Downshift Musings

Monday Rich and I flew up to Cairns in the north of Queensland but before we left we had a couple of fun days in Melbourne. Last Saturday was the end of the Chinese New Year so we wandered the streets of Chinatown which were packed with people lining up at their favorite Chinese restaurants. The night culminated in a fireworks down by the river that we could hear and (kind of) see from our apartment. Sunday morning we explored a new Anglican church (St. James Old Cathedral) which we liked very much. Then we hopped over to the Victoria Market for an afternoon of Brazilian Carnival music, capoeira and food.

In Cairns we actually stayed in Trinity Beach where we rented another Airbnb apartment. At 1300 square feet it was huge – almost as big as our first two houses. Rich was once again tasked with the driving, but at this point he’s quite adapted to driving on the left and crazy roundabouts. Trinity beach is a quiet local beach with a little promenade and a small netted swimming area to protect against jellyfish.

The weather was obnoxiously hot and humid at 91degrees and 70% humidity. Everyone had told us we were going in the wrong season (rainy). We had tropical rainstorms off and on pretty much the whole time we were there.

Wet Tropics Rainforest

After getting settled in Monday, we headed to the rainforest in the Daintree National Park on Tuesday. It was about an hour drive up an amazingly scenic coastal road and then amongst sugar cane plantations to get to Mossman Gorge, the southern section of the park. We took a shuttle bus that carried us from a visitor’s center across aboriginal lands up to the gorge. Here we hiked a few kilometer circuit of the rainforest around the gorge. We were pretty secluded most of the time and the sounds of the rainforest were pretty special, like a meditation recording at times.

Proceeding further north up into cattle country we headed to Daintree village where we, on the spur of the moment, took a crocodile river cruise. The river cruise was fun and we saw some interesting birds, butterflies and bush, but not a single crocodile. Unfortunately, the weather was too hot and all the crocs were well concealed under water cooling off.

The Great Barrier Reef

On the recommendation of our AirBnB host we signed up for a snorkel/dive tour out of Port Douglas, about 40 minutes north of Trinity Beach. The tours out of Port Douglas head out to the Agincourt reefs, a section of ribbon reefs on the outer edge with the reputation of being the world’s best snorkeling and diving site. A couple hour catamaran ride got us out to the reefs and the adventure began.

Given my extreme fear of fish I fully expected to just paddle around the boat and not snorkel but once I got in the water with my wet suit, life preserver AND noodle one of the lifeguards convinced me to borrow a mask and take a look down at the reef. Much to my surprise I did not have a panic attack and was able to swim around using a mask and holding my breath to explore the reef, much like the other snorkelers. It helped a lot that the fish seemed far away and with all the gear on I was able to imagine like they were in an aquarium and not right next to me.

Our boat went to 3 different reef locations, for a variety of opportunities and views. Quite a few of the passengers were scuba divers including folks trying it out for the first time like Rich, below. We got to see amazing corals, giant fish, some sharks(!), a giant clam, fluorescent corals, echinoderms, puffer fish and many, many fish and organisms I don’t know the names for. For the most part we looked at the reefs from the side, not swimming over the top because the water is too shallow and the reef could be damaged. Alas, we have no photos, as the ones the photographer took (of me at least) were epically bad.

Kuranda

We finished off our visit in Cairns on Thursday by driving up the mountain to the town of Kuranda, which is generally-speaking just a tourist trap. There is a Sky Train cable system that goes up to the village and a historic train, but they are both very expensive so we skipped out on those rides. We did do some shopping of aboriginal art and products while we were there and we did another small hike to the Barron Falls below. Then we caught our plane to Brisbane where Rich is giving a talk at the university and we are spending the next few days.