Escalating up the East Coast

Its been a while but here's some of what's been happening since we last spoke...

Following almost 3 weeks staying in the lap of luxury in Melbourne and Sydney, I brought myself back to the backpacker life with a bump by starting the next leg of my tour -- LG meets Australia's East Coast on an overnight bus traveling a mere 13 hours.

Such a long overnight bus journey may sound like a mare but armed with my trusty fleece-cum-pillow I do actually manage to get some kip on these buses albeit in 2 hour intervals but that's better than nothing. The bus stops every 2-3 hours anyway and being in semi-zombie state you could be easily fooled into thinking that every town up the East Coast looks like a BP service station. When it gets light you do get a chance to see the towns and general scenery you are driving through but then you discover that it doesn’t look dramatically different from England or rather you definitely haven’t hit the outback yet. The only real difference that might stick out is Australia's fascination with "big things". Go past Coffs Harbour and meet the Big Banana youth hostel (banana on roof – that’s normal). Stop further up and you'll be amazed by the taste and design that's gone into the "Great Prawn restaurant" (the latter is really of Digby the Biggest Dog in the world proportions). See these sites and you’ll understand why Australia is so well known for its aesthetics (not)

My first stop on the East Coast was Byron Bay. In retrospect I should have scheduled at least 4-5 days here yet even in retro I know that I didn’t have the time. Actually I've done ok to cover what I have seeing that all my trips have been planned around making sure I'm not on the road over Shabbat. Considering the distances involved this needs not a small amount of logistics.

Anyway although a pretty essential spot on the East Coast route (I covered only a number out of quite a few potentials), Byron is hardly a typical East Coast resort. Originally and still a big surfer Mecca, Byron is now far more famous for being a huge hippie hangout. Picture one of those festivals that happen in Israel every chag or so (Shantipi, Bereshit, Segol etc) and you'll get the picture. If that's not enough to understand then perhaps you’ll get an idea from my Sydney host Marion's comment that she liked the place but she wasn’t mad about the funny people there!

Through recommendation I stayed in a hostel called the Arts Factory, infamous for its “scene” many travelers stay there for extended periods and often come back for more. As a result when I first got there (possibly as I was conscious of my limited sojourn) it seemed as if everyone knew each other and I personally found it quite intimidating and cliquey. This together with all the activities that were being pushed at me made it seem a bit like a New Age Butlins. All in all it was rather full on for my first hostel in Australia. It was thus with great relief that I bumped into Karen and Jill, my friends from Canada, who’d also just arrived and were staying in the campsite.. I went out with them in the evening to hear several of the live performances that were happening in the town's open air bars which was really rather cool.

Despite only being there for 2 days, once I'd gotten over the initial landing shock I decided to make the most of it. As well as the standard stroll and shop around town I also managed to fit in a juggling lesson (fire sticks – no flames - hopefully to be seen at a wedding near you soon) and a wonderful afternoon learning Swedish massage (probably not to be seen at a wedding unless someone severely spikes the segula wine). That was basically the highlight of my visit because as well as being incredibly relaxing (both giving and receiving) the setting was less than 10 metres away from sounds and sights of the beach.

Two hours later and I'm back on the McCafferty's bus route (technically it may have been a Greyhound bus but the latter company has actually been taken over by the former and the two names have been kept on to hide this rather huge monopoly). We traveled from Byron to Brisbane via the ‘Gold Coast’. This is the nickname given to the section of the East Coast where such famous beach resorts as Surfers Paradise can be found. Our stop there was all of five minutes but we didn’t need to be there long to note the stark difference in landscape from Byron. Coming from the fishing village look we had now arrived in the Costa Del Sol / Netanya - v tacky environs with huge blocks of flats and flashing lights. Myself and Dawn, a fellow traveler who I’d met at the bus stop at Byron whilst trying to work out if there was time to grab a snack while we waited for the bus which was late by half an hour, were both v amused by some of the typical Australian advertising displayed around the area. A prime example was an ad for flower delivery services. It read: “Want great sex?” - call this number - 1-800-flowers. (If this needs explaining then you’re safe to visit Oz without having any feminist tendencies offended).

