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A typical Australian summer

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Sun, surf, and sand, yeah? Barbies at the beach, or next to the backyard swimming pool. That’s the ideal. But it’s Fake News, folks.

In the real world, record-breaking rain (really record breaking, not that pretend stuff) has drenched Far North Queenslan. The drought has ended but now cattle are dying in their thousands because of the floods, which are visible from space. And that’s without taking into the thousands upon thousands of native animals and domestic pets affected by the water. The only critters not complaining are the crocs. They say ‘if it’s flooded, forget it’ – flood water up there contains anything from nasty bacteria to a four-meter salty (salt water crocodile), maybe a few snakes and spiders, and of course, good old blind mullets (sewage).

The rain has finally stopped. Townsville, which seldom gets good rain, is sodden. But its community spirit is fantastic and they have the good fortune to be home to Australia’s third battalion, so there are plenty of willing helpers with heavy duty equipment.

Townsville flood photos: the aftermath of North Queensland’s weather event

Meanwhile, much of the green and fertile island of Tasmania has been on fire for weeks. Welcome rain has fallen to help the exhausted fire fighters. But just because the fires are out, that’s not the end of it.

Rains bring relief to bushfire-weary Tasmanian towns and fire crews

Somwhere in the middle Sydney’s western suburbs were lashed by a severe storm just a day or two ago. Roofs were ripped off, trees felled, power lines destroyed. And, of course, flash flooding.

Sydney lashed by severe thunderstorms, power outages, flooding

And what’s happening back home, here in Hervey Bay?

That brown stuff is grass and dirt

Summer is our wet season. We don’t get the tropical monsoon but we can get very heavy rain in December, January and February. We recorded 78.5mm in December, about half our ten-year average. The highest we’ve had in December was 593.5 (not far off 24″). In January, where we’d normally get 100-200mm, we recorded precisely 1mm. In February we’ve been watching the radar maps, hoping that massive low over Townsville would drift further south but it never happened. Little groups of clouds like a loose mob of sheep have drifted up from the South East, bringing bits of moisture to coastal towns. So far, we’ve had 21mm, which is little more than a tease.

Little groups of clouds

We’re struggling to keep the larger plants alive, even the drought-tolerant species like acalypha. The grass is only green in the rare places which benefit from run-off where we’ve watered an adjacent bit of garden.

Needless to say, the birds here are doing it tough. As I mentioned last week, we have fifity and more lorikeets, along with miner birds and blue-faced honey eaters, turning up for breakfast and dinner juice. Magpies, magpie larks, and butcher birds enjoy bacon rind. Just about everybody likes a bit of bread.

Us? Well, we’re just hoping for rain.

A tiny speck of an island

We just spent a week on Norfolk Island, a tiny speck of an island (~35 square kilometres) in the South Pacific a little over 1,600km North East of Sydney. What a fascinating place. The island is one of Australia’s territories, but even so, it had a high level of autonomy until July 2016, when it was brought much more tightly under Australian administration. You might say that Norfolk’s relationship with Australia is… complicated.

Let’s start at the beginning. In 1774 personnel from Captain Cook’s HMS Resolution were the first Europeans to land on Norfolk. Cook charted the island and made special note of both the towering Norfolk Island pines which grow in profusion there, and a plant that resembled the flax used in Britain to make sailcloth. The precipitous cliffs were daunting, but Cook sent out a party in a long boat which was able to make land and establish the island was uninhabited. Location and description duly noted, Cook sailed away. After that there were three waves of ‘immigrants’, each of which left their mark on the island and its present population.

In 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip, commanding a fleet of eleven ships carrying around 1300 marines, sailors, settlers, and convicts, established a colony on the shores of Port Jackson which was to become Sydney. [1] He also received Admiralty orders to send a party to Norfolk Island to claim the territory for the Crown. The group of twenty-three hand-picked convicts and soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Gidley King arrived in March 1788, just 6 weeks after the colony was established in New South Wales, and started up a settlement at what is now Kingston. There were two reasons why the island was important – those magnificent trees that Cook had believed could be used for ship’s masts, and associated with that, the need to keep them out of the hands of the French, who had an expedition in the Pacific at the time. As it happens, La Perouse encountered Norfolk Island on 13 January 1788, but high seas prevented a landing, and he moved on [2].

A log of the Norfolk Island pine. The way the branches fit into the trunk is clearly visible

One of the new Norfolk Islanders was a carpenter who soon established that Norfolk Island pine was not suitable for masts. Despite its appearance – and name, the tree is a hardwood. Those lateral branches go deep into the tree’s core, which means there is a point of weakness with every branch. That said, it’s magnificent timber and the islanders still use it extensively as a building material. Norfolk was a rich and fertile land, and many people were transferred there during the early days of the New South Wales colony, when the settlers on the Big Island faced starvation.

But Norfolk is remote and does not have a real harbour. Having decided it was too expensive to maintain the colony, the Governor of NSW ended the first settlement in 1815, when the last of the settlers were moved back to Australia (many reluctantly). All their buildings and livestock were destroyed so that they would not fall into the hands of any other foreign power (aka France, although the French were busy in Europe at the time). The Island returned to nature for the next nine years until, in 1824, the Governor of NSW decided to open a new penal colony for the worst of the convicts. It was at this time that the beautiful stone buildings were constructed around the harbour at Kingston, using, of course, convict labour.

Military barracks, beautifully restored. Note the barracks wall.

This was the second wave of settlers. The penal colony had a reputation for being exceptionally harsh. We were told some stories when we visited the ruins, but I’ll refer to some of those later.  The prison was finally closed in 1855 when the last of the convicts were transferred to van Diemen’s land (Tasmania). Once again, Norfolk was uninhabited by humans.

On an even tinier speck of land in the South Pacific, 5 square kilometre Pitcairn Island, the descendants of Fletcher Christian and the mutineers who set Captain Bligh adrift in HMAV Bounty’s long boat were running out of room. They wrote a letter to Queen Victoria, asking for a place of refuge and she granted them the now-abandoned Norfolk Island. [3] The third wave of settlers – the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian wives – arrived at Kingston in 1856.

