Adventures in Far North Queensland: Coral, Cassowaries, and Crocodiles

Mangrove Orchard @ Winery

Our first vacation together flying within Australia. We flew with Jenny's brother from Brisbane to Cairns (gateway to the Great Barrier Reef). It is just over a 2 hour flight from Brisbane. It was a short trip arriving Saturday afternoon and leaving very early on Wednesday.

Sunday we attended church at the Cairns Cathedral which has amazing stain glass windows with the creation story wrapping around the church. It was very cool to see the images emerge as the sun rose illuminating them for us to see. We started the day driving around the Atherton Tablelands the area inland (west of Cairns) checking out some of the beautiful waterfalls in the area. We drove by quite a few dairies and were lucky enough to have spotted a Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo which another group had already found. The weather wasn't all that great with misting rain. We stopped at a dairy museum in Malanda which David toured and quite enjoyed. Later we stopped and sampled some mango wine and liquors. David, our chauffeur, drove us to Chillagoe which is considered an Outback town. In Far North Queensland, it is not very far to get to the outback (2-3 hour drive), however from where we live in Southeast Queensland it is at least a 10 hour drive. We explored some of the local rock formations and termite mounds and passed many cattle and a few road trains (semi trucks with three trailers or more) on the way.

Giant Clam

On Monday we spent the day on the reef. The Great Barrier Reef is immense stretching over 2600km (1600 miles). From Cairns it is a couple hour boat ride to the outer reef (recommended over the close Green Island). We visited Michaelmas Cay and Paradise Reef on our tour. The coral and variety of coral was quite amazing but I have seen greater numbers and variety of fish in the

Anenome fish

Caribbean and also likely in Julian Rocks. There are also giant clams up to 4 feet across (or even larger) which were amazing. The water wasn't cold but we still rented wet suits to keep us a bit more comfortable in the water. The water clarity was good and we didn't have to worry about any box jellies or other stinging jellies (see warning sign below) at this time of year (winter in the southern hemisphere). David and Jenny stuck to snorkeling but introductory dives and glass bottom boat tours are also available. Jenny's brother did two introductory dives and saw huge sea turtles on his first dive. Diving will hopefully be tried out in our future trips to the reef.

Cow Bay Beach

We spent Tuesday heading further north into the Daintree National Park (about 1.5 hour drive north of Cairns) which is a world heritage listed tropical rainforest. On the way we stopped and walked along the beach in Newell. Justin and Jenny managed to loose a "returning" plastic boomerang to the ocean where it sunk. However upon our return walk quite a while later it had, quite to our surprise, washed onto shore . We continued north and crossed the Daintree River using its cable run ferry (the only way to cross) and then made a stop in Cow Bay to take in the beautiful beach and scenery.

We stopped and did a walk in the rainforest in search of Cassowaries (large emu like birds where the males have bright blue and red coloring and a bony plate on top of their head, see photo below). On the way north to Cape Tribulation (as far as you can go in a two wheel drive vehicle) we did come

Male Cassowary @ Zoo

across a juvenile or female cassowary running on the side of the road. We got out at Cape Tribulation where the reef and rainforest meet for a brief look around before turning around. After we crossed the ferry again we participated in a sunset/evening wildlife watching tour on the Daintree River. We choose to go with Dan Irby's Mangrove Adventures and we were not disappointed. We saw at least five salt water crocodiles, a tree frog, and many different birds and were lucky enough that the clouds cleared enough for some star gazing to take in the southern cross and scorpio constellations. We stopped for dinner in Port Douglas where there was a variety of restaurants to choose from. The next morning we were up quite early for our 5:30am flight back to Brisbane.

