Australia - Cairns

The city of Cairns is named for William Wellington Cairns, a former governor of the state of Queensland, whose last name for some reason was pronounced “cans.”  We’re still having trouble remembering that the name of the city is pronounced the same way, but thankfully the locals are quick to remind us.  Our current home is in a suburb called Redlynch about twenty minutes outside the city, and the house is one of the nicest in which we’ve stayed so far.  A five-minute walk takes us to the neighborhood shopping center, which has an incredible grocery store called Woolworths, a Domino’s Pizza, a pharmacy, and a McDonald’s which is known in Australia by the nickname "Macca’s."  Our house is brand new with three bedrooms, a kitchen equipped with a nice cooktop and dishwasher, a spacious living room with a patio looking out to the lush back yard, a big bathroom with a  powerful shower, and there’s even a giant washing machine with an actual agitator in the side-entry mudroom.  Yep, this house has everything we could possibly want in a temporary home—except wifi.  

Here’s an example of a conversation between Deena and me as we’re in the online process of booking a place to stay:

“Hey, this place looks good.  It has an extra bedroom, a fifth-floor balcony with a view of the city, an award-winning coffee shop on the corner, and grocery stores and restaurants all around the block.  Wow, there’s even a washing machine AND and a dryer!”

“Hmmm….sounds really good, does it have wifi?"

“Ummm, no.”

“Keep looking.”

“Okay, here’s one that’s a little more expensive closer to town, but it’s only one room, and the bathroom just has a shower which we’d have to share with the other guests in the building.”

“What about a toilet?”

“No toilet, the listing says you have to walk three blocks down the street and pay to use the toilet in back of the slaughterhouse.”

“Does it have wifi?”

“Yes.”

“Book it before someone else gets it.”

I don’t see how travel was possible before the internet.  Travel agents were certainly helpful back in the day, and I’m sure they still are, but we prefer to plan our own itinerary. Online research requires a lot of time and patience, but the results have saved us a ton of money, and we get to do things our own way.  If we have questions about activities, bus schedules, weather, currency, or anything else that would affect our stay in a certain place, a quick search reveals the answers.  The internet allows us to access our banking accounts, book lodging, send and receive emails, and keep up with our friends and family with free wifi video calls and social media outlets.  The kids have done the majority of their schoolwork online, and when I spend time writing, I love using Google docs with its quick access to a thesaurus and online extras when I’m not too lazy to research something.

When there’s no wifi, everything grinds to a halt.  The kids have data on their phones, but it’s verrrry sloooow, and it’s impossible to use them as hotspots or anything else except to check emails.  We booked the house in Redlynch because it was new and inexpensive and huge, and we figured at this point in the trip, we could use a little more space if we could get it.  We knew it didn’t have wifi, but with Macca’s down the street, we thought it would be easy to survive by camping out in their dining room, munching french fries, and using all the free internet floating around in the burger-scented air.  Indeed, we’ve set up individual “MyMacca’s” accounts and spent every evening haunting a booth while trying to catch up and plan our next moves.  We’re thankful for the big new house, but having almost constant access to wifi even in fairly primitive places over these last nine months has left us a bit spoiled, and walking down to Macca’s is kind of a drag, but at least they have Coke slushies available for only a dollar.

Cairns reminds us of nice American beach towns with good roads and all the services and amenities one could want while staying near the seashore.  The major difference is the surrounding blue green mountains covered in tropical rainforest and separated by valleys filled with sugarcane fields.  The sky seems larger here for some reason, and the brief rain showers we’ve experienced everyday makes the color of the flowers more intense and the broad-leafed grass greener.  The city, which is located on an inlet off the Coral Sea, is a major draw for backpackers and other tourists alike because of the tropical climate and proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral-reef system with 2,300 kilometers full of 2,900 individual reefs and over 900 islands.

The Neighborhood

We’re not into scuba diving, and we’ve snorkeled only a couple of times, but we wanted to spend a day on the Great Barrier Reef, so we booked passage on a boat to Fitzroy Island National Park located about an hour from Cairns off the Queensland coast right in the heart of the reef.  The skies opened up with drenching downpours about a half hour before we left for the downtown ferry terminal, and we thought our day on the island would be spent huddling under coconut palms, but the rains moved through quickly leaving an intense rainbow set in the sky in their wake.  

The name of the travel company we used was called Raging Thunder, probably named after the sound the boat made when its hull smacked the huge swells in the ocean as it churned out of the bay heading to Fitzroy.  We’ve experienced some rough seas in our travels, but nothing like these waves. By the time we arrived on the white sand shores of the island, many passengers had their heads buried deeply in the complimentary barf bags handed out by the crew.  Thankfully, we didn’t get sick, although it took an hour or so to get over the queasy feeling produced by the rolling seas. It helped that we were standing on the shores of a tropical paradise with a mountainous rainforest at its core.