Today’s Islanders are proud of their heritage. All of them can tell you their ancestry, citing ‘seventh generation Pitcairn’, or an association through a convict from the first settlement, or the much harsher second settlement. The surname Christian is common, along with Quintal and Young. There are many Baileys, descendants of a blacksmith who joined the community from outside. The Pitcairn descendants tend to be tall and obviously of mixed race, with darker skin than Europeans and high Polynesian cheekbones. Other new blood came to the island. Whales migrate nearby and American whaling ships used Norfolk as a base. Some of the sailors didn’t leave. Some people returned to Norfolk from Australia.

These days tourism is Norfolk’s main industry and everybody takes part. John Christian, who seems to be something of an oral historian, told us the history of St Barnabas’s chapel. He also took us through the remains of the prison at Kingston, telling us tales of convicts, and over the graveyard where he showed us the graves of some of the convicts he’d talked about – and the less disreputable people, too.

Sunset at the fish fry

One of the Buffets showed us George Bailey’s farm and his workshop. A descendant of a whaling sailor named Evans proudly displayed her forebear’s telescope before showing us what the islanders could do with bananas (they call them ‘plun’). Several Christians drove the buses we travelled on. Norfolk has its own language, a fusion between eighteenth century English and Polynesian, and we were taught some of it. They showed us how they used the local palms to weave hats, shared their food, and generally made us feel at home. One evening we attended a progressive dinner, where each course was served at an island home and the hosts talked about their lives on Norfolk. Another evening we attended a fish fry on a cliff facing west so we could admire the sunset while we ate morsels of trumpeter coated in a batter made with coconut milk and deep fried. Another day, Culla took our group on a cart drawn by a couple of Clydesdales.

Buddy and Sammy

Jane Evans described herself as growing up poor – but she didn’t know it. It’s a rich life, but it doesn’t involve money. Importing anything is wildly expensive, so there’s a philosophy of making do, of working with your neighbour, of barter. They don’t grow wheat, so they use arrowroot and maize, and other Polynesian foodstuffs. Chooks are feral on the island and domestic cattle roam around the roads (they have right of way). Each person on Norfolk can have up to ten cows roaming freely, at a cost of $145 pa. They all wear eartags so the owner can be identified.

There’s so much more to tell you, but this is getting long, so I’ll just share a few pictures of the gosh-wow, ooh-ahh scenery.

Next time we’ll get into a bit more history, and that complicated relationship with Australia.

Nepean Isl on the left, Phillip Isl on the right

Emily Bay where he locals swim

A view of Kingston and Emily Bay from up on the hill

Rugged coastline

Going down is easier than coming up

View across the golf course to Nepean Island and Phillip Island

The Pacific keeps on rolling in

Rottnest – Perth’s holiday isle

Perth city from Rottnest

You can see Rottnest Island from Fremantle – in fact, from most of the beaches from Freo to Hillarys. It’s a low ridge just on the horizon. The photo above shows the view looking the other way. When I was a kid those towers in the CBD weren’t quite so prominent, but I expect you could have seen them if you looked.

Just one of the beautiful beaches

Here’s another one, just around from the main pier where the ferries berth

Rottnest is Perth’s holiday island, popular for families, weekends, ‘schoolies’ celebrations and no excuse, really. Private boats stream over there on a fine weekend to enjoy the delights of the local pub (the Quokka Arms), maybe pitch a tent in the camping grounds, or hire one of the cottages dotted around a few of the bays. Or hundreds come for a day trip, zipping over on a twenty-five-minute ride on one of the several ferries.

Bathurst lighthouse. The island has two.

Going down from the lighthouse

The Lodge. We stayed in the apartment closest to the left

Beth and I headed over there for a couple of nights to savour the calm. We stayed in what had been (I’d guess) an officer’s apartment– kitchen, lounge, two bedrooms and a bathroom – at the Lodge holiday resort. It’s heritage accommodation, so a long way from 5-star, but it was more than adequate for our needs. The imperfections (like creaking floorboards) added to the charm.

The only cars on the island are maintenance vehicles, so everybody else uses shank’s pony, or they hire a bike. It’s actually quite amusing watching the pudgy middle-aged folks throwing a leg over a bike for the first time in twenty years and more. It’s not a very big island, a chunk of limestone jutting out of a reef that follows the WA coastline, so it’s not what you’d call mountainous. But the wind can blow hard, and riding up those ancient dunes isn’t as easy as it looks. Believe me, I know (past experience). Walkers have to be careful, too. It’s wise to step off the road when confronted by a gaggle of inexperienced cyclists hurtling down a slope toward you. The island is only 11km long, so it’s not a huge walk/bike ride for the fit folks. But there are hop on/hop off buses for the rest of us, and the ferry companies offer a few boat cruises for snorkeling and wildlife viewing.

A quokka

Rottnest is known for its crystal-clear water, great snorkelling, laid-back lifestyle and quokkas. Quokkas are what gave the island its name. In 1696 William Vlamingh, during his search for the missing VOC vessel, Ridderschap van Holland, landed here and came across these cute little critters. To his eyes they looked more like large rats than anything else, so he named the island Rott Nest. Rat’s nest. In fact, quokkas are little marsupials, so not at all related to rodents. I was interested to discover, on a visit to the island’s museum, that when Vlamingh visited there would have been far fewer quokkas than there are now. The island was uninhabited – the aboriginal people haven’t lived there for thousands of years – and the vegetation consisted of thick-trunked low scrub with a heavy canopy. This provided good cover, but because of the heavy shade, the amount of plants the animals grazed on was limited. When Europeans arrived that all changed. The trees were cut down for fuel and to clear land for agriculture, and the quokka population thrived. Although conservation bodies list the species as ‘vulnerable’ that’s because there are only two populations – one in the southwest of WA, and the other here on Rottnest. They’re doing just fine here, thank you very much. But if something like the terrible disease that decimated Tasmanian Devil populations in Tasmania happened here on Rottnest, it could have a devastating effect. Needless to say, Quokkas are protected by law. However, they’re not welcome everywhere. They are nocturnal, and there are lots around the tiny township in the early hours of the morning and late afternoon, but measures have been taken to stop them entering the shops. Quokkas don’t read very well, but the signs are clear enough. It seems to work.

