Whitsundays to Port Douglas

Dec 5th 2011

Airlie Beach

Annie's birthday today. Gr8 to see her & Ben &Beth & Barry last night on Skype and be able to speak to them. Cloudy today but warm and not raining as it forcasted. Sat by pool for most of the day - v quiet hardly anyone else around. Pete swam a few lengths. Good to chill out for a while. Wrote some post cards and got George's Christmas presents ready for sending tomorrow.

Dec 6th 2011

Journey to Townsville. Mostly sugar cane farming & special train tracks for transporting cane. Several sugar refineries - seem to give out a fair amount of 'smoke'. Not pretty to look at either. Some fruit growing e.g. mango, avocado & lyches. Cattle - -Brahman & others black (?Aberdeen Angus, & also some brown ones ?? red polls??. Saw several birds of prey - -pair of kestrels & several pairs of Kites- some typically feeding off road kill. Stopped at Alva beach for lunch- lovely golden sands again - -virtually deserted. When we arrived at Townsville we drove up Castle mountain. Loads of people walking/ running/cycling up. Fabulous views from the top of town & coast.

Room ok but quite small & basic. Had McD tonight sitting outside overlooking lake.

Dec 7th 2011

Journey to Mission Beach. Again lots of sugar cane growing & lots of refineries around chucking out orangey brown smoke & again the rail tracks for transporting cane. Saw more kites. En route, at Cardwell, we stopped to see the memorial to the Australians who fought the Japanese in the battle of the Coral Sea during WW11. Bananas & mangoes being grown in this area. Got here at lunch time. Lovely weather today , in fact a bit too hot for me!! Our room overlooks the pool and this fabulous beach with coconut palms fringing it. Think we're in paradise. There is an area netted off for swimming cos of 'stingers' in the water. Lots of tiny little crabs on the beach which dug tunnels in the sand & made the tunneled out sand into little balls. The whole beach was literally covered in little balls of sand. Sat at the pool reading for the afternoon. This is an area for Casowaries - -signs everywhere but we've not seen one yet. Had pizza for tea yet again!!

Dec 8th 2011

Journey from Mission Beach to Port Douglas.

The landscape now is v much greener & v lush so this region must get far more rain than southern Queensland. Just hope it lays off while we're up here!! We are now in the tropical rain forest proper!! There were mountains to the west of us when we started our journey & then later we seemed to be in a valley with mountains on both sides. These mountains were covered by dense woodland and we could see some waterfalls amongst the trees. The mountains appeared to be quite high for Australia. The main crop still appears to be sugar cane but banana also becoming quite prevelant. Still quite a few Brahman cattle around. No wildlife worthy of note though we think we spotted three white black shouldered kites circling. We were still travelling on the Bruce Highway but now known as the Great Green Highway. Later we went off onto the Captain Cook Highway. We arrived here at 1.30pm. Lovely appartment with a very private outside space too and basement car parking. We went to the pool for a swim after lunch - -v unusual arrangement with various pools interconnected and having bridges and waterfalls. Also large replica crocodile!! Looks more like a lake than a pool with grey concrete base and no chlorine smell!! In the evening we took a drive around to look at the beach and the resort.

Dec 9th 2011

Daintree Rainforest Experience

Up at 6am, breakfast at 6.45am & pick up from apt at 7.50am - late compared to excursions in NT!!

Our guide Randall started telling us about the flora as soon as we got on board when he spotted some Curlews. Not sure if these are the same as the curlews we're accustomed to in the UK. These are not found in other areas of Australia as they have been killed by foxes mainly because they nest on the ground. There are no foxes in this part of Queensland & so they are managing to survive. Although they were feeding on the grass verge in Port Douglas at 8am they are apparently nocturnal. He then pointed out some Orange Footed Scrub Fowl - the Ozzies tend to be straight forward and basic when naming their flora and fauna! Later in the excursion we were able to see the nests that these fowl construct. They build mounds of dead leaves etc of amazing sizes - the ones we saw were 2m high and 5m diameter. The orange footed scrub fowl lay an egg which they bury/hide somewhere in this enormous mound then 9-20 days later the female lays another egg which they hide somewhere else in the mound & then 9-20 days later the female lays another egg which they hide somewhere else in the 'nest'. This increases the chance of survival as many predators seek out their eggs so by spreading them out it makes them more difficult to find. The heat produced by the decomposing leaf mould incubateds the eggs. Lizards find the eggs very appetizing & we saw a 2m long Lace Monitor sitting on one of these massive nests. The eggs hatch out in stages too. Snakes predate the chicks but again by staging development the chance of surviving increases. When the chicks are ready to leave the nests they find their way out of the nest and RUN!!!! They never see the parents again & have to try & survive with no parental care.