Saltwater Crocodile (Daintree River)

Floods

As many of you know by now parts of Australia have been experiencing severe flooding, but Jenny and I are safe. The floods first hit the city of Rockhampton which is an eight hour drive north of here and with rains that have been continuing for weeks more and more areas are being affected. Queensland, the state of Australia where we live has been experiencing record breaking rainfall and now the ground is saturated, dams are full and when it rains it just runs to the rivers. With it raining almost everyday we are seeing a lot more communities afflicted with flooding. Last weekend it was the city of Gympie about 4 hours north of us and now it is hitting Brisbane about 45 minutes north. For me this means I cannot travel out to farms to work as most every major road is either underwater or severely damaged. Again Jenny and I are safe as the gold coast is not built around any sizable river the area we live in has some elevation, but we are praying for the thousands of people who are being displaced. We want to help out the government and red cross are not looking for volunteers yet.

Snorkeling at Julian Rocks

New Year's Day we drove to Byron Bay and went on a snorkeling tour at Julian Rocks Marine Park. We had just purchased snorkeling gear and reserved the tour with money from my parents for Christmas. The weather wasn't the nicest as the sky was completely covered with clouds and a light mist of rain was falling. I guess the rain didn't really matter as we were going to get wet completely in a matter of minutes. The tour operator drove us to the beach where the boats were put in. The ride was a bit rough and exhilarating with swells about 3 feet or more. The marine reserve is about 2.5 kilometers (~1.5 miles)  from the mainland coast off Byron Bay. More than 500 tropical and temperate fish species are known to found within the reserve. As soon as we got in the water you could see fish everywhere. The water was actually was quite deep up to 30 feet in places near the rocks which are remains of former volcanoes. Unfortunately the visibility was not very good. The divers in our group were able to go much deeper and saw a loggerhead turtle that was at least 70 years old. We did spot a carpet shark on the ocean floor below us but it was nothing to be worried about. It was very cool to swim with and be completely surrounded by schools of fish. Julian Rocks is considered a top ten dive location in Australia. Although it lacks in coral, the fish are amazing and we were told that the fish here much better than what we would see in the Great Barrier Reef. We will need to spend some more time breaking in our new snorkeling gear and plan to return here and head to the Great Barrier Reef for some more snorkeling. Unfortunately the underwater photos did not turn out very well because of poor visibility. We decided to cut our road trip short and head home stopping for lunch near the ocean in Kingscliff. Since Byron Bay is less than a 90 minute drive from where we live we decided to come back to the area and explore the numerous national parks at another time when the weather is nicer.

Road Trip

We woke up at our campsite at Sundown National Park to the sound of screaming cicadas and decided to pack up and get out of there as soon as possible. We were originally lured to this campsite with the promise of a hot shower and a guaranteed spot with online booking. There were showers but the only running water on the grounds was in the river 500 feet away. If you wanted a hot shower you had to get water from the river and pour it into a donkey boiler they had next to the showers. The boiler was wood fired and I am assuming the water you used for a shower was from the condensed steam coming out of the boiler and you had to cool it and transfer it to an algae coated tank above the showers. I really don't know how it worked and we were not going to try it because we had no firewood and we had showered the day before and didn't need to work that hard to get one this morning. We had our stuff packed up and were on our way out within a half hour of waking up. The campsite was beautiful but I was getting a headache from the cicadas. I took my time driving out of the park stopping a couple times to remove medium sized sharp rocks off the road so that they would not scrape the bottom of our tiny car or ruin the tyres (Aussie spelling). As soon as we made it back to tar roads I apologized to the car and promised to never again take it on any gravel roads.
Shortly out of the park we stopped at an unmanned fruit stand we spotted the evening before. It felt weird raiding some strangers refrigerators in a small shed by the road but all the fruit and vegetables were in plastic bags and had a price written on them. We chose a bag of apricots and deposited three dollars into the coin box on the wall. Traveling a little further along we turned south onto the New England Highway and crossed the state line into New South Wales. The first town we came to was Tenterfield where we stopped just long enough to take a picture of the grand Stannum House. Evidently in the early 1880's this area was booming with the mining of tin, it was so prosperous that they built this building in hopes of it becoming the government house and the city becoming the capitol of the soon to be formed country of Australia.














