One Day

Day 52

"Now... bring me that horizon." - Jack Sparrow

I can only assume most people who live in northern hemisphere have one common dream...to one day dive at the Great Barrier Reef. I can happily say now that I can write that off my list. In my very initial travel plan I did not plan to go to Reef, but I figured that since I am so close to it now and I don't know if I'll ever again have the chance, then I might as well do it.

So I booked the trip from Port Douglas on ship called Poseidon. Originally I wanted to go with Wavelength since one woman in Cooktown recommended it to me, but it turns out someone else has been recommending it as well...they were totally booked out till September 1st! Well, I wasnt going to sit on my ass here for 2 weeks waiting for open slot so I called other companies and from what I heard, Poseidon was suppose to be pretty good as well.

To be perfectly honest, my expectations weren't high for this trip...and maybe because of that, I wasn't so disappointed. Yes, reef looked great. Yes, there was tons of different fish. Yes, colors were almost as spectacular underwater as they seem to be in millions of pictures. But...for some reason it just wasn't anything unusual after seeing Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia year ago. In my opinion, Ningaloo Reef was better, it offered more and in smaller area. Great Barrier Reef didn't offer anything spectacular for mundane eye. I guess if you are marine biologist, there might be more than meets the eye. But for casual observer I give hint: go to Western Australia and see Ningaloo Reef instead. Fewer tourists, fewer boats and much better preserved corals.

Here are some pics boat photographer took of me in water.





What else? Oh yea, did I mention I dont really like east coast? After over week here I can say that east coast has absolutely nothing to do with real Australia I fell in love with. The Real Australia was in Western Australia and for most part, in Northern Territory as well. This is a themepark for tourists. Granted, beaches and scenery are stunning here, better than anywhere else, but every place lacks soul, spirit and characteristics. Everything is built on tourism, not for every day life.

But all in all, there are still several "must-do" things in east coast(Whitsundays, Fraser Island) and I don't really have to spend that long here. Little less than 2 months and I am on my way to Tonga!

Cape Tribulation in pictures

Another flashback entry, this time some pics from Cape Tribulation. I truly think this place is the very definition of Paradise

Cooktown in pictures

This is more or less "unofficial" entry. Just showing some pics from Cooktown to those who are not on Facebook :)

Since arcitechture in Cooktown is somewhat...oldish, I took some periodic bw-pictures. I think they turned out quite authentic

Next some normal pics of Cooktown's main street.

Captain Cook's statue and sunset on harbour.

Pics from Grassy Hill lookout.

PS. Now in Port Douglas, nice place...but I still feel east coast has nothing to do with Australia. This feels more like a themepark...

Close encounters of the wildife

Day 47 ...I think

"The wise man said just raise your hand
And reach out for the spell
Find the door to the promised land
Just believe in yourself"

Sorry, still no pics coming. Computers in far north Queensland are more or less archaic. I'm adding this entry just to let you know I am still alive after some close encounters with Australian wildlife. Oh, this is also 8th day now that I am outside of cellphone reception in case someone has tried to call me.

Whats up then? In Cooktown I had very close encounter with the most venomous snake in entire world, Taipan. As I was walking down from Grassy Hill there and rounded a corner, there it was. Right smack in middle of the road, well over 2m Coastal Taipan. Didnt get pic since the snake rushed to bushes as I performed an astonishing 5m leap backwards! Needless to say my heart was racing entire day after that. Event reached 9.9 on my "scary-shit" -meter.

After Cooktown I was originally planning to go straight to Port Douglas but for some reason I decided to stay 5-nights in Cape Tribulation, about 50km north from Port Douglas. This turned out to be fantastic detour! This place is amazingly beautiful, easily the most beautiful place I have ever visited, ever. First time walking to that beach I felt like someone placed a panoramic painting in front of me until I realised ocean and trees were moving, it was real. My original plan was to do some bushwalking here, but I ended up discarding that plan. Instead I found perfect place on the beach for my hammock and just lied there for 2 days watching the amazing beach and view.