This area is a Cassowary conservation area. The Cassowary is a bird about the same size as the Emu. Their numbers are very low and so they are endangeared. Signs on the roadside encourage drivers to slow down as some are killed on the road. They have a large crest on their heads & so far nobody has worked out what the function of this is. Both males and females have one. The cassowary can be quite aggressive especially when it has young. They have a claw which can disembowel animals considered to be a threat. A boy who'd been teasing them was chased and fell over & the cassowary ripped his jugular causing him to bleed to death. We are encouraged not to feed them or wildlife in general. A few years ago, in one of the picnic areas, there was a Cassowary which had a damaged crest. This crest grew over to one side & it became known as Elvis and a huge favourite with visitors. The visitors gave him 'tit-bits' and he became to expect them & if visitors did not oblige he became aggressive & chased them!! So he had to be moved to a sanctuary! Cassowary females mate, lay about 4-5 eggs and then move on mate again, lay 4-5 eggs then move on to mate with another male mate again & lay 4-5 more eggs. The males are left to incubate the eggs and bring up the youngsters. We've been going wrong somewhere girls!!!

On our journey north from Brisbane we had been admiring beautiful red flowering trees. These are called Pointseanna (?SP??) trees and originate in Asia. The other red flowering trees were native sp called flame trees. There are also trees that look very much like laburnums - -we had seen these in NT as well but the guide didn't call them Laburnum.

We proceeded out of town to the sugar cane farming area. Randall explained that sugar cane farming took up 95% of the local economy. Seemingly the harvesting season is virtually over and the cane that we now see in the fields won't be harvested until 2012.Will reach a height of 4m. In the old days apparently when the sugar cane was ready for harvesting they would firstly set fire to the field. This would burn the leaves which are not needed for sugar making. Small mammals & birds inhabit the crop & these were predated upon by snakes which made harvesting manually a dangerous business! Fire would drive the snakes away!! Now harvesting is carried out mechanically and the leaves and cane are separated by the harvester. The leaves are used for mulch/compost. The cane is transported away to the factory by narrow guage railways. This has to be processed within 12 hours otherwise it starts to ferment and becomes useless. Locally the cane is passed through a series of crushers to form a pulp. The water is then evaporated off so concentrating the sugar solution into a 'syrup'. This is seeded and crystallizes - giving raw sugar and molasses as by product used for cattle feed. Sugar for refining is transported to Brisbane & used for granulated, caster & icing sugar. Once the harvesting is finished the sugar cane regenerates giving rise to another crop - -no need for reseeding. After 4-5 years, however, the crop becomes v dense and the canes weak. At this stage the cane is dug up/?ploughed. Bits of the cane are replanted and regenerates again to provide a new crop. How this doesn't encourage disease organisms I don't know e.g. like the potato famine in Ireland was a direct result of growing the same crop on the same land for many years so allowing pathogens to flourish. There was a threat to sugar production in this area a few years ago from cheap imports from Brazil but then there was a fuel crisis with a hike in the price of oil & the Brazilians started using sugar cane to produce ethanol to be used for fuel for cars. The Australians may now have to consider using cane for ethanol production to be used as a fuel. There is no nuclear energy production in Australia. Solar seems the obvious way forward.

We then came across the banana plantations. This is not the major area for banana growing - -that is around Innisfail a town south of Cairns. This suffered a cyclone in February which destroyed the banana plants. Consequently bananas have been v expensive over the past few months. We had noticed that banana plants had plastic bags hanging from them - -this is to protect the fruit from attack by birds, insects etc & to keep them moist. Each banana plant only produces one flower &, therefore, only one bunch of bananas. After harvesting the plants are chopped down. These then rot providing nutrients for the regenerating young banana plants. Again, crop rotation doesn't seem to be an issue here!!

Tea is also grown on a small scale. The leaves are harvested mechanically. The tea plant belongs to the family of Camelias apparently.

