Blog Australia—New Guinea 

Part 1

"Whether the weather will cooperate?!"

After enduring one of the coldest and snowiest winters on record in mid-coast Maine, we were only too relieved to receive a weather report that promised milder temperatures and sunnier skies for our departure to Australia in early March.  We drove to Boston, spent the night at a hotel near the airport and flew out the next morning to Honolulu with a plane change in Newark.  

It was such a relief to leave the coats, gloves and boots behind and feel the tropical tradewinds caressing our skin.   Listening to a weather report before departing the next morning for Brisbane, Australia, I thought I heard the word ‘blizzard’.  Blizzard?  I must have misunderstood.  I left the ‘blizzards’ behind, didn’t I?  Well, not entirely.  Since the big island of Hawaii has towering mountain volcanoes, blizzards are not only possible, but were predicted for the day ahead.

The flights were all on time and unremarkable, except for their length:  11 hours from Newark to Honolulu and 10 hours from Honolulu to Brisbane.  After another overnight in Brisbane, we reached our final flight destination—Cairns, Australia.  We got in the rental car and drove south to Mission Beach, our first real destination in Queensland.  Along the way, we drove through sugar cane fields, banana plantations, hints of rainforest and mountains.  This area of Queensland is known as the “Wet Tropics” of Australia.  During the 2 hour drive, we had a chance to find out just how wet it is.  We knew that we were arriving during the wet season, but the rain poured in monsoonal torrents, making driving difficult.  Rivers and creeks were running fast and high.  We discovered on the news that night that we had skirted Cyclone Nathan, which had arrived north of Cairns near Cooktown.  Lucky for us, we were going south of Cairns, but still! 

Mission Beach is a small community on the Queensland coast.  It is known for sightings of the endangered bird—the cassowary.  Cassowaries are huge, just a bit smaller than ostriches, and very primitive looking—like holdovers from the era of dinosaurs.  Driving into town and all over town are signs for cassowary crossings, recent cassowary crossings, etc.  The bird’s numbers have been decreasing quickly because of run ins with autos, in which the bird is always the  loser.  We stayed in a little piece of heaven called “Boutique Bungalows”, a small B & B with 3 bungalows.  Each was neat and clean and had a small kitchen. The owners of the B & B, Sharon and Steve, also run an animal rehabilitation facility called “Wildcare”.  Their specialty is orphaned wallabies, but they also care for birds, reptiles, and nearly anything that comes their way.

Cassowarry

Coastal Carpet Python

After serving us a delightful outdoor breakfast the next morning, the baby wallabies were brought out in tea cozy sort of pouches, similar to their mothers’.  We were permitted to hold them for a while, giving them some TLC that they’re missing, due to their mothers’ absence.  They were very placid and relaxed, enjoying the warmth of human contact.  The second day of our stay, we were sitting at breakfast bemoaning the fact that we hadn’t yet spotted a cassowary, when lo and behold, a cassowary walked into the garden.  These birds are very large and very prehistoric looking.  The colors on their heads and throats are beautiful blue and orange, quite iridescent.  This cassowary is a frequent visitor to the B & B and goes by the nickname, “Peanut”.  We also had a chance to hold a Coastal Carpet Python and visit a Papuan Frogmouth (bird) inside the house.  The frogmouth had gorgeous red eyes and a mouth just like a frog, hence its name. 

Papuan Frogmouth

 We left the humid coast for the Atherton Tablelands, a cooler, drier, mountainous area situated west of the Queensland coast.  This area is of volcanic origins, and the soil is very rich.  Agriculture is an important business here, with sugar cane the most abundant crop; banana plantations are second.  Fruit, especially mangoes, corn and veggies are also grown in abundance.  We came here to visit the rainforest and look for birds and animals.  The rainforest now remains in isolated pockets, since agriculture has taken up so much of the land.  We stayed in the rainforest at a lodge and enjoyed waking to the sounds of the birds each morning.  There was good bird viewing, and the owner took time to map out places in the local area for us to visit.

Lumholtz's Tree Kangaroo

The first site was a tea plantation where the rare Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo lives.  A tea factory visitor center employee pointed the way to the trees where the kangaroos live.  We spent time watching them and aiming our cameras in their direction.  Later, we visited the curtain fig tree, an enormous fig vine that overwhelmed a tree and appears to be a waterfall of aerial roots that have grown to the ground.

Curtain Fig Tree

During our stay we received an email from the owners of the next B & B we were to visit, warning us not to come.  This accommodation is in the lowland rainforest of Daintree National Park.  Last week, during Cyclone Nathan, they received over 20 inches of rain in 2 days, causing floods.  The water has receded but the cyclone, instead of moving on and dissipating, has been hanging around, is expected to intensify to a category 4 storm and come back to the Queensland coast later in the week.  So, we cancelled our reservations and contacted another resort on high ground in the Tablelands.  We will be watching the storm to see if our cruise will be impacted, since the cyclone’s landfall will be within a couple of days of our departure and could well be in or near Cairns, the port of embarkation.

                 
So, in the meantime, we spent the time enjoying our new accommodation in another sector of rainforest.  The birds and animals seemed to be more abundant here with sightings of wallabies, pademelons (small kangaroos), parrots, sulphur crested cockatoos and a beautiful buff breasted paradise kingfisher. 

The dreaded cyclone did make landfall in the middle of our stay here as a Category 4.  Luckily for us and for most of the north Queensland coast, it hit the far north, which is very sparsely populated, and it will have no impact on our cruise departure in a couple of days.  We did get some showers as a few outer bands of the storm spun off in our direction.  I should digress a moment to mention how different the weather reporting is in Australia.  After living in Florida where the approach of a hurricane is accompanied by 2 days or so of 24 hour news coverage on local TV stations with ominous sounding music heading the reports and news anchors wearing expressions of anxiety and fear, we were quite stunned that the storm is barely mentioned here.  You have to work really hard to find any information about it.  It’s true that we’re staying in a location with no TV, but we have internet and car radio.  The radio announcer seems to think it’s more important to talk about electricity rates not rising, showers in Tasmania, or the latest scrimmage in Parliament than to mention a Category 4 typhoon slamming into the coast.  Go figure!

  

Rock Wallaby

The day after the storm, we visited a site called Granite Gorge, so called because of the granite boulders strewn all over the area.  We set out on a trail to see the rock wallabies, a separate small species of marsupials that lives among the boulders.  After a few minutes of walking on the boulders, the going got tough.  Huge boulders mixed with small ones and steep uneven areas with crevasses made it seem more like a crawl on all fours at times rather than a walk or hike.  But we persevered and overcame the challenge.  At least we were wearing walking shoes, whereas others were clad in sandals and flip flops.   I don’t know how they made it.  This place was richer in bird life than all the others combined that we have visited.  But we’ve been told that during the wet season, the birds are not as visible.

Laughing Kookaburra and Rainbow Bee Eaters

So, Part 1 is wrapping up now.  We head out to Cairns tomorrow to prepare for our cruise the next day.  More later…..