Taken on our sunset walk

The full moon rises in the East as the sun sets in the West (that’s afterglow on the high clouds)

Rottnest is a beautiful place. I stayed there several times in my youth and it was fun to observe the changes that have been made since my last visit. The dreadful old bungalows with their tatty, pest-ridden thatched roofs have all been consigned to history’s scrap pile. Small, discrete settlements have appeared in a few other places around the coast to accommodate the increased tourist numbers.

The governor’s residence

The summer house (now the pub)

The parade ground at Kingstown Barracks. These days Kingstown Barracks is hostel style accommodation – although its seems the Governor’s Circle area (presumably for the base big wigs) is to be done up for the more well-heeled tourist.

The island also has a history. Its governor had a residence built near one of the salt lakes in the interior. It’s easy to pick – just look for the highly inappropriate palm trees. What is it with Europeans and palm trees? The governor also built a summer holiday house near the beach. These days, we call that the pub. The military built a base here in the thirties to man a number of artillery pieces set on Oliver Hill, one of the island’s high points. They were installed to protect the port of Fremantle from approaching enemy ships. Tourists can visit the artillery installation via Rottnest’s only train (or you can ride your bike – it’s steep). It’s well worth a visit, although for me that’s a memory from the past. You can see pictures of Oliver Hill here.

The settlement

The central point for Rottnest tourists is the Settlement – the distinctive ochre-painted buildings which comprise the shopping centre, with the Lodge a short dawdle away. Over the years the Settlement has expanded, but the essence is unchanged. Large trees overhang a mall area where bikes should not be ridden. The bakery was always famous, and the first port of call on a day trip. It’s larger now, with more offerings, and probably a different baker. The same for the general store, which used to stock bare essentials. Everything costs that little bit more because it has to be imported from Fremantle, but the range rivals anything you’ll see in a mainland supermarket, and they sell liquor. As it happens, we’d brought our own wine, but we stocked up on nibbles.

Quokkas aren’t the only animals on Rottnest. It used to be part of the mainland and a few species have survived in this harsh, dry climate. I noticed a number of pink and grey galahs, but no other parrots, and several small bird species. There is one snake, the dugite, which is right up there with the poison. But like most snakes, make some noise and they’ll run and hide.

Dugite – taken with a telephoto

Rottnest has 2 peacocks. No ladies. Here’s the story.

He showed off just for me.

Beth and I walked many kilometres, avoided quite a few bikes, met a few quokkas, drank some excellent wine and ate some good food. We also learned about Rottnest’s darker side. We visited the small (white) cemetery on Rottnest, with its markers, some still legible, others eroded by time and weather.  Many were children. Life was harsh in those days.

The (white) cemetery

One of the headstones at sundown

But while life was harsh for the Europeans, it was much harder for the aboriginal prisoners brought here in the late nineteenth century. The Lodge where we stayed was built as a prison. In the museum we watched part of a documentary about Rottnest as a prison, and recalling what was said, the prisoners were not necessarily native to the Perth area (the Noongar). Some were brought from the deserts in the North, sentenced in some cases for the crime of killing a sheep. These people didn’t understand white man’s law, and some had very likely never seen the sea. They were brought to Rottnest in neck chains. This site tells the story.

I don’t want to go into details, that’s not what this blog is about. Suffice to say hundreds of aboriginal men died on Rottnest. In time the prison was closed, the cells and warder accommodation were turned into holiday rentals, and the island became a holiday playground. When I was young we knew aboriginal people had been brought here, that it had been a boys’ reformatory, and an internment camp for Italians in WW2, but it wasn’t important, not something you thought about.

Not long before I left Perth in 1996 I remember talk of human bones being found on Rottnest. Naturally, that caused a stir, and people went looking for more. And found them. The  remains of hundreds of aboriginal men were buried in an area being used as a camping ground for holiday makers. Today, the aboriginal burial ground is at least  marked, although the individual graves are not, and people are asked to respect the area (which is no longer a camping ground). Moves are underway to develop the site into a historical feature which people can visit.

Acknowledgement of the 370+ aboriginal men buried in unmarked graves

The burial ground, not far from where the men were imprisoned in the Lodge

There was a stunning piece of artwork in the museum – I regret not taking a picture, but I guess that’s a copyright issue, anyway. It showed a curved surface. Across the top of the curve were a bunch of smiling white people – men, women, and children – waving, looking happy, against a blue sky. Under the curve against a black background was a thick scattering of simple images of people curled in a foetal position.

One last observation. Aboriginal people lived on Rottnest thousands of years ago, before the sea levels rose and cut it off from the mainland. I didn’t know that. This rather good article tells you a little more about the aboriginal connection with Rottnest and its Noongar name, Wadjemup. I found a number of different meanings for the aboriginal word, some claiming it has something to do with the buried people – but that happened comparatively recently, and I think ‘place across the water’ is more plausible. Here’s a reference. As I said in the beginning of this post, Rottnest is visible from the mainland, a ‘place across the water’.

A couple of ducks enjoying the beach

Australian Pacific black ducks splashing in the shallows

I loved the couple of days we spent on the island. It’s sad that it has become an expensive place to stay, out of the reach of ordinary folk. It wasn’t like that when I was young. If you go, make sure you visit the museum, a little white building near the Settlement. It will tell you a few things you didn’t know about the island’s flora and fauna – and its human inhabitants.

 

Australia from 35,000ft

The first pattern to catch my eye. So like and aboriginal painting

Yes, I know I’m not finished with Europe yet. I’ll get back to it soon. But I’m just back from a week in Perth, catching up with old, old friends and a brief visit with relos, and I want to share a few posts about that, first. For a start it was much better fun, and the weather was great.

