Friday, September 11, 2009

Back to Adventures in Oz

Given that I am now mostly recovered but still not feeling up for a night of rooftop bars, I have remembered that I did not remotely finish telling the tale of my recent sojourn in Oz.

The last time I wrote about it, I left off with my sister, Melanie, in the Mossman Gorge in the Aboriginal heritage land on the drive to Cape Trib where the paved road ends.....

Melanie and I went ziplining in the jungle, where you pay to be strapped to a harness and to swing from one giant jungle tree to the next across a rope. It wasn't nearly as scary as it sounds, since we spent about 5 minutes swinging and about 1.5 hours waiting for the other people in our group to be harnessed and swing across, but the 5 minutes were totally worth it. Firstly it was an excuse to rent a car and go up to a place so deep in one of the world's last ancient jungles that the paved road ends and only the people with four wheel-drives, a truck snorkel, and an iron will dare to tread.

We could see the sea from our waiting platforms in the canopy, and we met a fascinating Maltese man with a semi-Scottish accent who claimed to have worked in shipping on the North Sea before moving to Australia to bum around. Most Europeans are able to take part in a work holiday program with Australia where they can get visas to work there for a year or more, as long as they don't work in any one place for longer than 3 months. This means that many of the touristy outdoors activities are run by 20-something Europeans who are bumming around Australia working for tour boats and coffee houses. Melanie was a fan.

On our way back from ziplining, after spotting a large scary bird on the side of the road that just may have been a cassowary (or, as I like to call them, dinosaur bird), we stopped at a little cafĂ© where they served piping fresh fish n’ chips and Devonshire tea. One of the things I love most about Australia is that you are in one of the most remote places on Earth and yet, you can pull over and get a latte and a scone at a place that has wild cassowaries, crocodiles, and stinging jungle plants. I have always loved contrast between civilization and nature – golf courses, well-manicured gardens with forests around the side, Singapore (see the article on my urban jungle quick-sand experience for evidence of the “nature” side of Singapore)- and Australia really embodies that contrast. Plus, you can drink the water…

We then spent a few more days of mostly tropical rain entertaining ourselves in Palm Cove before we headed back to Sydney to meet up with Eric for my birthday. We discovered a movenpick ice cream parlour on our last day in Palm Cove that revolutionized our afternoon with creamy mint chocolate flakes – sad we didn’t see it sooner, but probably better for our health.

On our way back to Sydney we were somewhat bemused at the Cairns airport when no one, not a single person, ever checked our ID. We weren’t the only ones who found this strange, as the couple of Aussies in front of us looked equally confused when the security guards told us to put our IDs away at the security counter before even pretending to glance at them. It seemed so foreign for no one to care- even in India they pretend to care (they just don’t look at your ID very carefully. I’m pretty sure in some cases, depending on the person, you could get away with showing them a library card).

By the end of the tropical Australian adventure we were both ready to get back to civilization – which is pretty ironic, given that Coastal Northern Australia isn’t really the most uncivilized place with it's fish n' chips, movenpick, and Cole's grocery stores. Yet, there was something about worrying that you could be eaten by a crocodile on the beach or attacked by a killer dinosaur bird that just gave it that sense of adventure, even on the more “developed” coastal side of Queensland.

The adventure wasn’t nearly over yet, because I still had 4 more days in Sydney with Eric and Melanie, and then a week long odyssey driving down dirt roads and drinking with farmers named Mick…


View of the Great Barrier Reef and Australian jungle from Daintree National Park


Ziplining (upside down!)

Stylish ziplining outfits - Safety First!

Snorkeling at Paradise Reef in the Great Barrier Reef


Snorkeling


Beach at Palm Cove - not during killer jellyfish season


Daintree Ice Cream Banana Plantation - they only use their own tropical fruit!

Mossman Gorge

Sugar Cane Plantations

Achtung- Crocodiles will eat you!

Stay to the left!


Daintree National Park - the real Australian jungle


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