From Tenterfield we stayed on the New England Highway through Glen Innes a town very proud of its Scottish heritage. Next we drove through Armidale which is known for its real fall season complete with changing colors of the leaves. From Armidale we headed back east on Grafton Road otherwise known as the Waterfall Way toward Coffs Harbour. We only had time to visit a couple of the many national parks along the way. We stopped at Oxley Wild Rivers National Park to have our picnic lunch. At this site the Chandler and Wollomombi rivers have cut a 400 meter deep gorge and at one vista you can see the falls of both rivers at once. Wollomombi is the second (or third depending on source) tallest water fall in Australia at 200 meters.

After lunch and taking in the amazing views I drove the winding mountain roads toward our next stop, the rainforest in Dorrigo National Park. As we got closer to Dorrigo the landscape got greener and more rolling. We were entering an area that used to be a major dairy production area. I was excited to see cows grazing on the green hillsides in a landscape that could have been in southern Germany.
The rainforest in Dorrigo were unique again but here they had a much better visitors center and a board walk that went straight out off the side of a slope into the tree tops of the forest. The easy to walk trails wound around trees draped with vines. Unfortunately we did not travel very far on the trails as I had a goal of making it to the next town to meet up with a fellow WestfaliaSurge milking equipment dealer that I may be working with. We also planned on continuing on the road to find our next campsite before dusk. Upon arriving in Bellingen we finally had cell phone reception so I called the dealer we were supposed to meet. He was not home yet and told us to have a look around town for a bit. We walked around the small touristy town and sat down to enjoy some home made gelato just off of the main street.

I called the dealer again and he was home so we went over to his house to talk about the possibility of me working with him on some future projects. We had a great chat before continuing on to find where we were to sleep for the night. Securing a campsite in New South Wales turned out to be a lot harder than back in Queensland where we started the day because they did not reserve campsites in any of the many national parks near where we driving. We did not realize that Aussies celebrate New Years Eve like we celebrate the fourth of July. The parks along the coast were packed with people who looked like they had been there for a week. After stopping at several campsites, driving many hours and calling several hotels, we gave up and headed inland to find an affordable motel which actually had a vacancy in the town of Casino. Driving the streets of Casino was eerily like we had found ourselves back in some small town in Nebraska. But it was comfortable and quiet as we saw the new year in by watching the spectacular firework display in Sydney on TV.

Kangaroos!

Mount Lindesay

Woodenbong Police Station

Fortunately we had a couple of nice weather days just before the New Year. We took advantage of the excellent weather,  it had been raining for the past week and half straight, and began on our 1400 kilometer (870 miles) road trip through the countryside to the west and south of the Gold Coast where we live. First we headed west to Beaudesert where we stopped and picked up groceries. Then we drove southwest on the Mount Lindesay Highway through Rathdowney. On they way we stopped to take a few photos including Mount Lindesay which we had been driving by for hours, the police station in the small town of Woodenbong, and the Killarney Hotel in Killarney.

Killarney Hotel

We stopped for our picnic lunch along the river at a park in Killarney. This area had recently had a lot of rain and we could see signs that the river had been much higher and flooded the park where we had stopped. We continued our drive to Warwick and then headed south on the New England Highway to Stanthorpe.

On our way into Stanthorpe we got off on the fruit run through Applethorpe. The area around Stanthorpe is at a higher elevation, 1000-1200 meters and posts some of the coldest temperatures in Queensland. Surprisingly it can even freeze here during winter. It is located within a region referred to as the Granite Belt for all the large granite boulders. This area is very agricultural and the primary non-tropical fruit growing region in Queensland. Stanthorpe is full of vineyards, wineries, as well as fields of strawberries and orchards with apples, apricots, peaches, and nectarines. Strawberries and stone fruits were in season during our visit. We stopped at a few fruit stands to see what was available and prices. In town we took some photos of the Target country store, post office (complete with English crest) and went to the visitor center. This Princeton sized town of 4300 residents is a popular place for tourists. 

