Cairns, Part I

The decision to go to Cairns was a last-minute brainchild of Letizia. We were able to fit it into the air miles of the round-the-world tickets, without too much extra expense. Having spent 8 days there, I can say that it would have been a travesty if we had not gone there. It's so different to anything we had seen in NSW or Victoria, and shouldn't be passed over. We're already wondering when we're going to get back.

Our Quantas flight swooped in over rainforested hills and came to a stop next to a very small airport. It could have been Africa (well, I've never been, but the couple next to me, who had been, agreed with my suggestion). When we got off the plane, the humidity hit us immediately, but it wasn't anything too severe, comparable to Sardinia.

The bus from Castaways Backpackers, driven by Amanda (from England) came to pick us up, and 10 minutes later we were moving in to room number 17. We don't look very backpacker (especially not with 2 samsonites along with the 2 rucksacks, various knapsacks and of course two daughters) but the place felt like home very quickly. And when I found out the price, we were to pay I was even happier with the arrangement. It was the cheapest room since Sim's Cozy Guesthouse in Chengdu, China. AU$55 dollars for a family room, with its own ensuite. Mind you, we did have to kill the previous occupant of room 17 - a secretive individual by the name of Periplaneta Australiasiae.

We had only one mission in Cairns - get out on the reef. Like getting a tattoo, you can either do this well, or do it cheaply. Not both. So while we took some time picking a day and a tour operator, we headed on a day trip to Kuranda, a tourist town on the Atherton tablelands West of Cairns. The idea was to amuse ourselves around the town's markets, visit the butterfly sanctuary, and take a scenic tour down. I wasn't expecting too much from the day - it was just a filler after all. But it turned out to be a fantastic time, mostly because of this:

We had come close to koalas in Sydney, but touching was out of the question, let alone cuddling. It took a very long time for Nina and Sara's smiles to fade after this experience.

Kuranda is definitely a tourist town (I hesitate to say trap) but a pleasant one. The atmosphere is still very calm, and there are plenty of things to do, including a 45 minute cable car ride up (we didn't do this), an easy rainforest walk, and a scenic train ride back down to Cairns that leads past the Barron Falls.

The falls were beautiful, but I would have been happy for the train to have taken half the time it did. We were well cooked by the time we reached the city and headed back by foot to Castaways. As we did, the rainclouds gathered. We were rained in for the entire next day but that was just fine with us. After a dash up the Victoria and NSW coasts, then the flight to Cairns, we were more than ready for some down time. We sat on 'our' bench outside room 17 and got to know our neighbours - 2 Canadian girls from Edmonton, Alberta. They very patiently listened to a whole load of crap from me - must have made venturing out into the heavy rain start to seem appealing.

The next day - our third - the weather was due to be better. So we finally settled on a reef tour operator. We were going to Michaelmas Cay with Passions of Paradise, to get our heads underwater. More of that in Part II.

A little audience participation, please...

We have a hard decision to make. We've left visiting Uluru (Ayer's Rock) until the last moment, and it wasn't such a smart move. It costs a lot to get there from Brisbane. So we are on the horns of a dilemma: Do we go there, and blow the Australian budget by about 2000 euros, or do we let it go and leave Australia without having seen one of its most iconic sights?

There's a survey gadget on the right of this blog, so feel free to vote. In the end, we'll make up our own minds, but we'll take on board your advice. If you have detailed comments to make, rather than just a vote, feel free to attach them to this post.

Please be aware that if you vote 'yes', and we become destitute as a result, you may have to give us food and shelter on our return.

Southern Hemisphere Physics Experiment

Silly season is back.

I really meant to run this experiment as soon as we got into our apartment in Sydney, but I guess I needed somebody as, well, daft as myself to give me that extra push. We're staying with Simon and Leah Pett in Brisbane right now (some of you in DSI may remember him), and guess what? Simon fits the bill perfectly!



The more detailed, and let's face it, boring details that confirm our findings can be found here.

Soon to come: If I am standing on the Southern Hemisphere, do I fall off? (Hint: no)

Melbourne to Sydney via the coast

Our first stop was Bega. They make cheese there, but it doesn't smell. Neither the cheese nor the town. It was just somewhere to stay to break up the journey to Depot Beach further North. There's not much else I can tell you about the place other than it was an 8 hour drive from Melbourne. Despite the name of the route, you don't see a whole lot of coast for most of the time. Actually it's really called Princes Highway, but you don't see any of them either.