I’ve come to the conclusion that Aussies aren’t so much tongue in cheek as tongue all out there. This is the country where everyone is informal – sports commentators have no problem in describing sportsman as w%&ers on TV (Beckham should consider himself lucky he doesn’t play Aussie rules) and I don’t think they’d even begin to understand something like the BBC 9:00 watershed. (Next week’s TV highlight is the uncut version of Temptation Island sex and all – need I say more?)

However one should not mistake this informality for emotional openness. IMHO Aussies are as emotionally repressed as the Brits and compared to the Kiwis they are far less friendly. People are nice on the whole but still customer service can get dangerously near to being compared to Israel’s. This has been a real surprise to me and it was sadly a bit of a relief when I find out that Israel isn’t as unique as I thought. They don’t have the Middle East excuse they just have “no worries mate!”. There’s even a joke that NT, the abbreviation for the Northern Territory (one of Australia’s states) actually stands for “Not today, not tomorrow, next Thursday”!

Anyway onto Brisbane (a.k.a. BrisVegas – its an ironic nickname) for a 10 hour stay in a grim city backpackers. These are the kind of hostels I hate because they look like prison blocks painted fluorescent. When choosing hostels I try to work on recommendations but this was a case of “location location location” as it was just down the road from the bus station and I was arriving late and leaving early. Whatever, it was just enough time for me to really briefly meet a group of friends who I’d then keep meeting up the coast randomly and lose a favourite top and trousers. I wouldn’t mind but I totally repacked my bag there as well! These particular garments were victims of the “left in bathroom” syndrome. It really is quite a challenge keeping track of everything. Truth is I think the average backpackers travels are 25% sightseeing and 75% repacking bags in hostels.

8:30 next morning and I’m back on the bus - destination Hervey Bay, departure point for a 3 day trip I was booked onto on Fraser Island. I needed to be at the bus station by 2:00 in time for the 3:00 orientation meeting for my trip (more details later). On this journey I couldn’t really complain about unfriendly Australians as the old lady who sat next to me almost all the way took it upon herself to give me a constant commentary. Highlights of this personal tour included an explanation of means tested public health in Brisbane and Queensland (we past the hospital), the annual Easter agricultural show, that she was a 4th or 5th generation descendant of French lace makers who came to Australia as assisted immigrants; she was on a return journey of 28 hours having visited her sister in NSW (trip used to take less than half the time before Anset Airlines went under) and that she owned a sugar cane farm that she was looking to sell off now that she was widowed and that her children had moved away but this was proving quite hard especially after the lack of rain in the rainy season. Her politic was revealed when she was particularly rude and impatient with some Japanese tourists on our bus who nearly got back onto the wrong bus at one of the rest stops (couldn’t they just learn to read properly) and when she expressed lack of sympathy about a traveler reported missing on Fraser Island (he had been smoking “those funny cigarettes” after all) Probably could have done with a bit of a break but I think she mistook my notepad for enthusiasm and anyway its always interesting hearing how it is from locals who aren’t paid to tell you.

Finally arriving at Hervey Bay I started focusing on my forthcoming trip. Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island which is best (only?) explored by 4WD vehicles. There are various ways of visiting the island, and one much favoured amongst backpackers is the self drive option. This means that you’re put in a group of 9-11 people and you’re let loose on the island for 3 days with a 4WD jeep, food, camping equipment and suggested itinerary. I was a little apprehensive about the group I would end up with as this was my first overnight trip in Oz and all the day trips I’d been on had been made up more of couples and groups than single travelers (quite different to my New Zealand experience). Expressing this concern to a girl with whom I was in the courtesy bus from the station to the hostel, she promptly invited me to join the friends that she was meeting up with. They were a motley crew of 3 guys, 3 girls who’d met working in a fairground in Melbourne. Aged between 18 and 28 and including a Canadian (Leighanne), a German (Mia) and 4 English (Nick, Matt, Smithy and Hanna) we were soon joined by Judith, 25 from Holland (no, not Jewish) and Erica, 23 from Florida (oh yes, very Jewish) and thankfully it worked out really well.

