“Me Tarzan you Jane” (17^th November 2014)

We drove north up along the coast towards the Daintree Rain Forest. The countryside exhibits a lush and fertile plain on the coastal side and mountains on the inside. The farmers grow sugar cane in large quantities and further north the famous Daintree tea. 

Carriages filled with sugar cane

To service the sugar cane harvest there is a narrow (2’ 6”) gauge railroad that enables the farmers to transport the crop, although the carriages, being much wider than the rails, look highly unstable and easily toppled.

Daintree Ferry

The plains largely terminate at the Daintree Ferry and one enters the Daintree Rain Forest. The road north of the ferry twists and turns through the rain forest and is the only part of the Daintree Rain Forest that meets the coast. Along the way there are numerous accesses down onto the beach as well as warnings of cassowarys, a very large Australian bird looking very much like an ostrich. (The Daintree Rain Forest is known to be between 110-200 million years old, compared to 7 million for the Amazon). 

We stopped off along the way at the Daintree Discovery Centre.  This has aerial walkways with lookout platforms at all levels up to the canopy top at 70 ft. 

Sheila in Daintree Rain Forest

At the top the tower houses a micromet weather station, where the temperature was 36.7C. The base is much-much cooler, probably 10 degrees or more.

Weather station

 

There are scores of nuts and fruit that are poisonous and ones that could easily be mistaken for raspberries.  The poisonous nature of the fruits and nuts has an impact on their propagation through the forest by bats and birds and one tree called the “idiot fruit” is so poisonous that the only mechanism for transportation is via gravity, which confines the distribution to a very limited area. Some fruits are poisonous to humans but not all animals.

Butterflies can be seen at the lower levels, flying through the trees and one very striking one is the blue Ulysses but it never stays still for long enough to capture a photograph. All through the different levels of the forest one hears a variety of birds singing but right at the top the cacophony is almost deafening.

The variety of species is staggering, over 2000, and some 700 unique to this rain forest. There are many examples of epiphyte plants that grow on their hosts but are not parasites. These plants are attempting to reach the tops of the canopies to catch the sunlight but don't have the physical structure to reach such heights unaided.

Epiphyte example

  

From the Daintree Discovery Centre we travelled north to Cape Tribulation but called in at the Daintree Ice Cream Company where, as a birthday treat, Sheila elected to stop to try a mix of ice creams including, mango, soursup, passion fruit and wattleseed.  The latter, at least, being part of the aboriginal diet - “bush tucker”.

Cape Tribulation was named by Captain Cook  after his ship scraped a reef north east of the cape. Cook steered away from the coast into deeper water but the ship ran aground, on what is now named Endeavour Reef. He later re-floated the ship. Cook named the Cape after all his troubles on the reef. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful beach and very inviting place to swim but crocodiles inhabit the shoreline as do Box Jelly Fish at this time of year. Their sting can be fatal.  

Crocodile warning

We took our sandals off and tested the water as we strolled and it was seriously warm, reportedly 26C.

A Birthday Beauty at Cape Tribulation

Just to show Sheila can use the camera - one of Mike!

Another encounter with airport authorities.. (16^th November 2014)

We packed up our kit and headed for the Sydney domestic airport to fly up to Cairns.  However, Mike’s encounter with the airport security didn’t go quite as planned.  He got hauled out from the security line for carrying a penknife, not one but two!  Could this be a Brisbane G20 threat? 

The option offered was to leave the knives behind or check them into the luggage hold.  Unfortunately the airline wanted to charge $70 to take an extra bag, to which Mike objected. He then proceeded to walk along the check-in queue until he found someone also going to Cairns and willing to add the items into their luggage. As it turned out the guy that obliged later needed help contacting his hire car company, and was using the same company as us, and as fate would have it he and his wife were sat in the same row as us on the plane!

We arrived in Cairns, around 4pm, to temperatures of 27C and drove up to Port Douglas where we had booked an apartment. The trip up along the Captain Cook Highway is relatively slow since quite a bit is restricted to 80km/h, but it hugs the coast and has some gorgeous beaches along quite a few sections of its length. 

The journey provides a couple of dual carriage way sections where one can pass slow vehicles and the speed limit increases to a pedestrian 100km/h. Amusingly enough a sign on the opposite dual carriage way, facing the on-coming traffic, advises motorist wandering into the wrong lane to "GO BACK", as if they needed any encouragement!