Perth really is my “home town”. I wasn’t born there but I spent much of my life there – all my education, all my formative years. I was supposed to go back for a fiftieth high school reunion three weeks ago, but I was ill, so I couldn’t make the trip. But a few weeks to recuperate from my European sore throat and sniffle saw me back to my sparkling best. Although I missed the reunion, I got to catch up with the most important people who would have been there – friends from my primary school days – one I hadn’t seen for close on fifty years, and her sister, who was my best friend at primary school. I stayed with my BFF and her family and we went off to places I’d remembered to see the changes in the twenty years since I moved Over East. I’ll talk about that in later posts.

For now I want to share the marvellous photos I took of outback Australia as the plane flew from Perth to Brisbane. They’re not bad, but they ought to be much better. Sometimes we older ladies can be a bit… um… stupid. I was playing Solitaire on my tablet, trying very hard to avoid striking up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. Yeah, I know. But I’m an introvert and chatting with strangers doesn’t come easily. This woman and her husband were not, I guessed, frequent air travellers. She’d brought up the flight info screen that show you where you are, air speed, height, outside temperature etc, and she spent a lot of time reading these details out to her husband who (of course) had a similar screen.

“Ooooh look, Darl. We’re nearly at Kalgoorlie.”

“That must be South Australia now. About a third of the way.”

“Gosh, minus fifty outside.”

You get the idea. Anyway, I glanced out the window and saw a nice pattern outside, so I activated the tablet’s camera, pressed the device up to the window and took a photo. I did that several times, often requiring a fair bit of contortion in the seat so as not to lean on the woman beside me. Bear in mind that I had my camera bag, containing my Canon 70D with 18-200mm zoom lens, set up to take photos in raw format, on the floor at my feet. It remained there for the entire flight.

You may kick me now.

So… here are the photos. I suppose they’re not too bad.

That’s space at the top, and the edge of Australia where the cliffs of the bight give way to the beach

Sand ridges

Don’t know the name of the river

The Flinders Ranges

More Flinders Ranges

Just taken off over Moreton Bay Brisbane, heading North

Over Brisbane and a canal suburb

Nearly home. Inskip Point and the edge of Fraser Island.

Love the colours of the land and the salt pans

Love the colours of the land and the salt pans 2

Love the colours of the land and the salt pans 3

Love the colours of the land and the salt pans 4. And there’s a road

This is just like a painting

More Flinders Ranges

That might actually be water in the salt lake

Just like the Mandelbrot set

A river, and even some human straight lines

 

The aftermath

ex-tropical cyclone Debbie wreaks havoc down the east coast

Cyclone Debbie has certainly cut a swathe through the holiday islands of the Whitsundays and their gateway, Airlie Beach. Bowen and Ayr bore the brunt of the storm and that takes nothing away from all the smaller places in the way. Cane fields, vegetable crops, and banana fields were flattened, destroying farmers’ incomes for at least one season – to say nothing about destruction of infrastructure and homes, loss of power, stock losses and the like. And then there’s the native wildlife who have to hunker down just like we humans. She was a massive storm. Here she is from the ISS.

Cyclones travel in a clockwise direction, and this was a huge storm, so after Debbie crossed the coast anything within eight hundred kilometres or so to the south was going to get wet. Mackay and Rockhampton were well in the zone and suffered substantial wind and water damage. With rainfall of hundreds of millimetres the rivers rose and roads were flooded. Even Hervey Bay copped the end of an outlying cloud band, although 80mm of rain without gale-force winds was actually welcome. As a side note, while Pete and I would have been quite safe at Cairns, we wouldn’t have been able to drive home. And that is why we hurried home when we did.

After they cross the coast cyclones rapidly downgrade to a tropical low, and the clean-up starts in their wake. It doesn’t mean the danger is over, though. The models suggested three tracks after Debbie crossed the coast, all tracking south. We expected her to come down through the interior, but the lady had other plans. I’ve never seen anything like it. Gale-force winds and very heavy rain all the way down the east coast of Australia from Mackay. Inland from Mackay, over a metre of rain fell in two days. The cyclone made landfall on Tuesday lunchtime. On Thursday the State Government closed all schools from just north of Bundaberg to the Queensland border for two days. Businesses followed suit. Our local bank closed its doors at 10am to give staff the chance to get home and off potentially flooding roads. Falls of five hundred millimetres were expected around the Southeast corner of the state, along with gale force winds. It was unprecedented. Australia is used to cyclones – but not one that does a left-hand turn, taking it down into heavily populated areas.

As usual, Hervey Bay fared well enough. Although rainfall this March (396mm or roughly 16″) is the third highest monthly rainfall we have experience in our time here, the previous two months were so dry that the rainfall is still well below the average for this time of year. I’m sure residents further south won’t be saying the same thing.

I thought I’d finish this clean-up post with a few things from our trip I hadn’t mentioned.

The view over Townsville from Castle Hill

Driving up to Cairns, we stayed overnight in Townsville, where Pete had his very first Mexican meal in a busy restaurant in Palmer Street. I love Mexican food, but Pete has never been interested. However, it was his suggestion – and he enjoyed it. Next morning before we moved on we drove up to Castle Hill, overlooking the town and with views to Magnetic Island just across the water, and to the hills surrounding the town.

Castle Hill from the city

From Palm Cove we drove up to Port Douglas. It’s only about forty km following the Captain Cook Highway along the coast. The road seems to have been built on a ledge between the sea and the mountains, twisting and turning with every cove and inlet. Port Douglas is mainly a resort town, with golf courses and hotels. One hotel (the Mirage) was famously built by Christopher Skase before he fled his debtors and went to live on Majorca. For us, the place didn’t have much to offer. It seems to be a jumping-off point for the Daintree and the reef. But I took some pictures.

