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Australia |
| Down Underview |
| We reached Australia on 22nd December 1998, landing in a hot and sticky Cairns airport after an overnight flight from Singapore. We were just in time for Christmas and had in store a heavy programme of revelry and sunbathing! Australia is such a huge place that we'd already decided that we weren't going to see it all. We'd heard of people taking seven years or more just getting round its vast coastline. So with just six weeks available, we needed to be judicious. Our plan was to make our way down the east coast. We hoped to see something of Oz's old colonial heritage, which we did at Charters Towers, an old gold mining settlemement. We spent New Year's Eve chilling out in an Airlie Beach swimming pool, drinking champagne. We we're beached out by then, so it was back inland for some outback adventures at the Kroombit Cattle Station. Then it was back to the coast to Bundaberg for some amazing encounters with loggerhead turtles at the Mon Repos sanctuary. Further south, we stopped off at Hervey Bay to visit Frasier Island, the largest sand island in Australia. We were warned not to stay in Newcastle, NSW, but we did anyway, and quite liked it. From there we visited the Hunter Valley, loaded the boot full of wine and headed off to them thar Blue Mountains to visit my uncle who I hadn't seen for 18 years since he'd emigrated. We arrived in Sydney in late January, did the tourist stuff, spent a couple of days in Canberra, we flew off to New Zealand. |
| Christmas in Cairns | ||
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On arrival in Australia, you have to complete a lenghty customs form declaring all manner of things; 'wood, food, drink, sea shells, grass, animal parts dead or alive, traditional medicines..." I had visions of all of our Asian souveniers being consigned to the incinerator, since most matched these descriptions; Vietnamese puppet dolls - wood, cobra venom extract - traditional medicine, tiger balm - medicine, Thai sea shells! We despondently emptied out our prized possessions in front of the customs official at Cairns Airport, expecting to get an instantaneous jail sentence. However this is Oz, and the people are great; "That's a lovely chess set, where d'ya geddit?". Amazingly we were allowed in without confiscation of goods or personal incarceration. Our lack of sleep combined with the heat outside the airport, which was stifling and sticky, to make us feel like we were in a dream world. Indeed - spending Christmas in 32 Celsius heat is pretty unreal. We were met by Brett, a larger than life and rather hirsute fellow from the superb Nomad's hostel, who drove us into town. |
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| Accommodation
in Cairns Christmas is a popular time to be travelling Down Under. All the hostels are booked out with gap year student types. We'd taken the precaution of pre-booking the Nomad's Utopia hostel six months in advance from the UK. This was the only accommodation booking we made in advance in our entire trip. It was also the best place we stayed in Australia. It used to be a Motel, and is amazing value. For $AUS 30 a night, you get an air conditioned double room with fridge and TV and what's more the place has a big bar which serves great food and a pool to cool off in. The only downer on this place is that it is a couple of miles out of town, but they run a fairly regular shuttle bus. Details: Nomad's Utopia hostel (702 Brice Highway. Cairns, QLD Telephone +61 7 4054 4444) |
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| Hot Shot Katie and the Topless Mullet
Man A couple of days before Christmas, there Hostel had laid on a serious pool competition. There were eight teams competing for the top prize of a free day's car renta; from Topless Cars. The Hostel manager, a rather effete bloke called Larry, had a heart of gold, but the organisational skill of a possum, so Katie stepped in and was soon writing up names on the board, marsalling errant competitors and so forth. We just about scraped through our first game against a British couple, Linda and Mark, by which time Katie started to get stoked. We easily saw off two English teachers from Japan in round two to reach the final against Mullet Man, the proproiertor of Topless cars. Mullet Man was a right cocky bastard, who obviously competed regularly and had no intention of letting his precious car out for free. It was a tight game, and I went to pieces, but Pot Shot KT became the luckiest player in history potting the most unlikely combintions and finally clinching the game by doubling the black into the bottom left pocket. She was leaping off the walls in ecstacy. Mullet headed Michael's bad-loser words were 'of course I didn't intend to win it looks bad' - yeah like hell you didn't - where's the keys to the jeep dude? |
 Why not go Topless and rent a car from Mullet Head |
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Christmas Eve - Party Night Cairns is a party town, especially around Christmas and the New Year. Christmas Eve started out at the Utopia, with a big eating and drinking session. This was followed by party games, but the real action was downtown, where we ended up getting very wet and very wrecked at foam party in the Malibu Beach Club. We got to bed about three am, which was bad
enough, but as we got up on Christmas day, I bumped into our pals, Rob
and John who were still up partying at 9am with a half dozen or so
other die hard revellers ! They were supposed to be joining us for
Christmas lunch later! Katie and I swapped presents. I had bought
her some nice clothes the day before in a mall in Cairns. I figured
this to be a good idea - the poor girl had put up with the same
raggedy T-shirts for nearly 10 months. Then we put in an appearance at
Saint Monica's Cathedral for the Christmas service, given by the
bishop, who looked as if he'd been out partying til 9am too. He was so
drunk that he drawled "I'd like to wish you all a very Happy
Easter", as he leaned heavily on his crook for support. |
 Katie enjoys her Christmas Lunch |
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| We'd splashed out
Aus$72 each and booked a table at Cairn's poshest hotel, the Reef,
for their festive lunch. It was a superb spread. As well as the usual
turkey and stuffing, there were acres of fresh shellfish, oysters,
lobster, and a new one for me - Moreton Bay bugs. Wine and champagne was
complementary! The only thing we missed was our families. John and Rob
did show up eventually, no doubt spurred on by the fact they'd spent so
much on the meal, but Rob could only stomach one bread roll before he
sloped off to the bathroom. |
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| After lunch we
relaxed with big fat cigars and brandy in the hotel's lounge area. We
were joined by a couple of the foulest mouthed people I've ever met, a
couple of very pissed rednecks from Cooktown with a nasty racist
attitude (towards anyone who wasn't from Cooktown). In between running
contraband up and down the coast, they liked to shoot wild pigs. Visions
of the film "Deliverance" crossed my somewhat befuddled mind.