On arrival in Port Douglas we were flagging a bit and decided to eat before unpacking our bags, and within about 50m of the apartment found a restaurant offering a special Sunday deal of fish and chips for $20, where the fish was Barramundi. This with a couple of glasses of Chardonnay went down well and concluded the day's adventures.

Manley Beach (15th November 2014)

Mike started the morning with a session at 6am in the gym, followed by a swim in the pool and a sauna  Sheila needed her beauty sleep so rose a tad later at 7:30am for breakfast.

The temperature was around 23C, quite a bit less than the previous day when it had risen to 36C.

Today we planned to meet up with Ray Merton, an old acquaintance of Mike’s, who previously ran a research group at NSW University using satellite imagery for a range of land and coastal applications.  

Ray lives near Manley so we headed north.   Manley can be reached by road but more easily by ferry so we headed to the Circular Quay in Perth via the circular rail link, to catch a ferry, by far the fastest route.

Manley Beach

Ray who is the vice-captain of the North Curl Curl Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC) invited us to the local SLSC Carnival but this got cancelled at the last minute so he showed us the local surf life including a life guard’s boat race and the surfskis that are a bit like a kayak.

Ray dropped us at the north end of Manley Beach and we took the coastal walk down to Shelly Beach. This beach is apparently the only west facing beach in Eastern Australia. On the route down we took a few minutes to watch an international beach volley ball match between Australia and the Cook Islands, one of a number taking place over the weekend. The Australian girls were the under-23 world champions and it didn't look as though they would be troubled by the opposition.

Australia vs Cook Island

Attack signal

Manley Beach is over 2km long but is populated along the whole length by surfers of all shapes and sizes apart, that is, from a 30m stretch restricted to swimmers and designated by two flags – clearly swimmers get a poor deal. Swimmers drifting out of this region or surfers encroaching into the swimming area get bellowed at by life-guards on the end of highly amplified loudspeakers. 

Swimmer's restricted zone

The coastal walk came up with its own surprises and attractions.

Water dragon

Coastal crab

Coastal sculpture

Bondi Beach and Rock'n'Roll 14th November 2014

Friday and we take the bus to Bondi Beach to see the action and then take the coastal walk to Bronte Beach.

Bondi Beach

The waves were certainly firing near the rocks and quite a few performers were showing off their skill. 

Attractions were also to be seen on the beach.

Some just preferred to take it easy.

In the evening we attended a performance at the Sydney Opera House of “Sons of Sun”.

John Kennedy & co. providing the beat

This is a wild rock’n’roll play about Sun Records, Memphis, and the artists that started their careers there. The play is told through the character of its founder Sam Phillips, his assistant Marion Keisker, and the famous musicians that Sam recorded, including Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison.  Worth going to see, it will certainly get you tapping your feet, or even as one enthusiastic member of the audience - dancing in the aisle.

Darling Harbour 13th November 2014

Walked over to Darling Harbour today principally to see the Australian National Maritime Museum and passed a Chinese Garden offering "Lipton" tea and scones. Annabel who works for Unilever Research on tea will be impressed! What ever happened to Chinese Oolong tea and other varieties?

Chinese Garden

The main attractions of the museum were a replica of the "Endeavour", the boat that James Cook sailed to Australia, and a rebuilt cargo boat from the 1800s called the "James Craig".

Endeavour replica

James Craig Tall Ship

Both boats were manned by enthusiastic volunteer guides who could reel off a tonne of facts. We were closely followed by packs of young school children, wearing bright uniforms.  They certainly had an advantage below decks on the Endeavour where the headroom in parts was significantly reduced to accommodate the extra crew for the journey to see the transit of Venus. The boat was originally a coal ship.

Although I have sailed for a fair few years in yachts with “heads” I never knew the origin of the term. On the Endeavour these are clearly visible on both sides of the bow with makeshift toilet paper – see photo below!

The heads and makeshift toilet paper! 

The James Craig tall ship was impressive and had been rescued from the bare skeleton of its steel hull and painstakingly restored over a number of years with significant donations. Even today there were volunteers constructing the ship’s rope ladder with meticulous attention to detail.

The James Craig carries over 1000 square metres of sail, which compared to my windsurf sails of 3-6m sq. is awesome.

Both ships are actively sailed by a trained crew and members of the public can join them. 