Looking south from Port Douglas. The longest of those sandbars is where we stopped to take a picture (see below)

There’s no doubt the coastline is picturesque. I’d asked Pete to stop (on the way back) at a stopping place where I’d noticed a great photo opportunity, which he did, safely. I’d hardly got out of the car when a car horn honked. Some idiot had seen the view and decided to stop, with a car right behind him. The driver of the offending car pulled to one side to let the other driver pass. This is all happening just near a curve, too. The offending car moves back out into the road. For a minute I think it’s going to turn around, doing a three-point-turn, but another car comes along and our mate drives off, with the person in the passenger seat holding their phone out the window. It was a great picture, but really, people, I wouldn’t have thought it was to die for her. Or even sustain an injury.

A storm is gathering over Port Douglas – not Debbie, just a normal tropical storm

On our way back from Hartley’s croc park we stopped to take pictures of these weird rock sculptures. I have no idea what they are for, but I’d guess they’re a bit like the padlock fad, where lovers attach a padlock to the wires on a bridge. However, just as the authorities have been forced to cut away the padlocks, which in those quantities can weigh a great deal, sometime a storm will hit these piled up stones and scatter them back on the beach.

No idea what these ‘sculptures’ are meant to signify

That’s it for this journey. Be sure to join us next time we venture away from home. If you want to go back to the start of this trip, here’s the link. Say hello to Cyclone Debbie

Australia’s cuddliest critter (not)

Would you believe not all of Australia’s animals are cute and cuddly? You would, wouldn’t you? The place is crawling with lethal snakes, deadly spiders, murderous little octopuses, excruciatingly painful jellyfish… It’s all true, of course, but it’s pretty much a case of if you leave them alone, they leave you alone.

But not salt water crocodiles.

They’re ancient, clever, sneaky, and as far as they’re concerned, you’re just another sort of meat. Crocodile hunting was banned in the 1970’s because their numbers were so low. They were an easy target and their skins were worth a fortune – so much of a fortune that they were nearly wiped out. Since then, they’ve re-established themselves and become a tourist drawcard. So we went to look at crocs, as you do. This link will give you detailed information about the species.

See that lump of wood just under that overhanging foliage? That’s Ted’s snout

In Australia we call the salt water, or estuarine, crocodiles salties. The name is misleading because ‘salt water’ crocodiles can live very happily in fresh water, as well as in the ocean. In the wild they can become very large, and a danger to people and livestock. A big croc will take a cow, let alone a dog, a kangaroo, or a man. Farmers can’t shoot them anymore, but rangers will trap them and relocate them to a croc farm, where the big boys will live out their years making baby crocs. Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures, where we went to see crocodiles, has one male (Ted) who is over five metres long – the second largest croc in captivity. They reckon he’s around one hundred years old, he’s lost all but one of his teeth and one eye, and the eye he does have is blind. It seems he still enjoys the mating season, though. We were told that one of the park’s most recent additions, a four and half metre male called Snappy Tom, was caught on the golf links at Port Douglas, where it had taken to lunging at golfers. The ranger also told us about one big male who had been placed into solitary confinement. He’d taken to attacking the females, and ended up killing one. Bottom line: crocs are not nice. For Americans, alligators are similar in appearance to salties, but they don’t get as big. A four-metre alligator is big, a saltie has a way to go. According to the rangers, they’re also not as nasty. Every big saltie has bits missing – tail, claws, teeth. They fight for females and territory, the females fight to protect their nests. They grow up ornery.

In the short time we were in Cairns it became obvious that crocodiles are becoming a growing problem. I read a heart-wrenching story about a man whose elderly dog was taken from the shallows. He’d thrown a stick for her, just a couple of feet. As she was coming back he saw a bow wave behind her – and that was that. A spearfisherman was taken by a 4.8 metre croc. And an imbecile escaped with his life after trying to impress a girl. Seems this 18yo idiot told a backpacker that crocs only took tourists and jumped into the Johnstone River to prove it. He no sooner hit the water when a big croc latched on to his arm. He managed to escape with a badly lacerated arm, but apparently his brain cells are as bad as ever – he said he’d do it again. Keep an eye out for him in the Darwin Awards. Here’s the story from the news.

These guys are destined to be handbags.

At Hartleys we were taken to see the croc farm where male salties are raised for mainly leather used for handbags, belts, and the like. There’s a demand in Asia for top quality hides to be made into handbags that sell for as much as $38,000. (Pass) The meat is used, too, and any leftovers are ground down for fertiliser, so there’s no wastage. Our guide told us it’s the same as running a beef property, or a chicken farm. The animals are raised as a commodity.

Boat on the lagoon at Hartley’s. There are crocs in that water

We were taken for a boat ride on the lagoon. It’s shady and dirty, perfect for the twenty-one crocodiles who live in there. They behave as they would in the wild, and any eggs the females lay are collected for the farm, where they are incubated at just the right temperature so the hatchlings are all male. Our guide brought along food (chicken heads and wings) so the reptiles would actually show up. They are usually stealth hunters, sneaking up and lunging. But they can move very fast, and jump quite high. And of course, they knew to expect a meal. They’re smart. Up in Northern Australia the bushmen will tell you never to go fishing at the same spot three nights in a row. If you go back that third time, there’ll be a croc waiting for you.

After the boat trip the rangers showed us salties in a different setting where we could get a better feel for their size and speed. That’s a female croc, and she’s not specially big.

The jaws are very powerful. They kill by grabbing hold of the prey and drowning it, rolling over in the water.

And then on to the freshies.

Don’t try this with a saltie

Australia has two croc species. So far, I’ve talked about the salt water crocodile. Fresh water, or Johnson River, crocodiles are a very different beast. They’re smaller, are much more docile, and their skins are worthless for the leather trade. This croc is like most Australian critters – leave it alone and it will leave you alone. Poke it with your foot (as one tourist apparently did) and it might get upset. After all, it’s still a crocodile. The ranger is in there amongst the freshies – he would not do this with a saltie. That would win him a Darwin award.