It's a great drive though, much more interesting than the more direct Hume Highway. The landscape changed from red earth to dairy pasture as we moved though towns along the way, stopping every 150km or so for coffee or a meal: Yarragon, Lake's Entrance, and Cann River, before finally pulling up outside the Grand Hotel in Bega. Now the word 'hotel' in Australia usually means 'pub, with some rooms upstairs'. And we knew that and had no inflated expectations. But in this case the word 'grand' was not intended to mean 'Large and impressive in size, scope, or extent; magnificent'. It carried the more Irish meaning, as in 'ah feck it, it'll do grand'. I don't think I even took the car out of gear (let alone the gear out of the car) - we headed back to the motel we saw as we entered the town, the Southtown Motor Inn, a family-run operation, where we were very well looked after. The hundred dollar family room included the ability to watch videos, so the girls settled in to watch George of the Jungle, a truly abysmal movie which the girls duly gave the thumbs up.(I spent most of it trying to remember where else I had seen the actor who played the vain and stupid bad guy Kyle - before remembering that he played the vain and stupid trying-to-be-good guy Jack in the truly excellent Sideways).

The morning we checked out, I was sharing a joke with the lady of the house. She told me that she was from the New South Wales outback, near the dish in Parkes. They packed in everything to start up the hotel in Bega. She was clearly getting itchy feet again, but wasn't sure that she could convince her husband and son to make another move. "Have you seen any snakes?" she asked. Before I could answer, she presented me with a jam-jar containing a baby snake - dead and floating in meths - to show Nina and Sara. The cat had killed it recently. It was a Brown Snake, which despite the innocuous name is a highly venomous killer. When Letizia heard the story she was well impressed with the cat.

From Bega, we had a very short drive of about 120km to Bateman's Bay, and than beyond to Depot Beach, where Jamie had organized two nights in a beachside cabin. The drive was entertaining. I'm used to winding roads from back home in Cork, but here there were two extra elements: the up and down of the hills, and road cambers angled like the Indianapolis racetrack. It had everything that air travel can offer: pitch, roll and yaw.

Depot Beach has a great far-away feel to it, without actually needing to go the the GAFA (see glossary). It's run by the National Park which means that during the week, and outside of school holidays, the two-bedroom chalet only cost 100 dollars (70 euro) per night. We arrived to discover that our front garden was where all the roos like to sun themselves during the day. There were 10 or so of them, in various stages of languid indifference to the surroundings. The sight of a carload of pouchless, tiny-footed omnivores (ahem, that's us) didn't change anything.

During our stay in Depot Beach we played a game of Monopoly (a 'discovery' made by Nina and Sara in the Threadbo Youth Hostel) which lasted for 2 nights and finished with Letizia and I going bankrupt. I hope this doesn't presage our financial position when this trip is over (I don't think so - we are still on budget). Even if we do go bust, based on Nina and Sara's property speculation skills, and ruthless business practices, we should at least get a reasonably comfortable senior citizens' home.

We collected shells on Depot and Pebbly Beaches, when the rock pools are stunning. On either side of these sandy beaches lie flat tables of sedimentary rock (see Letizia's post for pictures). At least I think that's what you'd call this fruit-cake rock with currents of gravel and large stones, embedded into a dark substrate. The tide has been steadily undoing the stone so that now, the table is run through with fissures and pocked with holes, some perfectly circular, that hold on to the seawater when the tide is out. Each rockpool is decked out in its own way - some seem like carefully arranged compositions - and they all contain their own miniature landscapes. While the girls mostly searched for shells, I allowed myself to become transfixed by one rockpool after another, taking my time on each one. We weren't going anywhere in any hurry and I could spend as much time as I liked, almost in a trance. It had the advantage of being cheaper and less risky than using controlled substances.

We met or spoke to nobody during out time in Depot Beach, but at mealtimes on the veranda we did have company: the kangaroos came even closer, and the parrots joined us for dinner. They landed on my shoulders and wandered down my arm in search of food. Nina and Sara eventually hand-fed them crackers. The party was broken up by the local ruffians: three kookaburras buzzed us, flying across our table, wingtips in our faces, taking up positions on the railings of the veranda, centimeters away. The parrots legged it (well, winged it really). Kookaburras are big buggers, and carnivores too. They couldn't give a damn about the crackers and were more interested in the beef lasagne. There was a very uneasy standoff for a while - just picture big hairy bikers turning up at the vicar's village fete. I finally took the situation in hand by wielding my trusty foil - actually a roll of tinfoil - in the beaks of the gatecrashing birds. It was pathetic. Despite timourous nudging, the beasts remained unfazed, perhaps even a bit emboldened. I tried a different approach. According to Billy Connelly, the one thing in the jungle that lions fear is the chair. That's why lion tamers are seldom seen in the cage without them. I applied the same pristine logic to the kookaburras with moderate success. I was able to give the girls enough cover ("back, back I tell you") to clear the dishes indoors. We closed the sliding doors to the veranda and continued our meal inside. The birds watched us in our glass cage for a while, unlaughing, before getting bored, and presumably hungry, and flying off. I, in my role as indignant vicar, began to smoothen my ruffled feathers.