The orientation meeting consisted of a long list of dos and don’ts about how to deal with dingoes, how to treat the island and most importantly it seemed, your vehicle. All this was obviously really important to know but it became a bit much when every warning was accompanied by a huge fine or a threat to lose our $60 bond (each!). Must lock up all food so as not to attract dingoes ($1500 fine), no driving through saltwater (lose bond if found and no cleaning of vehicle to hide evidence), must taste puddles to check difference between rain and seawater and check for depth before driving through washouts. Oy! with all that hanging over us we considered just leaving the vehicle at the car park by the ferry and walking around the island!

That done the next was step was to go to buy the food ( I left the others to order the meat and alcohol order obviously participating in the latter and not the former). I haven’t been doing too badly with my food here. I carry around my travel pots and what looks like a bag of “Ready Steady Cook” ingredients and just do the best I can (Lets not forget that a lot of the choc is ok here too!) Anyway by being one of the two to do the supermarket shop it meant that I could make sure I had stuff to cook with. The other vegetarian was Erica from America. In fact that’s how I found out she was Jewish when I was explaining to her exactly what my deal was. We both agreed that a universally recognised secret sign/code word was definitely needed when meeting a fellow member of the tribe.

I’ve had some rather funny experiences as invariably neither one asks the no go question of “Are you Jewish?” but rather going through a kind of dance of words until it is clear without saying the J word!

For beginners there’s always the good old Magen David although these days you do get some false positives so don’t assume automatically. Also the least friendly fellow Jew I met wore a very large Magen David and even did the vegetarian thing for Kosher reasons but wasn’t interested in J-bonding at all.

Knowledge of Israel is often a giveaway as well. For example there was a particularly WASPy looking couple in the Blue Mountains who asked me where in Jerusalem I lived which was slightly more revealing than asking where in Israel. However still not 100% proof I responded with “Why, do you have friends or family there?” The yes to family confirmed it. Of course if I’d just picked up that the two were New Yorkers - a Doctor and a Lawyer I should have known…. (they’d just been doing voluntary work in Lima with the JDC as well).

Next to the guy in New Zealand who after a few beers started singing Dayenu my favourite (probably for its subtlety I think) was the ex-Habo girl I met in Byron who I hadn’t clicked to being Jewish at all until she said “I think we’ve met before” very quietly. When I responded “Oh really where are you from? her response of “I live in Archway but my parents are from ‘The Suburb’ ” that said it all to me. I’ve come to realize meeting English people everywhere that I grew up in an almost an alternative Jewish North West London vocabulary – an invisible lingual ghetto if you wish.

Anyway back to the shopping which was done at the local equivalent of Sainsburys/Mega. It actually became rather like Dale Winton’s supermarket sweep when the Hostel’s courtesy bus was rather discourteous and left without us twice but we managed in the end thanks to taxis and kind locals.

Next morning we were up bright and early to receive our vehicle and equipment. Before leaving we had to collect all the equipment and I was given the responsibility of inspecting the car for damage already done. Years of buying shoes with my mother prepared me for this task and once the form was filled in (and then some) we were on our way to the ferry over.

Fraser Island really is a spectacular place made up of rainforests with sand trails plus beautiful lakes and sea. Our days were spent driving around the island visiting its various sites. The first and I think most famous of these was Lake McKenzie – a rain water lake which is totally clear with stunning colour gradients running from the white white sands through to aqua shallow water and dark navy deep water in the center. A drastic change from the normal gold and green combinations. One of the dos and don’ts that we were told was not to use sun screen before entering the lake as it was bad for the environment. Of course there’s nothing wrong about using it afterwards which I promptly forgot meaning I burnt something rotten but I guess my sacrifice was for the good of the ecosystem!

