The past few days have been marvelous! Aside from having complete freedom (again) from working, we took advantage of our time to see some of the more exciting sides of Tropical North Queensland!
The night of my last shift, John and I ate bruschetta and garlic bread with some cocktails and beers with the other staff. I took the liberty of introducing Reece's peanut butter cups to sweet ol' Vanessa and Chell, and hung out with Mick, Jono, Lisa, Dave, Tim, Rob, Ben and Tatijana until Zinc was ready to shut its doors.
The week started with Emily's good bye party, which we made an appearance but had far too many things to take care of then to be out all night drinking. John had spent a night out with all the wonderful ladies from Tortillas as a farewell to his departure.
We had sold our lovely (big) tent to four German girls, so Tuesday night we slept in one of Dougies stylies. The next day we rented a car, and made the short drive to see Mossman Gorge. (It didn’t take John long to get used to driving on the other side of the road, but it was scary at first!) Considering that we are literally at the base of the mountains, it was only natural for there to be tons of waterfalls, streams and lakes, Mossman being one of the many. It’s particularly nice because of how close it is to Port Douglas. Nice for swimming and scouting out the hippie hole, where you can slide down the soft boulders into a pool, all of course if you can handle the chilly water. Unfortunately, when we arrived, they were renovating the walking paths and had shut down most of what there was to see.
Moving on, we decided to take on the coveted 'spring creek'. Not to be accessed by any road, signage or path, this waterfall can only been seen if the weather conditions are ideal, and if you are up for the hour and a half hike of rough terrain, and if you can even find where to begin. We received mix reviews from people when we started to ask for directions. Some told us it was beautiful and did their best to explain how to get there and where we should park. Others told us we shouldn’t go if we weren't with someone who knew how to get there and that it was too rough to go at alone (especially since it had rained rather hard a few days before, and even just a bit of rain makes this hike impossible to tread). We ignored them and continued on.
After driving around for about 25 minutes, we eventually were lead to the grassy patch where we parked and started walking. Along the way we ran into a beautiful (and large) caterpillar, which I believe is called a ‘4 o'clock’. Bright yellow with black dots...and turns into a large yellow and black butterfly. We saw a snake, which I believed to be harmless, but it was simply climbing a tree and had no interest in us. We were being followed, relentlessly by horse fly's which was enough to have me almost throw in the towel and turn around. We saw so many strange spiders and creatures all in which we stopped to photograph.
About mid-way, I had noticed a leaf that seemed to be floating. After taking a closer look, I realized it was this strange vine we had heard about that has razor thorns on it and will give you some pretty serious cuts if it catches you. The vine itself is very thin and waves carelessly in the wind. Be in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and this vine will grab you. The more you move, the more it cuts you up. Anyways, I yelled out to John (behind me) "HEY! This is that moving vine thing we heard about..." and just as I finished my sentence he yells "OUCH!!!!" Sure enough, the plant got him.
Luckily, the vine grabbed him on his pants; skin unscathed. We got the camera out and started to take pictures. The vine was attached and wrapped up in other plants so we pulled here, tugged there...trying to get a good view. What we didn’t realize was that under this mass of greenery was a bee hive. In three seconds I got stung in three different places. Throwing my arms about and smacking the air as if I just got attacked by a ghost, I backed off. I knelt down to tend to the one sting on my ankle, and that’s when I noticed the bee hive. John freed himself of the vine and decided to take a picture of the bees. Just as he was about to snap the picture, he got stung as well, and threw the camera in retaliation. We nervously stared at each other, nursing our burning bites, trying to recollect if we have ever heard of deadly bees. Fortunately, we hadn't and were thankful that neither of us was allergic. (The camera was fine as well.)
As we moved on, the rocks were now big enough to climb over, and the terrain became more intense. We did eventually make it to the three tiers of waterfalls, 2 hours later. We were so excited to have made our short journey, and loved relaxing in the peaceful setting. (It wasn't until a day later that we found out if we had climbed another 5 minutes; we would have been at the biggest and most beautiful waterfall!) It was getting dark though, so we headed back, this time it only took about an hour.
