29 April 2009: Koalas and Dugongs

Today we fly to Sydney on the penultimate stage of our journey. This morning however there was enough time after breakfast to visit the Cairns Tropical Forest Zoo which sits within a huge dome on the top of Cairns Casino. The purpose of our visit was to cuddle a Koala and have our photo taken. The Koala on photo duty today was called “Harvey” and boy was he cute. On our way back to the hotel we stopped to observe the hundreds of fruit bats that hang out in the trees around the town. They are huge animals with cute brown faces and the wing span of a large bird (maybe a crow?). They chatter a lot to each other and during the night they fly about and feed on the fruit. During the day they hang out together at the top of the fruit trees –amazing sight.
We arrived in Sydney mid afternoon and were booked into the Hotel (Wynyard Travelodge) by 5.00 pm. We decided to visit the Sydney Aquarium as it is open until 10.00 pm and we guessed that it would probably be quiet in the evening –we were right. This aquarium is one of the best in the world and it certainly lived up to expectations. Just 3 months ago they received two Dugongs (Pig and Wuru) who are relatives of the manatees and are collectively known as “Sea Cows” as, in the wild, they graze on sea grass at the bottom of the sea. They are large, gentle creatures that are most closely related to the elephant (surprisingly). We fell in love with them instantly and spent half an hour viewing them alone. Pig and Wuru are the only Dugongs on exhibit in Australia and they were both orphaned at birth and taken to SeaWorld in Brisbane to be hand reared. In the wild a large percentage of them live off the North Australia coast and one of the reasons given for making the Great Barrier Reef a World Heritage Site was the fact that it is home to 12,000 of these beautiful sea giants. We also saw our first Platypus along with a host of unusual fish and mammals that we had never seen before. There was a huge reconstruction of the coral reef too which you could view through floor to ceiling glass windows and which was accompanied by classical music. It was truly beautiful.

28 April 2009: Birthday at Cape Tribulation

I was awoken this morning at 5.30 (early, but not as early as Saboohi had planned –she was going to wake me up at midnight!!) with balloons, cards, presents, a big cake with lighted candles on it and champagne. Even though we are touring, far away from home Saboohi was not going to let the day go by without the usual celebrations! She had got the hotel management to source a cake for her (even though there are no cake shops here in Cairns!) and passed a card around the entire touring group (44 people) to get them to sign it. It was a lovely surprise.
My birthday present from Saboohi was a beautiful pearl necklace that she had purchased in Singapore, along with a fabulous body warmer that we had found at our resort at Ayres Rock (Outback Pioneer). I had cards from home to open too –what a journey they have had to get here!
We spent the day on a tour of Cape Tribulation which is unique for its beautiful beaches and for the fact that it marks the meeting of two world heritage sites; the Great Barrier Reef and the pristine tropical rainforests of Northern Queensland. We stopped at one of the beaches which was torture for Saboohi because the waters were blue and the sand white but we weren’t allowed to swim because there are salt water crocodiles in the sea! On the beach we saw an intricate maze of little holes with thousands of tiny balls of sand surrounding them. It covered a large area and we couldn’t make out what it was at first. After waiting and watching for a few minutes we saw the tiniest of little crabs emerge from the holes and when they sensed danger they curled up into a little ball and looked exactly like the balls of sand. We deduced from this observation that the little crabs were creating this elaborate structure as some sort of defence mechanism – truly ingenious!
The highlight of the day was a boat trip down the Daintree River to see the crocodiles. It reminded me of scenes from “The African Queen” as the rainforest bordered the edges of both sides of the river. Apparently the river was named by Captain James Cook after a friend of his back in England – the guide explained to us that the expeditions undertaken by explorers of that time would usually be funded by monarchs, wealthy business people, aristocrats and friends and in return they wanted newly discovered places to be named after them. So many places in this continent are named after British aristocrats who never actually came here.
Later in the day we visited the Daintree Discovery Centre where we took a boardwalk up through the rainforest and into the canopy so that we could view the forest from the very top. It was very beautiful. This rainforest is believed to be one of the oldest on the planet, hence its world heritage status. We arrived back at our hotel in Cairns at about 7.00 pm (Hotel Cairns) and then went out for some supper. A lovely day!

Monday 27 April 2009- Great Barrier Reef

A warm and humid morning in Cairns and again we were up early to catch our catamaran out to the Great Barrier Reef. We moored up at a small island which is the home to hundreds of nesting birds and a beautiful shallow coral reef. There is nothing else there, just a beach and hundreds of birds. We caught a little ferry to the island and then had a 30 minute “snorkelling” tour of the reef. The reef is fabulous with hundreds of different varieties of coral including many (very large and colourful) giant clams. We saw many different types of tropical fish too, including brightly coloured parrotfish and stingrays. Saboohi went out beyond the reef at one point, called the “drop off” in Finding Nemo, and came face to face with a shark (harmless but nevertheless scary!) and she touched a turtle! Lucky thing. The sun shone and the day was perfect for snorkelling. After lunch on the boat we returned to the island for more snorkelling before heading back to Cairns at about 15.30. Another wonderful day–how lucky we are.