The group agreed not to rush around the sites just to tick them off a check list but we still managed to get to most of them. The next lake we visited was Lake Wabby a stunning lake hidden down amongst wonderful sand dunes, viewed through a lookout but best appreciated by taking the time to take the 20 minute walk down. There you could choose to sit out on the beautiful stretch of sand going out to the horizon (for images see the final scene in Shakespeare in Love) or roll down the sand dune straight into the lake.

Other sites included Eli Creek – walk through or by on the boardwalk; Lake Allom (?) – nicknamed the tea lake as it literally was the colour of tea complete with matching sand; Lake Birabeen (?) where you can swim with the turtles if you don’t scare them off first; the rusted remains of a huge shipwreck – from 60-70 years ago we think. Please excuse the question marks but being self guide the experience was more experiential than factual!

We slept out in tents by the beach. There were proper campsites further inland but inland was not an option when you could camp as the sun set over the sea (we couldn’t swim in it because of currents and sharks but a midnight paddle was fine) and anyway the campsites had 9:00 noise curfews. Most groups chose the beach as well but we tried to be a bit exclusive and not do the whole mass group thing which meant that both nights we were in pretty isolated areas. By deciding this we forfeited the luxury of the campsite’s conveniences. That said we had been supplied with a shovel for a purpose and it was soon decided that one had not had the true Fraser experience if you hadn’t used it as intended!

Nothing beats sleeping out especially as IMHO the southern hemisphere got the better deal when the stars were dealt out. My body clock worked particularly efficiently for a change and woke me up 5 mins before sunrise on both mornings. Its amazing that with all my travels its the things that you don’t have to pay for and in theory you can get anywhere – the stars and the sun – that are the most memorable.

If life is about the journey and not just the destination then it was the same for Fraser Island. One of the highlights for me was driving a 4WD vehicle. There were two types of driving. One was on the beach- the busiest you’d ever encounter almost highway like and the other was full on up and down through the sand trails learning when to use low and high 4WD gears as the sand went from wettish to light and fluffy often with little warning. All this was done whilst trying to think of the poor passengers in the back who had to grasp on to all the equipment as we had no roof rack. Well the first day of the trip was actually Yom Haatzmaut so I celebrated in my own way — the others had a BBQ and I drove badly!

It was a wonderful trip and we were sad to leave on Friday. What was so cool was being out of touch with the outside world – anything could have happened and we wouldn’t have known. I was slightly reminded of my other life though when I bumped into an ex-chanicha from Salford BA days after breakfast on the 3rd day! What’s more she was in a group with the lads I’d met in Brisbane. Its a small world but I wouldn’t want to paint it!

When we did get back we had a bit of a stations tochnit returning and cleaning everything in time but all was good and not only did we get our $60 bonds back but we also got $4 out of our $10 petrol deposit back which was rapidly exchanged for alternative fuel at the bar!

Shabbat was spent in Hervey Bay, a pleasant enough town, slightly reminiscent of a Southern American town judging by the amount of country & western and religious radio stations we found when trying to tune the 4WD’s radio in. Nothing much else to write home about – oh shame on me, how can I say that? I do have a vague recollection of a big shark on a restaurant somewhere!

Next on my East Coast agenda was a boat trip through the stunning Whitsunday Islands, a group of seventy plus islands off the coast of Australia at the start of the Great Barrier Reef. Of course no 2 day trip through idyllic waters can be fully appreciated unless one has completed another overnight bus to get to the departure point! Leaving Hervey Bay 10:00pm on Sat night I arrived 11am in Airlie Beach. Quite a pleasant holiday resort, the name is a bit misleading as there isn’t actually a beach there although there is a harbour which is where we were to meet our boat the next day. The truth is that as you go up the coast the sea becomes more and more out of bounds for regular bathers as the Stinger season coincides almost exactly with the summer season. (You can swim in the sea you just have to wear stinger suits which is cool for snorkeling just not that effective for tanning purposes!) To make up for this Airlie Beach has a lagoon – a kind of landscaped out door pool – this is a common solution in Australia, for example, Brisbane also has one.

