice treetop and drop a root to find soil. This root will have shoots grow off laterally to wrap the tree. A vine may actually start in the earth and climb, usually in a spiral pattern. If it travels out a branch, or the tree leans, it lowers a tendril. Once this tendril finds earth, it thickens into an additional root-trunk. As the fig matures, it thickens and toughens. The python of the plant world, it slowly squeezes the host tree into nothingness. As the host tree decays, it continues to feed the fig. This might take decades, or even centuries.
Wild pigs and cane toads are noxious introduced species. Both are responsible for the elimination
of untold indigenous niche species, and are all but impossible to control. Wild pigs were originally farm pigs. A few escape and a century later you have feral pigs that are completely in touch with their inner savage. Wild pigs have recently discovered the delicacy of turtle eggs. The nesting grounds on the Cape York Peninsula have been decimated this year (Luckily turtles run a regular breeding cycle. Unfortunately they already barely keep ahead of attrition. Check back a couple of posts for Mon Repos in Bargara.) Over 10,000 pigs have been culled this year with little obvious change in environmental impact. Our little walk in the woods passes over dozens of pig “routs” along the trail.Cane toads are another bad idea gone worse… Originally from South America, cane toads had been brought over to Oz in the 1930’s to help control some sugar cane pest. Cane toads are so toxic that snakes die before they can swallow one. Crocs won’t eat them, and any other creature that tries, dies. The bug they were supposed to eat lives 3 to 5 feet above the ground in the tops of the sugar cane. Cane toads are big fat beasties that are as big as a grapefruit and live on the ground… Let logic direct you to the effectiveness of this particular biological pest agent. To make matters worse, cane toads eat anything, and I mean anything, that moves and will fit into their mouths: Frogs, birds, snakes, small mammals, anything but other cane toads. They have spread throughout Queensland, and are working their way into the surrounding states as well. It is not a good thing.
The toad population growth curve was held somewhat in check by an active, voluntary Queensland-wide eradication system. Nighttime drivers would aim for toads in the road. Gardener/golfers would walk their yards with a five-iron and practice their swings. Amateur (and I’m sure some pro) cricketers would practice batting skill sets. While sounding messy, the toads’ ends were swift. An animal rights group pushed for legislation making it illegal, and a finable offense, to intentionally kill a cane toad… and it went through. The only legal way to kill a cane toad now is to capture it, place it in a baggy, put it in your freezer, and then bring the hibernating toadsicle to a disposal center. Needless to say this has resulted in an incredible explosion in the toad population, and a proportionate loss in native species. Who wants a freezer full of toadsicles every night?
DEET is the tropical north cologne of choice. Is it good for the skin/body? Nope. Is it relatively harmless? Nope. Is it effective? Absolutely. We gave the natural repellents more than a fair go. They actually seemed to be attractants. Especially to sheep. Since dengue fever is still a regional concern (Two new cases in Townsville as we were passing through), and being eaten alive by any number of winged nasties takes the fun out of the outdoors, we broke down and used a DEET based repellent. A local one, made here in QLD as a matter of fact. It is highly effective, giving us each a personal cone of protection. Things will orbit, but never land. A little bit goes a long way. What went wrong with DEET environmentally in the 70’s was the “more-is-better” application of gallons repeatedly to flora and wetlands. A few strategic controlled-volume sprayings would have
been more effective, and without the food-chain concentration disaster that occurred.We traveled until the sealed road ended at Cape Tribulation. Still 130 kilometers short of Cooktown, the rest of the way is four-wheel territory. Our hire car is nice, but it doesn’t have a FWD or a snorkel, both of which are necessities for that particular trip. Snorkels are extensions of a cars air intake system; commonly capped black tubes the run up the edge of the windshield. This prevents water from getting sucked into the engine when driving through rivers, creeks, streams,
ponds, puddles, etc. In the wet, any road in QLD can become one of the latter. We stopped off at Daintree Ice Creamery on the way back. They specialize in exotic local fruit ice creams like 
jackfruit, mango, lychee, mangosteen, etc. They also have a wonderfully rare mascot. A Golden Orb Weaver spider has built a nest on their porch. This is the one very big spider. Her abdomen alone was the size of a large plum tomato. In her defense she was pregnant. Five very tiny males were along the periphery of the web, waiting, and no doubt in quivering anticipation, to become snacks.Kimberly discovered first hand (literally first finger or her kitchen finger as she loves to call it…) that
even the little creatures are not interested in avoiding conflict. Our little tent-cabin was set up with bunk beds. She was bottom bunk. We had come to grips with the walnut sized cockroach we shared the space with, and even got used to the mystery scratching and skittering along the tent walls during the night. Kimberly is an active sleeper, and that was enough to annoy our here fore unknown bunkmate. In the wee hours of the morning JD is awakened by a loud clear pronouncement: “Honey, Something Bit Me”. JD, figuring mozzie or sandfly groggily looks over the edge of the bunk. KK has the headlamp pointing at her bloody finger. It was bleeding well, and KK was incredibly calm, all things considered. We washed the fingertip with JD’s peroxide based contact solution. KK had been 