We arrived at Mossman the next town to Port Douglas but completely different. Not really a resort but a typical market town in a farming area. It did at one time have a Nudist resort called the 'White Cockatoo"!!!!!! We were heading for Mossman Gorge which is the third most popular destination in Australia where we had a very interesting guided walk. Our first encounter was with a brush turkey which was busily at work scraping up dead vegetation to build a nest. He was quite non plussed by our prescence!! Apparently he will finish his nest and then persuade a female to lay her eggs in there!! We then continued our walk through this beautiful gorge with crystal clear water tumbling over rounded granite rocks from a volcano millions of years ago. There was a saw-shelled turtle sunning himself on a rock. Apparently these can breathe through their backends!! Must be advantageous in one way or another!! (I can exhale through my back end - P)

We then went on a cruise on the Daintree river. Almost immediately spotted a 4m long male salt crocodile. The rangers explained that there were 2 males in this part of the river and this wasn't one of them so must be an interloper. This could result in aggression as it is still the breeding season and crocadiles are very terratorial. A female crocodile when fully mature can lay up to 70 eggs which she hides/buries. The temperature of these incubating eggs has to be between 30 & 32 degrees Celsius. If it goes outside those temperatures the embryos could all die. Crocodiles are farmed now & incubating eggs are kept at 31.6 degrees C as this results in all male offspring which grow bigger & give a better yield of both meat & skin. All 70 eggs v rarely reach hatching stage though as some of them will be predated upon by snakes etc. The hatchlings are then carried by the female in her mouth to a creche area in the river. Some of them are squashed and killed in this process. She looks after them for a few weeks and then they are on their own. These tiny creatures -about 10cm long- are predated upon by fish, other crocs, birds etc and they reckon only one will survive to breed.

The ranger also told us about the plants growing in the mangrove swamps and how they coped with having their roots submerged. In order to get rid of excess salts some leaves are 'sacrificed' ie salt is collected in them and then they are cast off. Salt collects on the outside surface of some leaves to be washed off by rain. The mangrove plants have snorkels which allow the plants to gain oxygen and not 'drown'. The plants make seeds and fruit but all these are poisonous so that they are not eaten by animals. In order to germinate these seeds have to be washed away to sea and then come shore again in the swamps before they can germinate.

Daintree Rainforest walk

Randall pointed out a number of interesting things during this walk. He pointed out that there was little sun on the forest floor & that most plants needed to get up to the canopy in order to get enough sun to survive. He pointed out some ferns(basket ferns) which had germinated on tall trees and produced roots. These roots trapped dead leaves as they fell off the trees. These leaves decomposed very quickly providing nutrients for the ferns. Insects and worms grew in this 'compost. These attracted frogs and snakes and all these lived in the canopy. There were tree kangaroos living here too only we didn't see them. Most activity happened at night I think. Some trees had strangler vines growing on them. These gained a 'foothold' on the tree in order to climb to get sunlight but also in order to send branches down to the ground. These eventually grew so large that they strangled the tree which then decomposed quickly providing nutrients but leaving a void in the 'middle' of the vine. Some trees were made of extremely hard wood & the aborigines would use them for spears and sticks for making music. Some ferns sent out nasty barbed outgrowths which would catch on an animal like a fish hook. The more you pulled against them the more they hooked on. They were called 'wait a while' for that reason and the only way out was to go backwards to get unhooked. There were also rose trees which had massive buttress roots to support them as they had no tap root. All the Red Cedar trees had been felled apparently by early settlers but many other sp had survived as they were part of a wide variety of plants & so it wasn't economically viably to set up an infra structure for harvesting them. Daintree rainforest is a World Heritage site because of the diversity of plant sp to be found here. He showed us the Cassowary plum tree so named because the cassowaries liked them although they are poisonous. The Cassowaries apparently swallow them whole, about 14 at a time, digest the outer flessh v quickly and then excrete the stone. Other animals like mice are then able to knibble at the stone and eat the kernel. We also saw a lizard on a tree, a huntsman spider so well camouflaged that we would never have spotted it had it not been pointed out. There was also a Katydid (a cross between a grass hopper and a locust) about 4" long and it's anteenae were longer than that 'cos it's nocturnal & these help it to find its way around.

Another tree had 'slashes' in the bark where ants cultivated black fungus in and in return they ensured that they kept the tree bark free of lichen etc.

We had a delicious lunch in the forest of barbequed sea bass, steak and sausages with 3 salads and damper followed by fresh fruit salad.

We then drove out to Cape Tribulation where in the late 1700's Captain Cook's ship the Endevour had become grounded on a reef. The ship was badly damaged and they had to throw overboard a number of canon and some ballast in order to lighten her. After 4 days the ship was floated off the reef and Cook tried to find a suitable bay where he could anchor and repair the Endevour. However the Queensland coast is notably shallow for much of its length and Cook recorded in the ships log that the Cape had caused " much sorrow and tribulation". Hence the name for the Cape and the nearby highest mountain.