That night, we slept in the car, ready to wake up bright and early for our three day adventure out and about! Lisa and Kane were going to be joining us which we were dually excited about. We checked out of Dougies for good and left 8am sharp. Our first stop was the Daintree and Cape Tribulation. The Daintree is the protected rainforest, and a small portion of it is nestled just across the Daintree River, only to be accessed by ferry, a short one at that. $20 dollars later, we crossed into what seemed like another world. Far removed from our Port Douglas, only about an hour and a half away; we were now surrounded…no, dwarfed, by the massive trees, ferns, ancient vines and the jurassic like creatures we knew were around, but had yet to see. There is just one main road way that takes you to the tippy-top (after that, the road is unsealed and unbearable to drive unless you like 3 foot deep pot holes). There are several side roads that will wind you up the mountains or take you to a tourist hike, bug museum or tea farm. We stopped along the way at a look-out point that scanned the mouth of the Daintree River and several close islands, though it was too foggy for us to see much past the river. We also stopped at Thornton Beach and seriously considered swimming out to the tiny rock island maybe half a mile out, but Lisa and I urged we kept going. Our next stop was Cape Tribulation. Just another beach, but a peaceful one. We walked up the paths to the look-out point and got an up and close look at the mangroves.
Now Kane had already been to the Daintree, and had told us about a place he had seen called the Blue Hole. Apparently, this water hole is the most beautiful azure blue color, but is an ancient Aboriginal birthing hole considered to be sacred. We asked around for directions, but got nasty replies in exchange, saying the locals don’t want tourist's there. This just made us ten times more determined. We drove up and down the main street, pulling into little side roads hoping it would trigger Kane's memory of its locale. The one road we drove down accidentally lead to some home, whose people ran guided hiking tours ($45 dollars for 2 hours! can you believe that?) We told them we got lost and turned around, this time, making a pit stop at one of the creeks on their property. We quickly snapped pictures and went on our way. As we slowly crept our way through their long, gravel driveway, I had caught glimpse of what looked like a Valossel Raptor! I yelled out "CASSOWARY! CASSOWARY! CASSOWARY!" John stopped the car and every one jumped out of their seats, hoping to catch this giant bird before it ran away.
A Cassowary is exactly that...a giant bird. Similar in size to an Ostrich, this wild creature has a bright blue head with a large, red bone fan protruding from the top of its head. Needless to say, this endangered species is quite the sight to see in the wild...if you are that lucky!
Our Cassowary quickly ran across the road, and we crept up to see if we could still see it through the trees. Sure enough, there he was, a juvenile bird munching on berries. We stayed particularly close to the edge of the road, seeming just as interested in us as we were him. We must have sat there for 15 minutes taking pictures and videos; gasping in awe of his size and his close proximity to us. We had hoped to see his mother close by, but we had no such luck. We were still so excited to have gotten such an upclose look at even a young Cassowary.
Now feeling our trip was complete, we headed on...still in search for the Blue Hole. We made our way to the very last side road before being at the entrance of the ferry. We passed a bug museum and Kane started to say that things were looking familiar. He told us to kept going on, but we came to a fork in the road that was no longer apart of his memory. We turned around and decided to head down another gravel drive. Again, Kane exclaimed the familiarity, but quickly second guessed himself as we moved forward. We came into a clearing and Kane was sure that this was it. When we got out of the car, he then again doubted himself, though at this point, we were anxious to find out. He leapt and ran ahead, hoping he had taken us in the right direction, and sure enough, there it was. Blue and green like the prettiest little opal; we all stared and marveled, trying to take in the idea that this was once an Aboriginal birthing hole. The boys jumped in right away, but it didn’t take much to convince Lisa and I to follow. We took a quick dip in the icy waters, said our 'thank you’s' to this sacred hole and moved on.