Looking out from the rainforest

One doesn’t rent anything in Australia; instead, one can “hire” goods and services, so we hired a couple of sets of snorkel gear including polyester stinger suits, which the staff strongly recommends wearing during the months from November to May.  The world is a dangerous place, but Australia contributes even more peril to the global risk factor by offering eight of the world’s ten most dangerous snakes along with various venomous spiders, insects, and jellyfish, our life-threatening hazard of the day.  These ethereally floating invertebrates called marine stingers are prevalent in the surf this time of year, and a single sting can progress from an irritating burning sensation to an urgent lifesaving need for an airlift back to a hospital on the mainland.  It’s difficult to avoid the marine stingers since they’re small and practically invisible.  

So, with snorkel gear and stinger suits in hand, we hiked a little more than a kilometer through the rainforest to Nudey Beach on the southern tip of Fitzroy island, and thankfully the name of the beach was derived from a surname rather than Australians running unfrocked on the seashore.  The beach closest to the forest was comprised mostly of bleached fossilized coral which gave way to golden sand where the turquoise surf made landfall in a foamy crash.  Deveny noticed something hopping around in the thick jungle behind us which turned out to be a large white cockatoo with a regal curving crest on top of its head and a wicked black beak.  

We made our camp beside some boulders in the shade of the coconut palms and mangroves and took turns donning our gear and snorkeling through the waves in the cool water.  Visibility is typically two meters or more in the waters off Nudey Beach, but the recent rainstorms had churned the waters to the point where we had practically no visibility. We talked to some other travelers later in the day who had gone out on glass-bottom-boat tours, and they said the water was too murky for reef viewing as well.  We were a little let down that we couldn’t see any colorful fish off the reef, but again, the beauty of the island on a bright sunny day trumped any disappointment we felt, and we still felt the triumph of snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef.  Thankfully, the seas were much calmer on the trip back to Cairns late that afternoon. We all slept for a while as the effects of the sun and our activities took their toll, and bedtime came early that night after dinner and a trip to Macca’s.

Envirogirl is here to save the reef for mankind

Snorkeling the reef

The walkway that borders the seawall in the heart of Cairns is called the Esplanade, which is home to a manmade lagoon similar to the one in downtown Brisbane but on a smaller scale.  The lagoon was our destination for the following afternoon, and we took the bus which offered a less expensive alternative to Uber and a more scenic drive into town.  We hopped off at the bus station a few blocks from the Esplanade and made our way to the lagoon past restaurants, souvenir shops, and gelato stands which we noted for the walk back later in the day.  We also strolled past a huge grove of banyan trees with a massive green canopy supported by trunks the size of small houses with aerial roots fanning out to the surrounding sidewalks.  The canopy was alive with the movement and chattering of animals that we assumed were large birds or possibly monkeys, but we couldn’t see through the thick leaves to the source of the cacophony.

We had the blessing of another sunny day and ate a picnic lunch at one of the tables on the perimeter of the lagoon shaded by tall palm trees and listened to the dry rustle of the branches as a warm breeze blew in from the sea.  We found a spot under a large gazebo for our headquarters beside the pool and spent a lazy couple of hours in and out of the cool water along with other like-minded families and groups of young people enjoying the day.  Joseph and I left the girls to their sunbathing for a while as we walked down to the end of the Esplanade and checked out the view of the mountains beyond the yachts anchored in the marina.  Cairns is an impressive town, and we could see why it’s so popular with travelers, especially as we savored cups of cherry and mango gelato on the walk back to the bus stop several hours later.  

I finally purchased a t-shirt to replace one that I’ve managed to wear out after months on the road, and Joseph scored a nice hoodie to combat the coming cold of New Zealand at the end of the week.  Upon our approach to the banyans, we could hear the commotion coming from the tree tops again, but this time we could see hundreds of huge flying foxes soaring between the branches where they landed and hung upside down swiveling their heads and screaming with wide open mouths lined with sharp teeth.  These things are basically giant bats the size of large crows, and although we’ve seen them hanging on caged perches in zoos over the years, seeing them unhindered in a huge colony was a thrill that was a bit unsettling.