There are various packages available to explore the Whitsunday Islands – large catamarans, small sailing boats, overnight cruise, island stays etc. As a result of my squeezed timetable I ended up booking a boat “The Pride of Airlie” which took around 35 people and docked both nights on the privately owned South Molle Island. I probably would have liked to have tried sleeping out on the open waves but it was not to be this time so I decided to grin and bear it and stay on a tropical island resort instead!

The first day of our trip basically just took us to the island. Although we as backpackers were quickly shoved to a different side to the posh people it really was a fantasy island kind of resort. (Well it was good entertainment looking at the people on our boat and trying to work out their issues that they’d come to the island to resolve!) Before supper whilst others played golf or swam, myself and a couple of the others (the Fraser Island gang minus Mia were on the boat too) took a 20 minute walk over to Paddle Bay to view the sunset from the coral beach (no taking home corals on pain of big fines at airport).

I’ve become horribly blase about sunsets but I kinda like the theory that Smithy came up with which can make for more active viewing. Essentially looking at the whole sky, and not just the west where the sun is setting, you see all the colours of the rainbow – red, orange and yellow are the obvious ones then going further up the sky there’s a hint of green and then you get the stunning blue, indigo and violet effects. Nice, eh? Sundown and back for supper and then what better way to end the evening than a Jacuzzi by the pool?

This relaxing evening was very needed as we had an early start and one needs a lot of energy for sitting on the deck lapping up the sun and sailing through straits such as the Hook Island Passage on still blue seas, past lush green islands. This can be quite stressful if you haven’t had enough sleep! Most of the islands are untouched but several have resorts. We did pass one which was very tackily built up with 70s looking hotels – the biggest hotel ever apparently (Confession - I’m starting to disbelieve all these biggest and largest claims, enough already) – but in general things were tasteful.

Our first stop was at the famous Whitehaven beach which gets it stunning white colour from the 97% silica of its “sands”. The lighter blue colour of the sea is attributed to our distance from the South Pole which also increases the ability to float. I must have looked stunning (well others looked stunned!) when I chose to jump off the boat (in my stinger suit) and swim into the beach instead of catching the dinghy. I didn’t get to the lookout for the best views but instead did a quick refresher lesson for snorkeling. When later we stopped at a bay to go snorkeling I couldn’t believe how quickly an hour went. I was using a float which made me feel safer and less panicky and as we had to be careful not to tread on the reef (takes 5 years for an inch growth) that also helped me not crush thousands of years of growth. I just had a blast floating around snapping away with my underwater camera.

Snorkeling was my limit for underwater exploration as I cant dive due to being a slight claustrophobe and asthmatic – I have to wheeze in very open spaces – but I loved it anyway. Whilst swimming around I found myself thinking that this was the most amazing experience and then wondering at how many times I’d thought that in the last two months. I really am so grateful for having the chance to do so many incredible things and all in such a short space of time. I’m probably getting rather spoilt. Hopefully the mundane will have some kind of novelty by the time I get back. Then again its made me think that not all at home is mundane and these adventures need not be limited to going abroad. For example when snorkeling it made me question why on earth it had been ten years since I’d last snorkeled in Eilat. I will NOT wait another ten years I promise!

Nor are all adventures of the action kind. Sometimes everyday occurrences can be elevated to an adventure when put in a different setting. Like bumping into a friend for example. I was just drying off from snorkeling when not quite sure how much water I’d swallowed but I was sure I could hear someone yelling “Is there a Lisa Gold on your boat?” I quickly rush over to starboard or whatever that part of the boat is called and incredibly enough there was my friend Ilana Lipski on a passing boat. Having met up in Melbourne we had been trying unsuccessfully for the last couple of weeks to arrange to meet up in Queensland. What mobile phones and e-mail had failed to do the magic of the sea did instead!

Our third day saw more lazing and snorkeling and a completion of our journey around most of the islands by around 2:30pm. All in all the boat was fun but 35 people was a bit too much, a group of 14-20 staying on the boat would probably have been better – then again I also heard other stories of severe sea sickness, uncomfy bunks and running out of water on the boat so you never can tell.