Sydney Harbour plus.. 12th November 2014

Today was largely spent around the harbour. Our initial intent was to take a harbour cruise in the morning but the slow traffic up George St and the late arrival of the number 555 bus meant that we had to switch to the afternoon cruise (or did we enjoy the feather pillows too much?).

Switching the cruise trip to the afternoon was fortuitous since the overcast sky dramatically improved and we found ourselves for the first time sheltering from the sun. So plan B came into action in the morning and we took a leisurely stroll around the Royal Botanical Gardens that are freely open to the public. 

Sheila took a real liking to the Jackaranda tree that was just in bloom, apparently only for two weeks in a year.

Jackaranda tree

Come in number 33 your times is up!

The gardens separate the financial district from the harbour so provide a dramatic backdrop.

Sheila in the Botanical Garden

The cruise was worth taking because as well as the mugs of tea and cakes it provided great views of the shoreline from different vantage points to those afforded from the shore, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House

The harbour is very extensive with numerous tributaries and with almost all the available shore, and I mean kilometres, lined with multi-million houses owned by the rich and famous. 

The harbour looking north

Middle Harbour to the north of the city is a good example. Property values range from a few million up to around $50M. This certainly makes Sandbanks in Poole look rather pathetic with only a few hundred metres of shore line. 

Middle Harbour Houses

Even a flat base is not an issue to the super rich !

A few beaches are available along the shoreline with nice looking golden sand but with few swimmers, this is apparently a reflection of the concern for bull sharks in the harbour. Only on one beach did we see any netting to safe guard swimmers. The harbour has a depth in some areas of 40m and this is favoured by the sharks. There are many yachts and yacht clubs strung around the harbour but we only saw a couple of windsurfers and they were well in near the shore – could the threat of bull sharks be the reason? However, the last person killed was in 1984 so I guess the chances of a problem are low but finite!  Would you take the risk?

After the cruise we took a 250m ride up the Sydney Tower Eye, where you are first given a 4D experience of the harbour. To be truthful it is probably 5D since the usual 3D has vibration and water spray effects added! The views from the top put the whole harbour and city into perspective.

Sydney Tower Eye seen to the left

We are staying in a very nice apartment down in the Thai district and each evening’s restaurant search, using Google maps, provides excellent choices of Eastern cuisine and surprisingly at affordable prices and comparable to the UK.

Three things to go wrong... 9th November 2014

Well the start of the trip didn't go without its issues!!! 

First, I left my newly replaced Canon 700D camera at home, which I only discovered when we got to Heathrow.  A fast courier service provided by our local taxi company and support from Terry, one of our neighbours, resolved the problem with about 30 minutes to spare! 

(The camera has a chequered history since the last one went swimming off the coast of Lorient, France in October and was only just replaced within days of leaving.)

The second issue arose as we tried to check in our bags. The Singapore Airline website had implied that we had 30kg baggage allowance through to Australia. However, the airline check-in desk indicated that when we booked the tickets, months ago, we were given allowances of only 20kg, nevertheless she let them through. We explored this further at the ticket desk and were advised that this was a hang-over from a previous restriction and not to worry. Needless to say, we may have a similar situation with the domestic flights bought at the same time. 

The third issue was that my brand new ultra-light Samsonsite suitcase arrived in Sydney with only three of its four wheels! An hour of form filling ensued and later a trip down town to a luggage repair centre eventually resulted in an anticipated repair by Friday, ahead of our Sunday departure for Port Douglas

.. through passport control and into Australia

. 

Getting money out of ATMs also didn't go without its problem. Barclays have a partnership with Westpac bank such that no commission is charged on debit withdrawals. It took a while to realise that I should assign the transaction to my "cheque" account rather than the "savings" account but numerous attempts failed even trying smaller and smaller amounts, yet they had no problem to tell me how much was in my account. In the end I elected to use an ANZ ATM and succeeded.  

Our first day in Sydney 11th November 2014

Arriving at 7:35am and after 24 hours of travelling isn't probably the best way to start exploring the city but we did venture out and about in Sydney to get some exercise. The weather was overcast but adequately warm enough between 18-20C for some, other decided hoodies were necessary ..

We got our first glimpse of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

A phone call from Phil (who is in South Korea for the week) on my newly acquired Australian SIM card, confirmed that low temperatures in Australia would not be our problem...