 

Unfortunately we only had enough time to make it to a strawberry farm due to our late arrival in town and businesses closing by 5pm. We stopped and  purchased a kilo (2.2 pound) package of fresh strawberries and headed on the road to our campsite at the remote Sundown National Park. I had made reservations online for our campsite, only $10. We knew we had to hurry so we could setup our tent before dark.

On the drive to the park we had a kangaroo run out in front of us but luckily there was enough distance between us. It was the first live kangaroo I had seen since arriving in Australia. The only kangaroos I saw before were dead on the side of the road. David had seen kangaroos on a couple of occasions on his drives in the country for work. I was surprised by how fast and graceful it was able to hop by us. It took us nearly 90 minutes to reach the park, all was sealed road but the last few miles being rough gravel with large rocks. David drove quite slowly and on our way into the park I spotted a kangaroo, and then another. We stopped and watched the pair a bit. As we got further into the park there were kangaroos everywhere on both sides of the road. We stopped several times and watched them. I would agree with David's description of kangaroos having a dog like face and ears kind of like a rabbit that can stand up. The kangaroos were very aware of our presence and watched us while they ate grass. They would only hop away if someone got out of the vehicle or if startled by our driving. There were hundreds of kangaroos in the area (a large group of kangaroos is a mob) and we spotted around 50 close to us. The young kangaroos, joeys, were with their mothers. Most joeys were fairly grown in size but we did spot one in the pouch. As it was getting dark we proceeded on to our campsite. On the way we spotted kangaroos eating grass in one of the camp sites. Considering the remoteness and the rough road to get there we were surprised to find people in at least four of the other campsites. When we got out of the car the sound of cicadas was deafening and we hoped it would not last all night. Luckily as it got darker the noise died down and stopped completely. We setup camp and then walked around exploring the campground a bit more walking out to the nearby river. Since there weren't any picnic tables and we didn't even have camp chairs we ended up just eating cold food in the car. There were fire rings but they were out of firewood that they usually supply and we hadn't picked up any on the way. Later we laid out on a blanket and stared up at the clear moonless sky. I don't know if I have ever seen so many stars or stars so bright. The next closest star gazing experience I had was at my Aunt Sharon's farm near Mille Lacs lake starring up at the milky way. The one familiar constellation was Orion which we could see in much greater detail. As it got later we could begin to see the Southern Cross constellation rising above the trees. Like any summer camping experience there were of course mosquitoes. The first day of our road trip adventure had come to a close under the starry Australian sky.

Our First Christmas Down Under

This was the first Christmas Eve dinner (feast) that we had made together. Our meal consisted of a rolled pork roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, bread, a roasted macadamia nut and mango salad, and bread pudding with rum sauce for dessert. We prepared everything except for the bread which we purchased from a local bakery.

We spent the entire afternoon working on the meal and it turned out quite well and tasted delicious. It was definitely not the same as being with our families which each have their own Christmas Eve traditions. Since it was just the two of us we had plenty of leftovers to enjoy for the coming days.