The resident buck – an Eastern Grey

A couple of wallabies – like Alan (see below)

Hartley’s park has quite a few other animals, too. This is another place where you can get your picture taken with a koala, or if you prefer, a python or a baby crocodile (no doubt with its jaws taped shut – they’re born nasty). We decided to look at the kangaroos and wallabies instead. Like most zoos, these marsupials are housed in a walk-in compound. Many are tame enough for tourists to approach. On our way out through the double gates we noticed someone hand feeding a wallaby. The man walked away but the wallaby hung around and we noticed a sign with a photo of a wallaby. “My name is Alan. Don’t let me sneak through the gates” or words to that effect. We figured Alan must have escaped from the roo enclosure, so we let him back in and went on our way to photograph birds of prey. While Pete, Sandy and I thought we’d done the right thing with Alan, Col wasn’t so sure. Maybe we shouldn’t have let him into the compound. We all poo-pooed that. After all, shouldn’t a wallaby be with the other wallabies?

On our way back from the aviary we came upon a ranger and Col asked him about Alan. “We keep Alan out of there,” the ranger explained. “He’s antisocial and chases everybody.” Admitting nothing, we went back through the roo enclosure – and there was Alan, chasing a female kangaroo that must have been three times his size. Oops.

Oh well. As we pointed out to the ranger, the sign wasn’t clear.

Let’s finish with a couple of the lovely raptors in the bird enclosure – another walk-through environment.

Dozing. Of course. An Australian sooty owl

A brown goshawk

Riding the sky rail

Swingin’ up over the rain forest

One of the fun things to do in Cairns is to take a ride up into the tablelands on a cable car, and come back down again on a vintage train after you’ve pottered around at the quaint little town of Kuranda. (or vice versa – here’s all the info) Kuranda is one of those very touristy places, with cafes and restaurants, and markets filled with didgeridoos, T shirts, postcards, artwork, tea towels, stuffed kangaroos… you get the picture. But it also has some other attractions, such as a bird sanctuary, a butterfly house, and a wildlife exhibition where you can get your picture taken holding a koala (for a price, of course). Here’s the Kuranda website.

Tropical Cyclone Debbie wasn’t even a twinkle in a meteorologist’s eye at this stage – but there’s a reason they call it rain forest. There’s always a risk of a shower. So far so good, though. We caught the cable car up to Kuranda, gliding up the mountain over the rain forest, admiring the view over Cairns to the Coral Sea. Helicopters were used to put all the pylons that support the cables into place, causing minimum disruption to the landscape.

A walk through the treetops

We hopped off the cable car at Red Peak, the journey’s highest point, and took a walk along a board walk through the top of the rain forest. Tour guides take groups along and explain the ecology, and you can admire the view for as long as you like before you jump back into a car to continue the journey to the viewing platform for Barron Falls. I was really, really looking forward to that. I’d seen some pictures online from just a few weeks before, showing the falls thundering down into its gorge.

Barron gorge with a bit of waterfall. That’s the train on the opposite side to give some context.

So yeah, I was very, very, very disappointed. Oh well. Ma Nature runs according to her own rhythms. And the dam at the top of the falls did the rest. On to Kuranda.

After we’d pottered around the markets for a while, we headed for the bird sanctuary, a large, free-fly aviary with an assortment of native and exotic birds, many of them very friendly, especially if you brought in food (sold by the sanctuary). We were warned before we went in that the birds would be attracted to jewellery, buttons on caps and the like. It’s true… it’s true. One parrot immediately landed on Col’s baseball cap and pulled off the button at the top. One bird landed on Pete’s shoulder, and several other people had birds sitting on their arms or shoulders.

At one stage as we walked around most of the birds suddenly stared upwards. Sure enough, a wedge-tailed eagle soared high above the sanctuary. They were safe, of course, but old habits remain.

Here’s a selection of pictures.

This Alexandrine made a beeline for Col’s hat

Male red tailed cockatoo

Female red tailed cockatoo

Deep in conversation with a Columbian sun conure

A cattle egret showing off

A male eclectus parrot (native Australian)

Female eclectus parrot. This is one of those rare occasions where the female is brighter than the male

A koala doing what koalas do best

I expect somebody is going to ask to see the picture of me holding a koala. There isn’t one. Few places today allow tourists to handle koalas since it’s believed it stresses the animal. Think about it. You’re a sedentary, mainly solitary creature. You spend between 18 and 22 hours per day sleeping, and quite a lot of the rest eating. You’re carried out by someone you know, and you’re handed over to a complete stranger who probably has no idea what to do with you and maybe giggles excitedly while somebody else pokes a camera at you. Phew. That’s over. You seek refuge with your usual handler. And then a new stranger comes along and you have to do it all over again. So no. Not me.

Mind you, there are a number of koalas at the few places that allow strangers to handle the animals. I expect there’s a rotation so one koala only features in a few shots at a time, and they would be carefully supervised by handlers. I also appreciate that offering the opportunity might make money to help with conservation, but I can’t help but feel it’s a bit like sacrificing some koalas for the many. Koalas are now endangered because humans have encroached on their habitat. We need to give them room to live safely away from dogs and cars. Here’s a bit of info about koalas.

We had lunch with rain squall accompaniment (we were inside, watching from a veranda), and after we’d bought a few T shirts, we caught the train back down to the valley. It’s an old train with antique carriages where the air conditioning is you opening the windows. It was like being in a sauna as the train crept down the steep gradients. We stopped for ten minutes at Barron Falls, which was just as disappointing from this side as it had been from the other. All the way, we learned about how this railway line had been built in the 1880’s, opening in 1891. Here’s a little of the history. OH&S hadn’t been invented then. All the tunnels (there are fifteen) were dug by hand after initial blasting, and the workers were expected to bring their own tools. Same with bridges and track. There are spectacular views across Cairns of course, and the train stopped for a few moments so we could take photos of Stoney Creek Falls – which almost made up for Barron Falls. (Did I mention how disappointed I was?)

Stoney creek Falls – right next to the railway line. Photo taken from the train.