As I pondered how best to make our excuses, Katie contracted a severe
cramp in her leg, and we made our excuses to jeers of "Jeez I
though yers Poms waz s'posed to be partyers. I's got more stiff in me
little finger ... etc". Katie claims her cramp wasn't staged, but I
think her timing was perfect. We spent the rest of the day by the pool
in a stupor. |
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Day Trips North from Cairns |
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Port Douglas is the next major town north of Cairns. It's a charming and upmarket township which was orignally established to service the Gold Rush in the hinterland. Today it is home to an impressive marina packed with luxury yachts, and a bustling high class tourism industry servicing the nearby Great Barrier Reef. Continuing north from Port Douglas, you head through seemingly endless sugar plantations up to the town of Mossman. Just inland from here, local beauty spot the Mossman Gorge, provides welcome respite from the heat. Here you can chill out in one of the many rockpools beside the fast flowing river and numerous waterfalls. |
 Topless jeep at Yorkie's Knob! |
| Eating
Out in Port Douglas - Loads of choice tucker and some great restaurants. We ate al fresco at Portofinos, 31 Macrosan St, (07) 4099 5458 |
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 I'm not sure that stick's quite good enough? |
Further
north still, you cross the Daintree river on an old Ferry and head into
Daintree county, which is major league red-neck land. A sign at
the entrance warns you not to get out of your car anywhere near any
rivers or creeks since they are all infested with the man-eating
estuarine crocodile. We made full use of our topless rental car on the
dirt tracks and had to cross several creeks on the way. You definitely
shouldn't get out of your car to test the depth before you cross. The
road deteriorates the further northg you go, and few people live out
here. We didn't see any crocs. Having said that, you very rarely do see
them until it's too late! We did see some the next day at Hartley's Creek, near Port Douglas. This is a commercial crocodile farm, famous for its daily crocodile attack show. Fortunately, this is a non-participatory show. The crocodile demonstrates his awesome killing abilities against a leather ball suspended from a large stick, emerging like lightning from the murky water and thrashing its prey from side to side. "Children should stand well back from the fence - unless you want to be part of the feeding programme!" the warden warned us as he stepped inside. "These creatures are instinctive killers. They'll wait for hours totally immersed apart from their eyes, not twitching a muscle until WHAM! Surprise is their main weapon.". |
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| As
well as the live 'attack' display, there are many other crocodiles on
show many of them captured from local creeks, where they had started to
becomea a nuisance, One of these was the enormous 'Sollie', so called
after the name of the dog he ate. The dog's owners, who were swimming
with their dog in the river were lucky the dog was a more eager swimmer
than they were! Another croc had heaten a womans handbag (they should've
called him Gucci I guess). The owner had put in a huge insurance claim
for jewelery that was in the bag, but 'Gucci' didn't like the taste and
regurgitated the bag a few days later. Needless to say there were no
lavish jewels inside. |
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Almost as scary as the crocodiles are the cassowaries. These endangered birds, native only to North Queensland, are a bit like emus, big flightless and dumb, but they've got a real mean streak and they don't much care for humans. They can be quite dangerous, attacking prey by running at them at speeds of upto 60 kmh and kicking them Bruce Lee style. Just to be really nasty, they've got razor sharp toenails like daggers that they use to lacerate their foe - nice. | |
| Cairns
is one of the closest points on the mainland to the Great
Barrier Reef, so we felt compelled to take a trip out to see
it. Fortunately, a friend of ours works for one of the companies that
run trips out there, and she managed to secure us a place on an amazing
trip abpuard the Quiksilver catamaran, with a fairly good discount
applied. The 'Reef' is everything it's cracked up to be, a natural wonderland jam packed with exotic marine life; forests of multicoloured coral, thousands of beautiful fish. It's over 2000 miles long, a teeming ecosystem. I went diving, and took an underwater camera with me and buzzed around amid parrot fish, angel fish and said hello to a huge Maori Wrass - about 5ft long. No sharks thank goodness. |
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| The hospitality on board the boat was superb. Sarong-clad hostesses served up a lavish lunch of shellfish and cold meat with a plethora of salads accompanied by cool Aussie wines. | ||
| It was
hard to tear ourselves away from Cairns. You get used to a place, get to
know some people, get comfortable, but it's over 3000kms to Sydney, and
that's if you go direct. We wanted to have enough time to see a bit more
of Oz than just Cairns so on 29th December, we finally headed loaded up
the Toyota Corona hire car and headed south without any particular idea
where we were going to finish up. The drive south from Cairns is a monotonous drag through miles and miles of cane fields, with the occasional pioneering township, such as Mission Beach, or the unutterably dull Townsville (all drive-in bottleshops, laundromats and byurger bars). In fact there were more drive in bottle shops than there were petrol stations! |
 "Meet me in the pool!"- our mate Kate |
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| We decided to head inland in search of some of Austrlia's historic mining heritage to the gold mining relic Charters Towers | ||
You are
reading the story of Adrian and Katie's travels through the India, Far
East and Australasia between August 1998 and February 1999.
Adrian and Katie have put the rat race on hold for a year to travel the
world.
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Adrian & Katie's World Tour: Australia |
Last Updated: 31 December 2001 |
| Web Page by: Adrian Ball (email: adrian.ball@virgin.net) |