Our next stop was our exotic fruit tasting tour that I had taken the liberty to book for everyone. Back up the road we went till we found the beaten path through the rainforest that lead us straight to a humble farm, littered with over 10,000 exotic fruits and veggies. Digby and his wife were the proprietors of this farm; a lovely couple from Australia who had moved to the Cape Trib. rainforest about 20 years ago in search for something more 'exotic'. Year after year they planted and continued to master the art of perma-culture. One of the most interesting things that we learned on our little tour was that most of these plants take 18+ years before you will ever see a piece of fruit. Pineapple, for instance, takes 8 years before any fruit will grow, and even after that, takes about half a year before the fruit is mature enough to harvest or eat. The fruits on their farm can be found in most equatorial countries, but try as they may, will remain exotic and un-commercialized for many different reasons (some fruit wouldn’t last being shipped, most are too strange looking for the average consumer to know what to do with it or how to eat it, others simply have a 'required-taste' and just wouldn’t go over well when it comes to consumer palates). Ten to fifteen fruits are in season at one time, and on our particular tour, we tasted 11! (Tahitian lime, Pommelo, Jackfruit, Star Apple, Yellow Sapote, Mamey Sapote, Sapodilla, Solo Papaya, Jaboticaba, Rollinia and Guanabana, otherwise known as Soursop.)
Tahitian lime is easy. Just like a normal lime, except much more small and round. We tried this muddled in a glass of water. Delish! Pommelo is like a very dry grapefruit, literally no juice whatsoever, but has a nice citrus taste. Average size is about as big as a soccer ball. Jackfruit is most interesting; this spinney shell fruit easily gets to sizes of 60 pounds or even larger and as tall as 3 feet! Inside are pods of white seeds, which are surrounded by the meat of the fruit. Keeping all this together is this strange, sticky, latex-like white goo. Eat too close to the rind of the fruit and your mouth will stick together. It's a giant mess preparing the fruit to eat and is often best to wear gloves. The taste? Well, I can't even really go on to explain the taste. Kinda nutty, somewhat bland. For the most part, my mind was too concerned with the filmy, gummy texture. Star Apple is this tiny little dark fruit, about the size of a tomato (and round). Not too pretty from the outside, but inside, is this gorgeous purple and pink color, and of course, looks like a star. I found the texture to be somewhat slimy, just like passionfruit (sorry to those whom never had the luxury to try passionfruit, but I simply cannot think of anything else that it resembles). The taste was somewhat bitter, but again bland. Yellow Sapote was one of my favorites. From the outside, is the shape of squash with the skin that looks like a brown potato. Inside is this incredible burnt orange/yellow, and is a smorgishborg of soft fruit. Everything about this fruit reminded me of partially cooked sweet potato. Was really soft, but not so soft that it couldn’t hold its shape. It also tasted a bit like squash, pumpkin or even sweet potato. Now, I would love to go into more detail about the rest, but I forgot most of the rest, and who wants to keep reading about fruit!? They showed us around the farm, pointing out all the different edible objects along the way. Even though we had eaten so much fruit, we were all so hungry. We ran across the street to P.K's backpackers lodge to freshen up, and then went out to dinner to the Cassowary Cafe. We enjoyed the last few minutes of happy hour at P.K.'s and then went to bed.
Next morning we headed straight to the tablelands. On top, inside, and on the other side of the mountains are the flats of land known as the tablelands. Really just a nice way of calling it 'country'. We went up through Julateen and up to Mount Molloy. The tropical forest eventually turned into flat, dry land, covered in gum trees and termite hills. Somewhere along the way, we came to a long stretch of fire burnt land. We were so far removed from any civilization that we assumed the fire was natural. Grass and low laying plants were crispy and black and the trunks and tree limbs were chard as well. Green buds and baby leaves were sprouting at the tops of some of the taller plants, which lead me to believe that the fire may have happened only a few months ago. The sun was super-hot that day and we passed smoking objects as we drove by as if the fire had only occurred a few hours before we arrived. Oddly enough, on the other side of the road, there were lush green grasses, thriving trees and a wet marsh that was full of ducks, turtles and creatures unknown to our eyes. It was beyond strange to have so much death and darkness on one side of the road, only to have life and color at its exact opposite.