One of several tight curves on the track. This one’s on a bridge.

The sun was setting when we got back to Palm Cove. It had been a Big Day Out.

In search of waterfalls

Peppers from the Esplanade

Palm Cove is the northern-most of Cairns’s northern beaches, most of it strung along a picturesque esplanade hugging the beach.  The first thing we noticed is the way the massive paperbark trees are incorporated into the landscape – and the buildings.  There’s no doubt the land our building was built on was reclaimed from a swamp. The frogs started up at sundown, just on the other side of the path to our room. The biggest trees are estimated at three to five hundred years old.

A massive paperbark next to Peppers

The Peppers resort comprised six buildings, most of them set around a very large swimming pool, complete with white sand and a swim-up bar. You can swim in the ocean – but there are signs warning about marine stingers and crocs. We were told quite a large croc was known to sun itself on the sandbar at the end of the beach. More about crocs in another post. For those desperate to try the sea, a stinger enclosure (a floating tube defining a rectangle with suspended fine netting to stop the stingers from getting in) had been set up opposite the hotel. All that lovely beach – but you’re safer in the hotel swimming pool. That’s how it is in (F)ar (N)orth (Q)ueensland. Read more about stingers here. We saw a couple of staff members trawling a net outside the enclosure to check for stingers. They both wore lycra stinger suits, covering their bodies from head to foot. Stingers deliver excruciating pain and are not to be messed with.

We were in an apartment on the third floor – and there were no lifts. I expect it did us good trudging up and down the stairs several times a day. The apartment had a nice tropical feel, and a spa bath on the balcony, if that was your fancy. Although the room was air conditioned, the restaurant wasn’t, relying on what breeze there was from the beach just across the road. But that was just for breakfast and one special dinner. The esplanade itself has a multitude of eateries catering for every taste and wallet. Friends of ours were also staying at Palm Cove and we tried a number of restaurants with them.

Peppers seems to be a great place to chill out, get a massage, do not much. But we wanted to see some of the sites, number one on the list for me and for Sandy, was the Atherton Tablelands and the waterfall circuit. Along that part of the coast the mountains come close to the beach, and although they’re not high by international standards, they’re steep and covered in rainforest. Rainforest means rain means watercourses means waterfalls. We didn’t see them all, but I’ve included a few.

The Atherton tablelands. Rainforest and rich farmland.

Driving up the mountain was an adventure in itself. I reckon the last time I was on anything like such a winding, snaking, narrow, challenging road was in Switzerland. Even Sandy and Col, who regularly drive in similar conditions where they live, remarked on how steep and winding it was.

Sandy and I had a wonderful time with the cameras, despite the occasional rain squall. And we could have done without the local Mr Plod who stopped us for speeding when we passed a clown behaving erratically. Still and all, he must have taken pity on a bunch of old farts and a driver with a spotless record. He stopped us again (flashing lights and all) and reduced the severity of the penalty. Col reckons he made a mistake and was covering up. Could be.

Anyway, here are the waterfalls.

Malanda falls. There was a wonderful information centre here, a great place to find out about the environment, and the plants and animals.

Millaa Millaa fals, complete with bikini-clad tourists

The top of Zillie Falls. The descent was a bit too steep and challenging for us.

Walking through the rain forest

This is the river that feeds Elinjaa falls, hurrying along for its date with destiny

A tortoise takes a sun bathe. This was a chance to try out the new Big Lens

 

Say hello to TC Debbie

The Coral Sea from Palm Cove

We’ve just come back from FNQ (Far North Queensland), after spending a week at Peppers Palm Cove resort, just north of Cairns. Normally I’d write about the trip and what we saw and experienced, but this time, I’ll start at the end, because the trip was cut short. You see, Debbie decided to visit.

When we arrived at Palm Cove, which is right on the beach, the view was gorgeous, as shown above. It’s a tropical climate, so cumulus stacks gather above the warm ocean, maybe moving inland for an afternoon rain squall. Standing out there gazing at the sea the sweat trickles down your skin. A swim would be nice, but the air is still and the ocean bath-tub warm – perfect for marine stingers. The crocs don’t mind, either, so you either swim in the stinger enclosure at the beach or use the pool at the hotel, which has a swim-up bar. It might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s such a waste of a beautiful beach.

It has been a strange summer all over Queensland from a weather point of view. Rain has fallen inland, the monsoon arrived late in the North, and around the sub-tropical Fraser Coast where we live, we’ve not seen such a savage drought. While we were up in the tropics we heard that Cyclone Caleb had been declared – only the third of the season! I don’t know why we thought it was in the Coral Sea, where we were, but it was actually far out to sea off the coast of Western Australia.

Maybe that mistake turned out to be prophetic.

On our second-last day at Palm Cove that idyllic beach scene looked like this.

A rain storm out sea

A massive rainstorm hung over the ocean on the horizon. And then we heard the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) was keeping a whether eye on a deepening low off the Queensland coast. We weren’t surprised. The sea’s always warm up here, but I’d heard thirty degrees. Maybe the coral reefs were praying for rain to cool them down. Standing on the beach it was easy to imagine some massive beast out there beyond the horizon, hovering over the ocean, sucking up moisture, swelling and strengthening. The clouds scudded by driven by a brisk south-easter, drawn into the dance around the as-yet-nameless storm. By evening her name was Debbie and our proposed visit to Cooktown, north of Cairns, was scratched. Cyclones are unpredictable beasts. Models showed Debbie heading for landfall in an area about 750 kilometres wide, but if she decided to veer north, Cooktown might be in the way. Even if she didn’t, we might reach Cooktown, but extensive flooding further south would make it a long, slow road home. And with predictions of Debbie becoming a high category four, or even a cat five before she crossed the coast, there would be flooding. This is a good explanation of cyclones.