Princes Highway rolls through the highways, mercifully bypassing Wollongong (current home to a sordid financial and sexual political scandal), and traffic-lighting its way though Sydney's Southern suburbs, before finishing up in Newtown and leading onto King's Road, where Duncan had previously given us a tour. We had a coffee at Duncan's local there (texting him a thumbed nose as he was working in Melbourne that day) and continued to Rozelle where we were staying with Ludi and Gary (later to be joined by the previously insulted Duncan, fresh from the airport) for our Sydney last supper. Our last evening in Sydney was passed in the best possible way - in the warm glow of friendships that have survived time and distance. And not a kookaburra to be seen.

Melbourne

After 5 weeks in Sydney, and a palate-cleansing four days on the road, it was time to taste the delights of Melbourne. Comparisons are odious, but so is this blog, so I'm not going to avoid comparing the two cities. But before I do, let me point out how wildly inaccurate any of my conclusions are bound to be. (You probably knew that though.) We were to spend a paltry 5 days in Melbourne, we were mostly interested in catching up with our friends Jamie and Francesca (who also kindly hosted us for the duration of our stay, and for whom those 5 days must have been anything but paltry - thanks again guys) rather than 'doing' Melbourne. I also had the pleasure of catching up with my first cousin Carol, her husband Andy and daughter Jasmine. And on top of that, we also had the undiluted pleasure of Darragh Ballesty's company, and his friend Caroline. What I'm trying to say is that our stay was all about meeting friends, and Melbourne in a sense was merely the backdrop.

The city feels entirely different to Sydney and simply doesn't make that kind of instant emotional impact we experienced in Circular Quay. How could it? There may be no other city on the planet capable of that effect. I am told by those who should know (and whom I unquestioningly believe) that you need to live in Melbourne to appreciate it. It offers a different pace of life to Sydney, but at the same time a higher percentage of cultural and artistic activities. To me, it seemed much more like a town with a British identity. The St. Kilda sorts the kind of pier you'd expect to find in Blackpool or Brighton (and not the Brighton located a few km south in Melbourne itself).

Walking around the city centre, near Federation Square and Collins Street, the difference with Sydney is clear. The people are whiter, the pretty buildings are prettier, (the ugly buildings are uglier), the streets are narrower and more intimate. Cafes are tucked into the even narrower alleyways, so you never quite know what you are going to see next: A jazz band, a street performer, another ethnic eatery (Melbourne's cuisine is reputed to be the best in the Southern Hemisphere). Trams move up and down the streets - as opposed to Sydney's trannys - some of them old and beautiful, others modern and menacing (the trams, not the trannys).

I had heard about Melbournes megalomaniac trams, that brook no resistence and take no prisoners from cars or pedestrians. Their absolute priority at some junctions has led to strange right-hand turn rules for cars. In Oz, you drive on the left, but instead of waiting on the innermost lane to turn right, you pull all the way over to the left, leaving space for the dreaded trams, until the traffic lights allow you to complete your manoevre. The detail that I was missing was that the signal to complete the righthand turn is the amber light. This means that if you are going straight on through a Melbourne traffic light, you better not do it on amber. I got a brake-screeching, heart-flopping lesson in Melbourne's rules of the road on our first day. Our rental car had Queensland plates - I think I haven't done the reputation of that state any favours.

We were based in Albert Park, a city suburb named for its principal feature: the public park that once a year plays host to the F1 Grand Prix (this weekend in fact). I never did get to drive the course in my rented Hyundai Elantra (where do they come UP with these car names!!?) but I did walk across it on the way to the playground with the kids. If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have given you very long odds indeed on such a reversal of priorities.

Jamie and Francesca's house is located on a street that has everything they need: park, school, shops, cafes. In this regard, life in Melbourne is very much like that in Sydney - people tend to stick to their own village. J&F can't go beyond the front door without meeting people they know. Walking from their front door to the bottleshop (off-license) and back with Jamie, I felt I had been caught up in a scene from West Wing. Characters came in from the left, words were exchanged on the hoof, then exit, stage right. All we were missing was a steadi-cam operator in front of us - and probably, let's face it Jamie, a sharper dialogue ;-)

Like Sydney - and Canberra - Melbourne has a lot of excellent museums. Regular readers of this blog might think that we - especially the children - have had our fill of museums, but nothing could be further from the truth. The quality and variety of museums here is very high, but the cost is low, in some cases zero. In a county like Ireland, with a wealth of social and natural history behind it, and hopefully a future tied to high technology in front of it, there really should be a lot of public money put into creating environments like these. Especially for kids.

