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Published: November 22nd 2010
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We arrived in Cairns on Monday 15th November to a typical Aussie welcome from Vicky’s family – they weren’t there to collect us ! They soon arrived however and we stayed with them at their lovely home in Edmonton. Had our first authentic BBQ on the first night in their back ‘yard’ – avoiding the fruit bats, wailing birds and cane toads (apparently cane toads are coated in LSD and the locals lick their backs !!).
Tuesday 16th Nov: Visit to Hartleys Creek Crocodile Farm today, introduced to the big Estuarine crocs (the salt water crocs that eat people!), and their smaller relatives the Freshwater Crocs. It was feeding time, and those crocs jaws make a very loud snap ! Took in a boat ride along the river, scary being so close up to them. We also saw kangaroo’s, koalas, and wallabies. Hartleys was the first place in Australia to breed crocs in captivity and their work on crocodile conservation and management has attracted worldwide interest. Crocodiles became a protected species in 1974.
Went to the snake show and we were informed all about the most venomous snakes in Aus. The guy demonstrating gave us a lesson on what
to do if we had a snake bite, John told him he had had plenty of those at pubs in Manchester and had survived! Anyway the trick is to keep the part of the body where you were bitten still and then apply a pressure bandage, the venom does not travel through your bloodstream it moves through your muscle so if you keep movement to a minimum you stand the best chance of survival......just remember that! We will!
Tuesday evening we went to The Lagoon in Cairns. During the war the beach was silted up as the Americans used it as a base and dredged the channel where the Lagoon is now built and filtered sea-water is pumped in. Free BBQ facilities are available, so we had our second Aussie BBQ !
Wednesday 17th November: 32 degrees and high humidity, chilled out at Julie’s around the pool all day – it’s a hard life !
Thursday 18th November: Up at 5am and into Cairns for our trip to the Barrier Reef to meet “The Reef Experience” boat that took us out just over an hour to meet “The Reef Encounter” that would be home for the
next two days and the ultimate way to see the reef at its best, day and night. Cruising from reef to reef the crew informed us that the conditions were the best they had seen for months, it was perfect.
We explored a myriad of reef life, snorkelling on the reef is the most awesome experience – a spectacular world of colour the water is so blue and so clear with incredible visibility, the amazing variety of coral and profusion of marine life are like gardens under the sea and truly is a sight to behold – we saw a diversity of tropical and exotic fish, turtles, giant moari wrasse and even sharks ! (non-man eating reef shark).
John scuba dived and also did a night dive, when the sharks came out to feed, though luckily he did return safely ! The fish use the light from the torches as a guide to see the smaller fish to eat them and they would swim alongside and find their supper an awesome experience. Some fish are attracted to the light and would swim towards you so you have to shine the light on yourself to scare them off,in Johns
case it worked every time! The reef’s nocturnal activities are amazing; the reef comes to life at night with the bigger fish, lobsters and crabs (John having trouble with his crabs again but they definitely were not chilli(ha ha) tonight as the water temperature was 30 degrees!).
We were with a great group of passengers on the Reef Encounter of all nationalities – we played Scattagories in the evening with English, Norwegians, German, Americans, Singaporeans, Italian, Brazilian....playing a word game in English there were a few words lost in translation and that was just John cheating !
Friday 19th November: Woken by our early morning call and out on the reef for the first snorkel of the day at 6.30am – the Pacific was flat calm and the snorkelling was the best of the trip – got some great underwater shots!! (not!). Left the reef after lunch, back to Cairns for a relaxing evening.
Saturday 20th November: Last day in Cairns before we head off to Darwin. It has been lovely to see family and catch up, thanks to Julie and Vince for putting us up (and putting up with us !). Finished in style with a
BBQ lunch.
Arrived in Darwin late evening, checked into the Mantra on the Esplanade apartment, crashed out as up and out early....
Sunday 21st November: 6am pick up for a trip to Kakadu National Park. Passed through Humpty Doo on the way, the biggest mango farms in the world (Nicola – you would love this !).
The park is located 250 kilometres outside Darwin and covers 20,000 square kilometres. Kakadu is a living cultural landscape and generations of aborigines have lived on and cared for the country for tens of thousands of years. Their spiritual connection with the land is globally recognised in its World Heritage listing which honours one of the oldest living societies on earth.
During our visit to Kakadu we explored cliffs adorned with 50,000 year ol d aboriginal art and then walked to look at Nourlangie Rock from Gun-wardehwardde lookout , with impressive views of Kakadu’s escarpment and the Nourlangie and Anbangbang Billabong !
We went on a river cruise along the Yellow Water (the local aborigine name is Ngurrungurrudjba (Noor-rang-oo-rooj-bar). The Yellow Water is part of the South Alligator River Floodplain and we had the opportunity to see the
varied birdlife of Kakadu’s wetlands.
Back on the coach for the three hour drive back to Darwin, during which John made up a song about Kakadu – to be sung in the style of Agadoo ! (Vicky thinks he has been licking cane toads).
ODE TO KAKADU
Kakadu-du-du, its a great big national park
So very hot that it burns with just a spark
Kakadu-du-du
Full of termites, full of trees
Home of the aborigines
Kakadu-du-du, lots of paintings on the rocks
Kakadu-du-du – 82,000 man eating crocs
Kakadu-du-du there’s a wallaby or two
And a great variety of birds, just waiting there for you
(a winner for the next eurovision song contest ?).
PS – we never saw any aborigines or one crocodile !!
Monday 21st November: Walked around Darwin in the blistering heat (its factor 50 today folks !),and chilled out by the hotel pool this afternoon.
Tuesday 22nd November - Fly to Alice Springs today..... x
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