Experiencing a full-blown tropical cyclone isn’t an item on my bucket list, but we figured we didn’t have to run for it straight away. We had one more day at Palm Cove – a Friday. The BOM wasn’t expecting the storm to hit the coast until Tuesday, and gales were not forecast until Sunday afternoon. If we left early on Saturday morning, we should be able to clear the danger area and make it home by Sunday night. On our way home we had intended to stay for a couple of days with a friend living high on the hill above Airlie Beach, roughly halfway to Hervey Bay from here. We’d have to cut the visit short, but he would understand. It seemed like a plan.

Ominous sky on Saturday

It rained heavily at Palm Cove on Friday night, but the next morning was dry, if ominous. The further we went, the clearer the sky became, at least as far as Townsville. From there on small patches of cloud appeared, all heading north like a flock of sheep being herded by an invisible sheep dog riding the wind.

Airlie Beach from our friend’s balcony

Airlie Beach in a good time

Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, a cluster of island holiday destinations dotted around the Coral Sea with the Great Barrier Reef at their doorstep. The anchorage is usually full of boats, but not this time. Maybe a dozen moorings were occupied when we arrived at our friend’s place. The next morning there were about six – probably owned by people down south. The evening was warm and relatively calm enough to eat outside but as the hours passed, the wind picked up. When we went to bed we left the window open to get some breeze – at least for a little while. Maybe because of the way the building was constructed, the breeze growled like an animal looking for a way in, probing any crevice with fingers of air. With each gust the growl became a howl and every now and then, with a shriek of triumph, the wind burst through, sending the drapes flapping like a torn spinnaker. We were forced to close the window and turn on the fan, but even so, the wind entity prowled around the building, testing its defences, its howl underscored by the steady rhythm of the ceiling fan.

It wasn’t the best nights’ sleep either of us had experienced. We hit the road early, anxious to avoid any chance of striking floodwater. We had expected the highway would be busy with other people heading south, especially caravans, but the road was surprisingly quiet. We saw quite a few emergency crews heading north, mobilised by the State Government for the expected damage. We also heard that people in low lying areas in Debbie’s path had been ordered to evacuate – including homes in the lower parts of Airlie Beach.

We stopped twice at shopping centres, busy with people stocking up on canned food, water, and supplies like batteries. It was all very business-like, but then, cyclones are part of life in North Queensland, and while they are destructive, they also have an important role to play in the ebbs and flows of the environment up there. Floods feed the wetlands and the aquifers that get the farmers through the dry times, and the rain cools down the sea temperatures on the Great Barrier Reef. I wondered how farm animals would fare in the storm, and a farmer interviewed on the radio said he’d moved his poddy calves in close to the homestead, but that the cows seemed to know how to cope. I’m certain the birds and animals do, too. During our day out on Friday we noticed the birds were scarce. On the other hand, farmers growing cane, bananas, or vegetables would be keeping their fingers crossed. A cat 4 cyclone packs winds up to 279kph, and a cat 5 is (of course) even worse.

We turned into our driveway at home just in time to watch the sunset on Sunday. We’re safe and comfortable. Our very best wishes to everyone in Debbie’s path. Stay safe. Like they say on the radio, cyclones rarely kill people. Downed power lines and floodwaters certainly do.

 

 

 

 

Back to the Big Smoke

Brisbane from Mt Coot-Tha

Brisbane from Mt Coot-Tha

Unfortunately, much as I hate cities sometimes they can’t be avoided. They are concentrations of many things apart from people. Or maybe because of people. Restaurants, hospitals, cinemas, live shows, shops. Pollution, traffic snarls, noise. Sigh. But yeah. Medical specialists tend to work best in the city setting. All the equipment and required facilities are more readily available. So we drove down to Brisbane for a procedure to take place over two days, while I kicked my heels in a hotel.

However – did I mention the shops? Much as I love where I live, and I’m not a great shopper, sometimes the lack of variety in Hervey Bay can be frustrating. So this would be a chance to go into town and find myself a coat, preferably leather, that I could dress up if needed. Usually it would be worn with jeans. I’d booked into a small hotel near the city centre, and walked into the Queen Street mall with high hopes. I’d get this done, drop off the jacket back at the pub and take my camera for a walk in the park. Yes. That was the plan. Then I’d go back to the room and work on the next book.

Well, let me tell you a couple of things, folks. The current fashion has gone back to skinny. Skin tight pants, leggings, form fitting jackets. Leather jackets are biker style, fitted to the waist, with lots of non functional pockets closed with zips. A year or forty – or even twenty – ago I could have gone down that route. But not anymore, for two reasons. 1) I don’t like that style, having gravitated (as you do) to comfortable sack style. Gone are the days of lying on your back on the bed to do up the zip. 2) I’m no longer size 10 – or even 14. It seems that if you’re in the size 8 to size 14 range, the world of fashion is your oyster. You might find an occasional 16. Anything larger than that – nuh-uh. There might be a few sections in the big department stores specialising in larger sizes, or the occasional large size dress shop. But while I know I need to lose some weight, I’m not obese. Nor am I unusual. I’d venture to suggest that with obesity levels in this country soaring, the buyers ought to be looking at their stock.

I should add that I could have bought a genuine leather coat in a style I found acceptable. But the designer label $800-$1,000 weren’t even in the venue let alone the playing field, and  I balked at paying $600 for a coat, and then another $75 to have the sleeves taken up. I just won’t wear it often enough.

Anyway, after five unproductive hours of wandering around every sodding dress shop in the CBD (including some mens stores) it started to rain. So I bought myself a cheap umbrella and winced my painful way back to my hotel room, coatless. I suppose the rain was a good thing. I was too sore to spend the afternoon walking around in the gardens (not as fit as I used to be) and the rain provided a perfect excuse to play on my laptop instead. Mind you, I played solitaire instead of doing some writing on my WIP. But I’ll attribute that to frustration.

forest

Forest path

Water and fernsOn the bright side, I went to the Brisbane botanical gardens at Mt Coot-Tha the previous afternoon. There is nothing quite so wonderful as walking along a narrow path in cool shade provided by towering trees, palms and ferns, with the sound of tinkling water filling the air.