Dec 10th 2011

Excursion to Great Barrier Reef

Last night we had a pretty good thunder storm and the rain bucketed down for hours. We were concerned that it might continue today. The rainy season is about to set in up here and once it starts properly it can go on for a long time. Anyway, woke up & peeped out & all was calm & the sun was just burning away some thin cloud cover. We were picked up at 9.15am & transfered to the Marina. Boarded the Quicksilver Wavepiercer Catamaran at 10am. These craft whip you out to the reef at a very creditable 30 knots. We had to make ourselves known to the helicopter people as we're flying back. We had talks from a marine biologist & a crew member. I had been quite stressed about this whole experience as I'm not a strong swimmer but I need not have worried, as ever the Aussies had it all worked out perfectly. It was all set up on a platform on the reef. They provided fins, masks and snorkels & I opted for a floatation aid too! They also had stinger suits for hire at a reasonable rate as it's the Jellyfish season here at the moment. The corals and fish were amazing. While we were putting on our fins a large fish came & nibbled my snorkel!! Words can't describe the diversity of life around that area. It really is an experience of a lifetime and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Pete went snorkelling again after lunch and took some more photos. I went out on the submersible. We then got changed and onto the helicopter. That was excellent too. We flew over the reef & then back to the mainland. He flew us over the rainforest & the Daintree River & over the bay/marina at Port Douglas.

After all that excitement we relaxed a bit this afternoon and got the washing done!! We have just come back from a walk along the beach. It's still really humid! Rainbow Lorikeets were preparing to roost in the coconut palms.

Dec 11th 2011, Sunday

Kuranda Scenic Railway up, Skyrail down.

Up early today, brekkie at 6:45 and leave apartment just after 7:15 am. Drove down to

Caravonica but couldn't find it! Ended up at Freshwater station which is where the train leaves from but miles from the Skyrail terminal where we should have left the car! All sorted out very amicably by the coach driver who led us back to Caravonica and then brought us back to the Freshwater station - this has been typical of the friendly helpful ways of the Australian tourist industry. After having a look round the the museum at the historic station at Freshwater we boarded the vintage carriages for the trip up to Kuranda - the village in the rainforest. This railtrack runs from Cairns up to Kuranda rising over 1000 feet on a run of 37 km. The carriages are old but the engines are modern diesel electric units each rated at 1000BHP. The journey upwards was spectacular, winding up through the rainforest on a track that clung to a very steep mountain side. There are 15 tunnels and 55 bridges on the route and at least 32 men died during the building of the track using only dynamite & picks & shovels. They mved nearly 3 million cubic meters of earth.

Men suffered from accidents, snake bites and 'mysterious diseases. Why build it? Somebody discovered gold in them thar mountains. The mud tracks down the mountains were hopelessly inadequate for supplying the mining townships, so the railway was commenced in 1886 and opened for traffic in 1891. It is a civil engineering marvel. The train takes about 1.5 hours to get up to Kuranda which is a pretty but tacky wee village. It is heavily wooded, you can hardly see the main street for the trees growing in it! But it is full of cafes, bars, souvenir shops and craft markets. Aboriginal art and artifacts (boomerangs and digeridoos) are there in abundance - the termites must be on mega overtime to hollow out all the diges you see for sale, let alone the army of aboriginals decorating the things. But Kuranda is still a nice place to walk around for a couple of hours. We had our sarnies in Century Park and then walked back to the Skyrail terminal through the markets. The Skyrail is fantastic - it is a cable car system that runs just above the canopy of the rainforest - about 100 to 150 feet above the ground. When you are walking about in the rainforest it is difficult to differentiate between the trees - there is such a density of tree trunks. However when you get to the canopy the different leaf shapes and branch structures are more easily seen and the amazing diversity of the rainforest can be seen. As we approached the coast the views were incredible.

We got back to the car at about 2:30 which was good because by then the heat and humidity were getting to us - 37 C and 90% humidity. We motored back to our apartment in Port Douglas and put on the aircon and had a few cold beers! In the evening we went down to the Combined Clubs restaurant which overlooks the harbour and had a very reasonable meal whilst watching the yachts and motor cruisers returning to their moorings. Tomorrow we go to Cairns to catch the plane for Brisbane and then New Zealand!