dreaming her finger kept getting pinched in a sliding door, until the door slammed closed. While sleeping she stuck her hand behind the mattress, into the nest of a melomys. A melomys is a jungle mammal about twice the size of a field mouse. The poor little bugger, scared by the intruder, tried to give a hint or two by giving little nibbles at the giant thing that invaded its home. After that proved ineffective it gave a chomp. That worked spectacularly. KK, fully awake now, moved up to the dining area to read and have a coffee. JD unsuccessfully tried to sleep some more. Every time he was on the edge of REM, he would imagine something crawling along a limb… When KK came down to check on him, he had managed to completely mummy wrap himself in the top sheet, much to her delight.Even with the bloodthirsty fauna, the jungle was a wonderful experience. We traveled back to civilization to enjoy Easter in Cairns- a nice traditional seafood meal on the waterfront. Oz, like NZ, has the public holiday surcharge. It also has the restaurants willing to suck it up. We chose one of those. Our servers were fun, and the meal delicious. A brief wander through the Night Market led us past the Chinese Massage businesses. You are touted in for the 30-minute full-body seated massage, only $15! Of course the therapists find a few really tight areas that need the special herbal patches, at $5 a pop. JD had four; KK had six, plus a pack to put on tomorrow. The aroma was Eucalyptus/Menthol/Camphor. Quite the bouquet in our little hostel room. Thai massage only two weeks away!
Christine flew in from Melbourne to join us at Mal & Leoni’s in Port Douglas. (Dougie, Port Dougie, or to the real locals: Port) Port is one of the last accessible bastions of civilization in the far north. It is a resort area, still in the growth phase: full time pop about 5,000. The residents have managed to keep building managed and controlled in such a way as to not lose the character of the town. Quite a few movies have been filmed here, most recently “Fools Gold” with Matthew McConaughy. Actor Heath Ledger, one of KK’s favorite voices, was from here as well.
Recreationally there is 4-mile beach, a great stretch of sand and surf, as well as a smattering of golf courses. Mal & Leoni have a great place on the top floor of a commercial building. Leoni welcomes many of the local critters: froggies, geckos, sunbirds and such make their homes on her
lanai and porches. Cane toads have done such a number on the local tree frog population that a local woman has set up a protected breeding program. She provides fertilized frog egg clusters to willing participants to let hatch and set up residence in gardens and greenery. Leoni had a hatching of white-lipped tree frogs not too long ago. A few still like to visit the lanai regularly.
One froggy in particular seemed to be species confused… In the early morning hours Christine became aware of a rhythmic drumming on her abdomen. Assuming it was a moth or some other flying pest she turned on her light to deal with the intruder. Much to her surprise and dismay it was a large green tree frog using her belly as a personal trampoline! She maintained her cool, removing said froggy back to the lanai. She noticed the hole in the screen door it had used to gain entry and promptly 
barricaded it. Thoroughly. With tissue, paper towels, furniture, anything handy. The next day she took a needle and heavy thread and performed an admirable thatching job. Only the tiniest of frogs would be able to enter her sanctum at this point… The next night, on a whim, JD checked the lanai. Sure enough, a different little froggy was maintaining vigil outside Christine’s door! Much to everyone’s (except Christine and KK) delight, it immediately hopped into the room when the door was opened. It landed on KK who inexplicably went into girly-girl mode, she still isn’t sure why, she grew up in the woods after all… JD promptly rescued the poor little froggy, who happily climbed up his arm, across his ear, and perched atop his head contentedly.
The Wet has been overstaying its welcome up north. The rains continued to be 
frequent, and sometimes persistent, during most of our stay. It has limited beach time, however trips to the Tablelands and a hike through the Mossman Gorge are relatively dry.One of the hotels in Port hosts a Monday night Hold ‘em poker tournament. JD and Mal decide to sit in. It was very casual… $5 buy in gets you a large pile of chips. Prizes were drink vouchers and food credit. It was a much more casual game than JD was used to. The people were fun, and there were more than a few characters in the bunch. JD lasted about an hour and a half. (Note to his poker buddies: He lost an all-in on an outside straight draw with a pair of sixes to a pair of eights… “Billing” at its finest.)
Chief amongst the local denizens are the salt-water crocs. These saurian survival machines choose to ignore (or maybe just don’t believe) that man is the theoretical top of the food chain. They are fairly common in the region, and you definitely don’t swim or walk along certain sections of stream and beach. In general, you respect them by staying out of their creek and off of their mud-bank, and they won’t eat you. Just like in Florida, a lost ball on the golf course should just stay a lost ball… Take the stroke and drop a freshie. Is your arm worth a $4 Titelist?