As it turned out my close encounters with wildlife didn't end with Taipan. On sunday I took a walk to Emmagren Gorge(8km) and as I was walking back in the bushes I stumbled on this giant Cassowary and its 2 babies. Now, to those who don't know, Cassowary is second largest bird in entire planet after Ostrich, they are larger than Emus! Cassowary is also listed as the world's most dangerous bird to humans because it is capable of inflicting serious and fatal injuries with its sharp beak and legs. They are known to be highly aggressive towards humans especially when protecting their babies. So...there I was, 10m from worlds most dangerous bird ready to protect its siblings. Bird just looked massive and horribly menacing as it started to slowly walk toward me. I admit, I wasn't brave enough to stay there, grab camera and get photo. Instead I ran away and set new 200m world record. It didn't follow me so I waited for like 10mins, went back and it was gone by then.

Below is an image of Cassowary, just try to imagine Emu-size bird 10m away from you looking like that and walking toward you(no, pic is not taken by me).

So I am still alright but I'm getting this nagging feeling this country is trying to get rid of me...or I am incredibly fortunate seeing these very rare wild animals. Tomorrow I am leaving jungle to more civilized area called Port Douglas. I try to get some pics up from there. Until then, all is good at this side of the Rainbow...allthough I have not seen single raindrop since I left Perth July 10th, but I'm not complaining :))

Vacation during vacation

Day 42

"Follow the pale moonlight
Once I wished for this night
Faith brought me here
It`s time to cut the rope and fly"

First of all...sorry, no pics in this post. There are no computers in Cooktown that have usb ports(yea, go figure...).

Cairns...I so hated every second I had to spend in Cairns. That city has absolutely no soul and no character. It is city that exists purely for tourism and tourism alone. I heard rumors there are aussies living there as well but I found none. When I checked in to my hostel guy at the reception spoke bad english with heavy italian accent.

Basically town is full of drunken 20-year old british teenagers getting pissed each night in numerous cheap drinking places and then sleeping through next day to do it all over again. Cairns is similar to any other popular tourist place in Mediterranean. Mallorca, Ibiza, Rodos, Aiya Napa,...all are exactly same. Darwin was party place as well, but it was much much smaller and people there were so different. Lot older and more mature. I guess if you are 20 and want to get wasted 24/7 then Cairns is city for you...but then again why travel to Australia for that? Much cheaper to travel to Mediterranean and do exactly the same.

So after 2 nights in Cairns I escaped to Cooktown, some 350km north from Cairns. Now...this place is just what I wanted. Cooktown is so quiet, relaxed and chilled that its perfect place to have vacation during vacation. We are relatively close to Cairns but there are hardly any tourists here, just what I am looking for :)

My intention was to book a fishing trip and maybe even Great Barrier Reef tour from here, but since there are no tourists atm, the tour operators are not going out with their boats. Besides, winds are extremely high here atm, someone said that there are 2.5m waves out in the Reef now.

So my plan is to make my way slowly back towards Cairns and try to get trip to Great Barrier Reef from either Cape Tribulation or from Port Douglas. It would actually be cheaper to go from Cairns, but I so despise that place that I will not give any money to support tourism there.

Anyway, life is good here. Laters.

5000km inside 7 days

Day 39

"Many faces I have seen
Many places I have been
Walked the deserts
Swam the shores"

Gosh, haven't been able to update blog after I left Darwin and that was...week ago. Time has really started to fly here. So what's going on? What has been happening? Well, from title of this entry you can figure out that last 7 days have been full of travelling and very little rest. Today was actually first day since friday last week when I didn't have to wake up before 6am!

But lets get on with the story, so much to tell. I could sit here and write for entire day but instead I try to keep this very very short...I gotta have stories to tell when I get back home someday :)

On saturday August 2nd I woke up very early to leave Darwin and head to Alice Springs with the legendary Ghan Train.

Here is shot from interior lounge.
This trip turned out to be biggest disappointments so far. Price was insanely high, seats were not even remotely good, food sucked, beer was expensive and since most the time we travelled during nighttime the views weren't great either. Besides, I was sitting next to this....um, big guy who took 1.5 seats so I had very little room to sit in. Crappy 26h if you ask me.