Fresh back from the boat no rest for the wicked and it was just a case of whiling away the ten hours or so before catching the 1 am bus through to Cairns. I didn’t have a hostel room but the Fraser gang let me shower and crash in their hostel room until I set out. On my way down to the bus stop I met up with Jen and Vicky from York, gap year travelers. We chatted and I even texted a friend using Vicky’s mobile and it was while talking about the mobile that something happened that made me realise how small the backpacker world is. I was saying how I was having a break from mobiles and Vicky said that she had it mainly because of her boyfriend back home but anyway it was very useful for emergencies. For example they were traveling with a 3rd girl who had to go back to England for a funeral and was meeting up with them again in Sydney. It then transpired that this wasn’t just any funeral but rather it was for their school friend Caroline who had been tragically murdered in Bundaberg just a couple of weeks before, an event that I think most of you heard about. When something bad happens in Israel I almost expect to know someone who knows someone but it never occurred to me that it could be the same elsewhere in the world.

I arrived in Cairns at 11 am, an appropriate hour I thought, considering it was Anzac Day (25th April). I hoped I’d be just in time for a memorial ceremony but I subsequently found out that no, that had already taken place at 4:45 am! According to friends I made later on in the trip who did get up to see it, the day began with a brief ceremony and then at 5 am (yes you read it right) the pubs opened and everyone , veterans, current soldiers and general public sat and started drinking and eating Anzac biscuits, while the old boys told their stories. On the outset an alien way to commemorate the fallen, rather different in tone to memorial day in Israel or even England for that matter, however the result seems to be the same. We remember the fallen by speaking about their lives and passing their legacy and stories of their bravery and experiences to today’s generation.

Everyone had told me that Cairns was nothing special and to use it just as a base for visiting the surrounding rainforest and reef. Again, despite being the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns doesn’t have its own beach – just a pier and mud flats. Both man made, the mudflats were created fifty or so years ago from the beach that USED to be there when it was decided to build a harbour to encourage trade. These mudflats are continually maintained for this purpose but now they’re spending millions of dollars to build a beach/lagoon kind of thing to boost tourism (many a tourist is surprsed by lack of sand and sea). My my, how the environment gets mucked around by that fickle race they call humans!

I stayed in a wonderfully small and cosy hostel recommended by friends which came as a great change to the large conveyor belt hostels I’d stayed in up the East Coast as part of my various trip packages. Called Dreamtime as a reference to the aboriginal creation stories it could have been named after the great sleep I was going to get due to the welcomed absence of bunk beds and noise!

Traditionally the East coast traveler route stops at Cairns but for those in the know, the true delight can be found just a couple of hours north of Cairns in Cape Tribulation and the Daintree National Park. Advised to be the ultimate tranquil setting – beaches amidst the rainforest I set about getting up there for some real R&R over Shabbat.

Starting early Friday morning we traveled past Australia’s most northern set of traffic lights just north of Cairns and then onto an animal sanctuary in Port Douglas. I’m not sure why I’m still going to these animal places as I really don’t like them. Nevermind, this time I learnt the difference between a wallaby and a kanagaroo, about a Dr Doolittlesque creature called the Kasoway, an emu like creature with horn and how to spot a crocodile (basically to be safe become suspicious of any log you see in a river).

We entered the National Park by crossing the Daintree river and from this point no settlements have electrical power – check out the solar powered telephone booth! Viewing the wonderful green forest representing 40,000 years of growth from the Alexander range look out, you can see why the park has been a World Heritage site since 1987. In the area of 2 football pitches you can find 150 different species of trees compared to 180 in the whole of Europe. Later we went on a bushwalk down the Maardja boardwalk where we learnt about the predominant rainforest features including buttress roots, wait a while vines, the evolutionary proving properties of the fern, the success of hepophytes such as the fig tree and the basket ferns, tarzan like swing things that are actually made of cane which later make furniture, the coralysis effect working on vines (ie which way it wraps round is the same direction as water down a plughole) and more. I think I can take in more on these rainforest walks as the atmosphere is so relaxing — standing under the dense and shady canopy of the forest.