We took the bus back to Redlynch where we cooled off in the house for a while, and Deveny and I took a walk up to Woolworths to shop for dinner.  With so many food options available to us now, we find ourselves standing in the middle of the store just staring around not sure what to purchase, but we persisted and enjoyed chicken-and-vegetable stuffed pastries that night along with buttery vegetables, applesauce, and crusty bread.  Of course the nightly trip to Macca’s in search of wifi yielded frozen Cokes for dessert before another fun day in Cairns came to a close.

It’s a good thing we had already enjoyed downtown because the following day was a total washout.  Heavy showers came through Redlynch all day, and we had no choice but to stay inside and stare wistfully out the windows...with no wifi....all day.  After watching the fifth or sixth International House Hunters episodes in a row when it was obvious there was no way a grand piano was going to fit in a fifth-floor apartment in Athens for only $900 a month—sheesh, we decided to brave the rains and hike to Macca’s for some ice cream and wifi.  Of course the wifi network was down at Macca’s, so we were forced to order french fries before heading out to the nearby shopping center in search of more wifi, which we found at a coffee shop in front of Woolworths and logged on for the price of a mocha and a long black.  Tough day, but a particularly deep and sensitive episode of Walker Texas Ranger on the telly that night helped take the edge off.  Life on the road can be difficult at times, but the level of perseverance of which my family is capable is astonishing.

I opened my eyes to sunshine coming through the window on our last day in Cairns, and I propped my head up on the pillow and stared at the talon-shaped leaves on the papaya tree in the front yard.  I thought about how this time last year, I had no idea what a papaya tree looked like or that I would prefer mangoes over papayas.  Deena had scored some half-priced tickets to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Center, so we tanked up on a big protein-packed breakfast as we prepared to get in touch with our inner aborigines.  I cooked up a buttery omelet and added sliced chunks of scotch fillet steaks leftover from dinner the night before.  The hot pot yielded a liter of boiling water that I poured over fresh grounds in the coffee press, and breakfast was served.

A friendly Uber driver dropped us off at the center around 11:00, and we spent four hours of fun with two other families as we learned about aboriginal Australia with our guide, Joe, a north coastal aborigine with wild hair, a big belly painted white, and a wicked sense of humor.  Joe started by showing us some of the local flora and fauna, and I was fascinated by his explanation of the aborigines’ use of various nuts and berries for food, especially the nut that needs grinding and washing every hour and a half for seven days in order to remove the poison before it’s fit to eat.  I asked Joe how the aborigines knew that it took washing for seven days to extract the poison from the nut, and he replied with a wink and a partially toothless grin, “Trial and error, mate.”

We walked outside for a while and saw huge turtles and freshwater eels breaking the surface of the swiftly flowing river that intersected the grounds of the center and then went back inside where Joe showed us the intricacies of aboriginal weapons and the didgeridoo, the quintessential musical instrument of ancient Australia.  Joe was an expert at playing this thing, which sounds like a deep, rhythmic booming pulled from the kangaroo-trod red earth of the Outback, and he treated us to a private concert which left us mesmerized.  An excellent film accompanied by dramatic performances by several aborigines immersed us in 50,000 years of tribal history. Afterward, we gathered around tables in the dining hall and watched performances of traditional dances while we munched hot paninis for lunch.

The day just kept getting better as Joe took us out to the spear-throwing and boomerang ranges and taught our group the proper way to knock a duck from the sky or take out a kangaroo at a hundred meters.  We said goodbye to our aboriginal friend back at the main hall, but he told us about another dance show we could watch free of charge, so we stayed a little longer to hear him play the didgeridoo again and see his friends portray a kangaroo hunt through dance one more time.  Wow.  We made up for being stuck in the house the day before big time, and we loved our time at the Tjapukai Center which left us feeling exhilarated not only by the intense presentations, but by our new knowledge of the rich history of Australia as well.

The Eagle Scout shows the aborigine how to make fire

On our last morning in Cairns, we were up early to finish packing and to clean the house in order to catch an Uber ride and make it to the airport by 8:00 for a 10:00 flight back to Brisbane.  The seats on the plane had individual entertainment screens, and I finally got to see Ron Howard’s excellent Beatles documentary, Eight Days a Week—a must see for any Beatles fan.  The plane landed just as the movie ended, and we were back in beautiful Brisbane for one night before continuing around the world to New Zealand.  We’re staying in a large suite at the Ascot Budget Hotel just down the road from the airport, and as I’m typing this last paragraph, a cool breeze is blowing into our second-floor living room, and fat kookaburras are swarming through the branches of a huge mimosa tree in front of the building squawking with calls that sound like wild laughter.  Australia is a beautiful country with friendly people everywhere, and even though it reminded us a lot of home, the koalas, kookaburras, and aborigines let us know that it’s like no other place on earth.