During the meal we reminisced about past Christmases. This was not our first Christmas together without snow or being away from family. After we were married we spent our first Christmas in Rome as part of our honeymoon. We left my Aunt Sharon's place very early on the morning of December 24th for our 5am flight. It was quite a memorable morning as it involved a lost passport, which was found just in time for us to catch our plane. We ended up running through the airport to arrive at our gate as final boarding was called. We spent Christmas Eve at airports and flying arriving in Rome on Christmas morning in time to hear the new Pope Benedict XIV give the Christmas address. Like our first Christmas abroad it is quite green here and rainy. We saw the sun on Monday and Tuesday when we had beautiful clear blue skies. However, it has been grey and rained every day since then. On the plus side it has kept the temperature from getting too hot as often Christmas can be one of the hottest days of the summer (95 F or warmer) here in Australia. It was about 78 degrees Fahrenheit for a high on Christmas with a low of 72. I am not sure whether friends and family, particularly in Minnesota, will be envious of the temperatures or just the lack of snow. However it is quite humid especially with all the rain that has been falling. In my phone conversations with my mom she keeps reminding me of how beautiful everything looks with the pine trees and yard all covered in a nice blanket of white snow. I can picture it but am not presently missing the idea of shoveling the record amounts of snow that has fallen in Minnesota and -20F temperatures. However it does feel different not having any snow or cold weather for Christmas.

For Christmas Day we attended church and afterwards volunteered at the James Jacob Fellowship Christmas Lunch which was being held in the church basement. This was the 3rd annual luncheon organized by a couple, Jan and Leigh who lost their son in 2005. It is geared towards individuals who have mental illnesses some who are currently hospitalized or institutionalized or anyone else who needed somewhere to be for Christmas day and  had signed up in advance for the catered meal. As it was raining it likely deterred some guests from attending but it was a good time. There was a kitchen crew that prepared all the food and served up the plates of food. David kept busy as the cappuccino man making the cappuccinos and serving them to the guests and volunteers. I participated in singing some Christmas carols and serving some of the plates of food to people seated at the tables and just having conversation with different people. I'm guessing there were around forty or so guests for the meal plus a dozen or so volunteers. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and the food. The meal consisted of salad, turkey, ham, potatoes, carrots, peas, and Christmas pudding with custard sauce. On the table were chocolates, candy canes, Christmas crackers (complete with paper hat, joke and toy), and confetti poppers (which explode and shoot confetti streamers). All guests received a gift bag with some small presents that had been donated. 

Volunteering at a Christmas luncheon was much different than our usual Christmas Day celebrations with family. Since both of our families lived in close proximities we were always able to attend two Christmas in one day, one at my Grandparents and another with David's relatives. In talking with people at the lunch we did learn more about the holiday traditions here in Australia and about the Gold Coast region. The traditional Christmas meal really isn't any different from those I've had in the USA but the Christmas or plum pudding is a holiday tradition we do not have. At my family Christmases there is always a wide variety of holiday desserts including cookies (or biscuits as they refer to them here), pies, rosettes, fudge, and other treats. I have heard from different coworkers that when the weather is really hot at Christmas time some families serve cold meats or have picnics at the beach. I can understand why they would not want to heat up the house with roasting meat and all the traditional fixings. 

Later that evening David and I watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation which was being broadcast on the television. This movie is a staple of my family's celebration of Christmas as they watch it every year on Christmas Eve.

We hope that all our friends and family (around the world) had a wonderful Christmas and wish you all many blessings ahead in 2011.

Christmas preparation

Christmas is almost here in Australia and we are making preparations for the holiday. Like in the USA shops have had their Christmas junk out since mid November and the cities have decorated the streets. Unlike the USA the radio stations are not playing that many Christmas songs and very few people have real Christmas trees. I have, however, heard one song and it cracks me up; here is the link to the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnJ8jsw4BSo, the video is lame but the song is what many Aussies like. We have purchased a fake tree for $10 from KMART and decorated it with $25 worth of lights and a few decorations I brought back with me on my recent visit to Minnesota. The day after Christmas is Boxing Day (another holiday) and it is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year. Between Christmas and New Years only retail shops will be open, but all other business will be closed down. No one will be at Jenny's lab and I have been told that farmers don't really want to have me come by unless it is an emergency. However since I did not work for the three weeks while I was in the USA I need to work whenever I can. Unfortunately Jenny and I cannot make a big trip during that week. We are planning a couple more small excursions and hope to be able to get out of town for a day or two.