BTW do not be misled by the names given to the area such as Cape Tribulation, Mount Misery and Mount Sorrow. These are just egotistical names a la Captain Cook whose boat came a cropper when he crashed into the Great Barrier Reef a couple of hundred years ago. According to that theory the Whitefield exit of the M62 should be named the “Cape of oh bugger I’m facing the wrong way because I was driving too fast in the rain”!

But anyway, by 1pm we were dropped off at our accomodations. Booked in for two nights the Cape Trib Beach House was a wonderful collection of deluxe huts literally within a rainforest, just five minutes walk from an outside bar/ sitting area, pool and then onto the beach. Of course along with the trees came the wildlife and it was not rare to see bush hens or small marsupials roaming around in addition to beautiful large blue butterflies. There were also large spiders sitting peacefully in their cobwebs which I found astoundingly unscary perhaps because it was so clear it was not me they were sitting in wait for!

One stalling factor which was soon overcome was that due to the shops being shut for Anzacs day the day before, I hadn’t managed to buy any food for Shabbat. 4 km away from any shops (and more to a good one) I managed to get a lift to the local general store with Dick who was driving the afternoon horse riders to the stables. A bit of a Crocodile Dundee character, Dick was originally from Victoria but had gone back packing 15 years ago and never gone back (the original campervan is still around apparently). Living in nearby Cow Bay he remembers when all the roads north of the Daintree river were dust roads and there were no traffic lights in Cairns. That was all relatively recently and you still have to travel an hour and a half to get a pizza on a Saturday night!

Shabbat was pure bliss – the room key activated electricity potential crisis was averted when I just left it up to the whim of my roommates who managed to put the air conditioning on so strong that I slept with a sleeping bag and two blankets in the middle of the rain forest! During the day reading and lazing was interrupted by a gentle stroll on the beach to the Cape Trib look out and then some card playing and general shmoozing in the evening with Beth and Billy, students from the US who I’d met on the way up.

Sunday’s pick up wasn’t until 1:00 so I decided to fit some horse riding in as I’d especially gone horse riding in Jerusalem before I went away so I wouldn’t be too rusty if the opportunity arose when away. Not surprisingly these horses were far more patient of nervous riders than their Israeli counterparts and in addition to getting a unique perspective on the area through our 2 hour ride I can now boast being able to get on a horse in one try for the first time ever!

Our trip back to Cairns took us again via the Daintree river, this time stopping for an hour cruise to spot crocs and snakes — only tourists pay to look for things they’re scared of and then to Mossman Gorge a huge boulder ridden rainforest river which was much fun to splash around in.

Which brings us to Monday. Due to drive out to Alice Springs on the Tuesday I decided to spend one more day in rainforest country by going on a one day trip to the Atherton Tablelands, south of Cairns. My choice not to go on a reef trip was probably wise seeing as the weather that day was pretty bad and so I may well have seen the colour of my own vomit rather than the corals! Anyway the trip I did do took me up the steepest bendiest road ever (McGillies highway) to a couple more rainforest walks and crater lake visits — I knew that maybe I’d done enough when I was beginning to be able to answer all the guides questions and then what I really wanted to do – canoeing around Lake Tinaroo. Actually a manmade lake I had great fun with my German boatmate going partly round in circles but partly getting to view the banks for more wildlife. The rain meant it wasnt really worth capsizing as we were drenched anyway so after stopping to paint our faces with red ochre aboriginal style we all returned totally soaked but happy all the same.

So that is all from me — phew. To let you into a little secret, I am actually already in New York (I’m wildlife spotting from a window overlooking Columbus Ave). I hope to get my final Oz account out before I move on again. My body already is confused enough from having started off the week in Alice Springs about 17.5 hours ahead so I don't want to confuse my mind by having to store more facts about a different country for too long.