Driving the sealed roads through the cane fields also has adventure potential. Mal shared this little tidbit: He was cruising along and startled a large Tai Pan (Usually in position 1 or 2 as the most venomous and cantankerous snake, depending on your resource) lying across the road. Most snakes bothered this way would haul ass into the bush. This particular specimen opted to try and bite the “eye” of this most annoying mechanical beast. The snake, in the lightning fast way that they do, struck the driver’s side window, inches from Mal’s head… The blow was so loud; Mal had difficulty hearing for quite some time afterward.
This is apparently not an unusual story. Mal had another similar event with a different species of snake as well. In both cases the lesson was: “Always have you’re A/C on and your windows up when driving the far north”.
Not everything in the tropics tries to damage you. There are any number of critters that happily go
about their business without caring about man, one way or another. In the bush (here read: Jungle) Lace Monitors, lizards only 2 meters long, will cozily walk through the lower level of your home and other creatures 
are truly just going about their business and trying to survive. Sometimes they end up in your house or garage. Just show them the door, and most will happily saunter/flap/hop/slither/ or crawl out.While the weather was not optimum, the visit to Port was excellent. There was a certain calm before the storm. The “season” begins in the next few weeks. Port is part of Oz’s Florida. As the southern climes cool off, people head north to warm up (Remember this Antipodal thing, it’s all upside down) and Port is a prime destination. We have a few days in Brissie (Brisbane) before Thailand.
Gil is our host in Brissie. We met him and Vanessa on the ’04 cruise as well. Sadly he and Vanessa have parted ways since then, though we did get to visit with both of them during our stay. Gil was our master negotiator during off-ship forays during the cruise. He would regularly get taxis and shop keepers to inconceivably low rates.
Gil has a “groodle”, a cross between a golden retriever and a standard poodle. Her name is JD… When they got the dog, the breeder needed a name for the registration and they had just been looking at photos from the sailing cruise… JD is sure some distilled beverages were involved as well.
The plan is to see the Gold Coast to round out this Oz trip. Byron Bay was the top of the list. From all accounts we have heard, Surfers Paradise has lost all character and is just one long Oceanside hotel condo. Gil was gracious enough to lend us his car for the day. JD really enjoyed cruising around in a right hand drive BMW M3. JD figured it would be months before he drives again, and was happy/giddy/exuberant/thrilled to “circulate the fluids” in Gils car.
Truthfully, driving Gils car virtually circulated JD’s fluids.
Morning coffee while walking the beach at Coolangata allowed an unobstructed view of Surfers Paradise to the north. SP could have been lifted from any part of the east coast of Florida. Coolangata is rapidly being developed, but it hasn’t hit saturation yet. Another 45 minutes down the road brought us to Byron Bay.
Byron Bay is home to the easternmost point on the continent of Oz. A 
lighthouse guards the bluff, and a few kilometer long trail takes you to the beach and rocks that are the currently boundary between land and sea. Geological tidbit: 10,000-20,000 years ago, the coast was another 75 or so kilometers out, during the last ice age… Sea levels were about 100 meters/380 feet lower than today.
It is another beach destination along the Queensland/New South Wales coast. There was a 
wonderful organic restaurant just a block off the beach. After a walk about amongst the shops we head inland to Nimbin.I know I have mentioned Leavenworth, Washington before. Leavenworth was a logging/mining community in the eastern Cascade Mountains. In the late 60’s the tress were all cut, and the mines played out. The city council and businesses dreamt up a Bavarian theme village. It required EVERY business to participate for
it to work. They all did, and it did work. Leavenworth thrives year round on outdoor recreation and tourism.I mention this to set the stage for Nimbin. Pot (marijuana) is the focus of the entire community. There are hemp museums, any number of Amsterdam style cafés, head shops, oldddd hippies hanging out with a good buzz on, and festivals and parades throughout the year. Please remember pot is still very illegal in Oz, though it is my understanding that this particular community gets a good “Schultzing” (“I know nutink! I see nutink!”) from law enforcement.
Thursday is spent preparing for our Thailand departure. Rearranging of packed stuff, culling of unneeded kilos, and the hunt for books for the 9.5 hour flight.
Friday is flight day. Oz began the “100 mL fluids/1 liter baggie” rule this month for international flights. At least in Oz the officials walk amongst the international terminal announcing the rules and supplying a free regulation baggie. The gal at the counter was mildly confused by our Thai tourist visa, and had to check with her supervisor to make sure we did not indeed need an outbound ticket. After breezing through immigration control we had a bite and tried to spend the last of our Ozzie currency.
Next stop: Thailand.
Oz tidbits:
Kilometers Driven: 6,800+ (about 4,400 miles)
Kilometers Flown: 3,300
Kilometers Train: 1,000
Photos Taken: 2,642
Days in-country: 60
Gelato’s eaten: 46 (each)
Average UV index: 12
# of states visited: 5
Average gas price: AU$1.20/liter ($3.69/gallon US)
Percentage of Oz seen: Less than 10%
KK’s favorite (and only…) Ozzie word: Buggah!
Number of times mistaken for Canadian: Uncountable
Number of times recognized as from the states: ZERO