So next stop was Alice Springs. I had heard tons of bad stuff about the place, all related to problems with piss-drunk aboriginals rioting the town. It turned out that Alice Springs was heaps better than its reputation...which still didnt make the place spectacular. City council had started a program from January 2008 to clean up the city. For example I couldn't even buy beer without passport and they insert every alcohol purchase into city's computer system! Here is shot of the city from lookout.
I only stayed in Alice Springs that day and on next morning at 5:30am I departed on 2-day tour to Kings Canyon and...the first "Big Thing" of this trip, Uluru aka Ayer's Rock. This trip turned out to be the best so far. Allthough much of it is credit to lovely and chatty english girl Catherine who sat next to me in bus. I had really good time and 800km bus ride didn't feel long at all. Our first stop was King's Canyon.
Views were nothing short of stunning, I especially liked these rock domes. This area is called "Lost City" btw.
After King's Canyon we headed to our campsite close to Uluru. We slept the night in swags under stars while it was close to 0 degrees during night, pretty f'ing cold if you ask me!
Next morning we got up at 5am to see sunrise at Uluru. I seriously had butterflies on my stomach, and not only cause of that bottle of Johnny Walker's which we drank at the campfire last evening. Uluru is after all one of the most iconic places in world and now I was able to see it. After about 4km walk from parking lot to base of rock we waited for sunrise while temperature was just barely above 0. Below are 2 pics, first just seconds before sunrise, second just seconds after sunrise, I'm sure you notice the huge difference even from my crappy pictures.
Rock literally started to glow red when first sunrays hit it. It was...very magical experience, loved it!
Finally the postcard view with our tour group. Fantastic people every single one, we had such hilarious time.

So, back to Alice Springs from Uluru. I was back at hostel at 7pm and my next adventure, roadtrip to Cairns was set to start next morning at 5:30am. So, again a night with little or no sleep. First day of the roadtrip was quite an experience again, over 800km on road without seeing single city or even structure, just miles and miles of...nothing. Only "sight" was basically this huge termite mound.
...and then there was hours and hours of...nothing.
Our first night we stayed at ranch in middle of nowhere. That homestead was great, they had this adorable kangaroo called Mary who loved toasts, ice cream coffee and beer!
Next day we continued with little more civilization around us since we were now in Queensland and getting closer and closer to coast. Yet still, there wasnt much there except landscapes started to improve significantly.
We stopped in few places during day. 2 of them are really worth mentioning. First was little place called Middleton, population 3. Yet, they still had pub there
! ...and I found new friend(Spotty) from there as well while enjoying morning beer :)
Other place worth mentioning was Winton, population 600. Winton is birthplace of 2 big things. First being Qantas Airlines and second is worldwide popular song "Waltzing Matilda".
On 2nd night we stayed at small township...I just cant remember name. Basically we got shit drunk in the only pub town had with some locals while playing pool and abusing jukebox. Was really fun night!

On last day we started to enter the tropical part of Queensland so the scenery changed quite a lot.
We ended the trip with 4km walk through authentic rainforest to a waterfall. Water was freezing cold but since one other guy in our group decided to take swim, I just had to as well :)
Finally traditional group shot at that last waterfall.
So what now? Now I am in Cairns, but I feel like there is material here enough for one entry so I'll write more about this shithole...erm, Cairns on next entry.

Clouds

Day 31

"Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced." - John Keats

Yesterday I saw something weird, something I have not seen since July 10th, a cloud! I have gotten so used to clear blue skies that it was almost depressing...almost.

Well, to be perfectly honest, it was not the only "cloud" in paradise. I have now been on the road for 4 weeks and after Kakadu experience I feel like for the very first time I'm experiencing minor cultural shock. 3-day safari was so exhausting for both mind and body, that I felt I needed my "security network" for few days. Well, only problem is that the "security network" is located on other side of globe in my home, I have none here. And because of that, I have been quite anti-social for past 3 days, not feeling like chatting the same mindless chats I have done 50+ times already(Where are you from? How long have you been here? Where are you heading next? You working or on holiday? ...)

So now I really feel like change of scenery, I would have left Darwin today already, but since we are thousands of kilometers from nearest town, transportations are limited. Tomorrow morning at 9am I'm leaving Darwin with luxurious Ghan train to Alice Springs. Trip lasts 26h...not your typical train ride but distances here are huge.

After tons of advice from fellow travellers and some locals, I have decided to cut my stay in Alice Springs from 5 nights to 1 night. After that I head to 5-day safari taking me to Kings Canyon and Uluru, and after to Cairns in east coast where I should arrive August 8th.

Tero and Darwin, out.