In Cork, there is one small science museum, and a new observatory museum in Blackrock. But there are a dozen or more indoor playgrounds which dwarf these museums. On a rainy day, wouldn't it be wonderful to check out an undiscovered corner of a museum as a viable alternative to a playground? The entry price of Aussie - and especially Melbournian - museums makes this possible. Kids get in for free in many places, and adults pay just 6 australian dollars (4 euros). A museum, which despite the name can be an exciting place for kids if built and run properly, can inspire researchers of the future.

We left Melbourne on a Monday morning, the first Monday of March (have we really been on the road since December!?) and headed back to Sydney, this time via the coastal route of Princes Highway. It would take 3 nights to get to Sydney where we would get to spend one last evening before heading to Queensland.

Out of Sequence: Inner Space

We're in Cairns, and I haven't even blogged on Melbourne and what came after yet. But I couldn't resist: We've just come off the Great Barrier Reef, and I've experienced scuba-diving for the first time. For a change, I'll just let some pictures do the talking.

Sydney, looking back.

(This blog entry is dedicated to my good friend Darragh Ballesty, who met up with us in Melbourne, and took the opportunity to point out how pretentious my blog was getting. As it happens, pretentious is precisely the tone I am aiming for, but it was great to get confirmation in person from a devoted reader. Darragh, this note's for you... ;)


Travelling at the stern of a boat, you get a blinkered view of what's about you. New scenery arrives fully formed and out of nowhere, rather than slowly evolving from a distant speck. You are granted time to sit and consider what you see as it moves gently away from you. There is a certain thrill of course, of standing at the bow instead, with the wind in your face and 180 degrees of possible directions, but it leads to the irisistably tempting belief that you have some control over your destination.

We sat on the back of the ferry a couple of Mondays ago on our way to Manly, on Sydney's North Shore. Manly was famously named by Arthur Phillip himself, on seeing some particularly virile looking Aboriginal standing there. Looking to the other bank, this position is helping me confirm my feel for Sydney's Southside geography. The city is a gently rolling low-rise disc with the Central Business District acting as the centre and skyscraping axis that holds it all together. This is the great unsettling confusion I feel in Sydney. I don't know whether I'm in a city or a small town, or a beach resort, or a great port. The skyscrapers live easily alongside the spectacular harbour, and the gardens and parks. The small villages of Newtown and Rozelle still have an urban atmosphere - that unmistakeable mix of self-confidence, and relaxed openness. Bronte and Coogee beaches are teeming with surfers, swimmers and posers, generating an ambiance of their own. Enormous cruiseliners pull into the very heart of the city, towering above the quayside buildings, but dwarfed by the harbour itself. All of these Sydneys are linked by buses and trains that bind this spinning disk together, and allow it to remain as one.

Once you head too far south, west or north, I imagine the city life loses much of its appeal. The energy and expense required to sample the delights I've mentioned above become prohibitive, and you make do with your own local amenities. The cost of property with even a glimpse of water is enormous and so those who live in the real Sydney still have to make great sacrifices for that pleasure. But I can't think of a city in the world to match it. "Ah - but it's so far away from everywhere else!" people say. No. Everywhere else is so far away from it.

In Manly, we strolled down the pedestrian street that links the harbour beach to the ocean beach, and settled down for lunch next to a Scotish couple who had made Sydney their home a long time ago. Like almost all Sydneysiders we met, they were very happy with the place, other than the high rent. They used to live in Manly itself, but moved up North to get a bigger living space. How did they deal with the presence of creepy-crawlies, I wondered, given that they were not born into it. "It's the lizards I can't stand" said the lady, much to my surprise. I told her how even in Europe we had lizards (thinking of the gekkos in Sardinia) and then went on to boast about how they didn't bother me at all. Surely I was prime Aussie material. "Well these lizards ate my pet rabbit" she mentioned (get back in your box, Paddy).

At the end of our day in Manly, we took the ferry South and West towards Circular Quay, still at the back of the boat (actually, the boat had bows on either end, a water-going pushme-pullyou). Looking back, North Head and Watson's Point at the mouth of the harbour seemed to converge from opposite shores, and eventually join. Nostalgia, that unrequitable love for a time and place gone by, is the other great Irish disease. I couldn't help but interpret the effect as a last embrace from the city we were about to leave.


How's that for being up myself, Darragh ;-)