Anyways, we continued on through Mareeba, Atherton and Ravenshoe (pronounced ravens-hoe), admiring the new scenery, we drove 3 hours without much stopping so that we could make it to the Innot Hot Springs in good time. In my mind, I had imagined a wide creek and small pools. Perhaps surrounded by tropic greens, similar to what Spring Creek had looked like, except nice warm water. I think all four of us had the same idea, and we were all most excited about these hot springs more than anything else on our three day agenda. We were practically in a desert when we started to see signs pointing us to Innot. We pulled up to a beaten up building that was make-shift hotel/caravan park. The lady running the place told us there was a creek just a few feet away that we could go in, or we could enjoy one of the many pools they had. (Yes, man-made pools filled with spring water that was naturally heated by its hot waters. Not exactly what we had planned for.) We made our way down to the creek, which was mostly small pebble. For the most part, the creek looked dried up and barren. As we walked on, it just became dried up woods. However disappointed we were, the water was still really warm. There were some parts that were so hot; it would have burnt our feet if we kept them in. Also amused by the tiny tad-poles and frogs that called these hot waters home; we quickly called this one a loss and went on our way.
Our next stop was Milla Milla, which had a trio of water falls that we visited (Milla Milla, Ellinja and Zillie). We visited the wind farm on the way, and ran into a herd of cattle, meandering there way on the very road we were driving. We visited the Mungalli Dairy farm, which is where Zinc gets their yoghurt from (and very tasty may I add). Before reaching our resting place, we stopped at Lake Eacham. A peaceful and most beautiful lake. Small and quaint, we admired the setting sun and calm waters, wishing we had arrived a few hours early to take a swim.
We decided to spend the night in Yungaburra, which Lisa suggested after reading a little excerpt in her lonely planet book. We checked into a nice hostel called 'On the Wallaby'. We ate some wonderful pasta at Nick's Swedish/Italian restaurant and played a few games of ping-pong before calling it a night.
We got on the road early the next day after having breakfast in an adorable cafe in Yungaburra. Our first road stop was the curtain fig tree. I have taken many pictures of these curiously strange trees but had no idea they were fig trees. Every fig tree I have seen was large and oversized, but this one was particularly grandiose. Try as I may to explain its vastness; perhaps pictures would do it better justice, which you can see in the photo gallery. You can't have a giant tree without giant spiders, which of course, there are pictures of too.
We stopped at Josephine Falls and Crystal Cascades before our final stop a Lake Placid. The very exact lake that inspired and starred in the movie, Lake Placid. I guess we imagined a black creepy lake, full of crocs and man eating things, but it was actually quite beautiful. It was full of rope swings, and jumping platforms perfect for swimming, but then again, thats exactly what those man-eating things want you to do, right? One of the coolest part was our run-in on stinging plants. It was something that none of us had heard about before, but its Australia! Apparently, this normal looking leaf is covered in tiny hairs, that when touched, lodge into your skin and eject a poison that rocks your nervous system like an 80s hair band. It lasts for months, is extremely painful and has no treatment beside pain killers. We found it, and it took all sorts of effort to keep John and Kane from touching it. Thankfully, they didnt.
We got back to Port Douglas in time for Lisa to go to work, and for John and I to start packing our things. Exhausted, but accomplished, we were all sad to see an end to our three day adventure. We had a lot of fun, and I so enjoyed spending my last few days in Australia with Lisa and Kane.
As a good-bye, our chef friend, Jono, had prepared seafood curry and chocolate cake at his place. Mick and Chell were there as well, followed by a few more co-workers as the night went on. Jono delighted us with his fire twirling act before John and I said goodbye. We stopped at Zinc to quickly say goodbye, and then finished packing up for the morning.
We took a bus into Cairns at 9am and waited for our 12 o'clock plane. We had a 5 hour layover in Darwin, so we decided our call our old friend, Sonja, from Zinc. She had left while I had been in Ohio, so I never got to say goodbye. She picked us up, just as eager as we were to see one another again. She gladly gave us a brief tour of Darwin and then took us to a local market where we ate and walked around for the remainder of our time. I’m SOOOO glad that I got to give her a formal goodbye, and John was equally excited to reconnect with a good friend.
Now here I sit, waiting to catch our plane to Indonesia. I have never been so excited to fly before, though I am trying my hardest to contain myself. In just a few more hours... we will be in Bali!