Sunday 26 April 2009: Ariel view of Ayres Rock

This morning the group took a long drive around The Olgas, also situated in the Uluru National Park and just as impressive as Ayres Rock. In fact as they are made up of many mounds of rock (the Aborigines have a name for them that means “Many Heads”) they are more interesting that Ayres Rock.
Before leaving Ayres Rock Saboohi and I decided to sign up for a helicopter flight around both Uluru and its neighbour The Olgas. I wasn’t sure whether or not we would see anything extra by flying above the 2 structures but the views were wonderful. There were 2 things that made the flight worthwhile; firstly you can’t see the true scale of them when you view them from the ground but when you are up high they dominate the whole area with miles and miles of flat desert and then these 2 huge and magnificent stone structures shooting up high out of the ground; secondly is the colour of the surrounding terrain, so many different shades of green, red and terracotta –so beautiful.
Late this afternoon we took a flight from the local airport (which only has about 2 flights out a day!) to Cairns.

Saturday 25 April 2009: Journey to Ayres Rock

We had a five hour drive over to Ayres Rock this morning (recently renamed Uluru which was the original name given by the aboriginal people –before rich white people came and gave it their own name!), across the red, parched desert. The road was long and straight and we hardly saw any other traffic en route. We saw Ayres Rock well before we reached it as the terrain is flat and the rock towers above the ground for about 320 meters. It is known as an Insolberg as it has just a third showing above the ground and 2 thirds below. Thousands of years ago this terrain was a sea bed and the rock emerged as a result of the earth being forced up at a right angle. So the vertical seams of rock that make up Ayres Rock today were once horizontal sedimentary layers of the seabed. It is a stunning visual treat. We drove around the rock and walked along one of the gorges into the heart of the rock. The real highlight this evening though was to see the sunset over the rock. To celebrate the occasion we were given champagne and nibbles while we all stood and watched the transformation of the rock’s colour and appearance as the sun set behind us. This was one of the most magical events of this holiday and something we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Friday 24 April 2009: Day of Rest at Alice Springs

We had planned to take an early morning hot air balloon ride over the Central Australian desert today but unfortunately the wind was too strong and so the flight was cancelled. So instead we had a lie in (as we don’t get many of those on this holiday!) and spent the rest of the day by the pool. Our hotel is a recent addition to the Alice Springs landscape and has at its heart the town’s only casino. So it tends to attract a lot of local people as well as tourists. We had a play on the slot machines which only cost 2 cents a go and so for two dollars (£1) you can have 100 games! There were a lot of aborigine people on the slot machines I noticed –our guide explained how many aborigines have only come face to face with western culture in the last 50 years and therefore things such as gambling and drinking and drugs have become adopted vices for many.
Tonight we took a nocturnal tour at the Alice Springs Desert Park, to see some of Australia’s endangered species that are only active at night. There is a section of the park that is only visited at night and one of the special little marsupials that we saw tonight was the Mala. This is now extinct in the wild and the park only has 7 in captivity. Tonight we witnessed 2 of them mating!! The guides said that they had never seen this before and they were thrilled. We only had a few red lights to see our way around the park but we saw some beautiful little creatures including a Bilby (long snout, big ears and with a body totally out of proportion!) and several Burrowing and Brush Betons. It was a wonderful evening and only 4 of us on the tour – with 2 guides!

Thursday 24 April 2009: Fly to Alice Springs

We were up at the crack of dawn today to catch an 8.30 am flight to Alice Springs in the middle of Australia. We arrived to temperatures of 30 degrees plus which I found a nice change after the cooler temperatures in NZ and Melbourne. We arrived at 11.30 and went straight on a tour of the local area. Alice Springs was originally set up as a communication post to link the overground telegraph cables that were to run from Darwin to Sydney. Darwin was connected to Singapore already by an underwater cable and therefore this final link enabled Sydney to be connected through to London, thereby bringing the commonwealth closer together. It meant that London and Sydney could contact each other within 2 hours rather than a week! Today we saw the original telegraph station that formned the first settlement here. We also visited the Flying Doctors HQ and the School of the Air. The School of the Air provides education to children who live in the outback and can't access normal schools. They receive lessons every day on line and have personal tutors who are usually a parent or someone who is specially employed to give onsite help at home. We saw live lessons going on! It is a wonderful set up and clearly provides an invaluable service to those families that are cut off from other communities. A storm began to come by early evening so it will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings.