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I’m sitting in a shelter from the cloud on a black plastic sofa at 2950 feet in the village of Paluma. Antony dropped me off at Little Crystal Creek this morning so that I could walk the 11km into the village, through the wet tropic World Heritage rainforest. It was a great walk - steeply up hill the whole way through ancient, still, preternaturally quiet forest cut only by the other worldly squawks and screeches from alien and mostly invisible birds. The climb began in the sunshine, but by the time I finally reached the crest and the village I had been enshrouded for about an hour. It’s been a deeply peaceful and atmospheric walk. I haven’t seen another person while walking and only a dozen or so cars went past on the whole walk up. I’ve also walked two of the walks that start in the village, through deeply moody and dripping rainforest. There’s something in the stillness and the shrieks from the birds that seems truly prehistoric. It’s fantastic. Makes you think about your life, about life, about all our lives. I love these kinds of days: I can think of no better an experience for me than
to be walking or riding through an alien and unknown natural landscape, with always the possibility of a wildlife encounter to truly add spice to the day.
I’ve spent the last few days planning for the next phase of the trip: with the end of the World Cup imminent, it’s time to start thinking ahead. I had a lazy old day two days ago, although I did finally drag myself away from the torpor by the end of the day to clamber up the 1500 steps of the steep goat track to the top of Castle Hill - the object of Townsville’s fitness squad’s daily ambition - the trail heaves with all manner of spandex wearing fitness freaks ranging from pod faced work out monsters, to sweating fat lard ass tubbies facing up to their imminent coronaries, old withered sagging flesh pots to fashion junkies who even sweat in a tasteful way. The only other noteworthy incidents were, firstly, my discovery of an excellent English comedy show called ‘Outnumbered’, secondly, my rather risky purchase of Bill Bryson’s ‘Down Under’ - I don’t think I’m going to end up emulating his approach - he’s not into sharing exercise-based experiences, if
you don’t count his descriptions of snot and snore laden sleep and his pathetic attempt at snorkeling. Having said that, Bill and I do share a certain self effacing and sarcastic tone in our writing, though I think I’m slightly more crude and ugly than him! Finally, I spent a sunset hour with four trees and a zillion screeching parakeets - it was the most dense and deafening cacophony imaginable - on a par with trucks on a highway, but crossing over a massive frequency range in a shattering and overpoweringly fantastic din. I loved it! Like watching Dinosaur Junior play at an South African soccer match, vuvuzelas blaring, all the amps turned up to ten!
I realized that Thursday needed to be a day of action and so it turned out to be, with me lashing money hither and thither into one plan after another. In a dazzling spell of enterprise (by my holiday standards), over the course of three hours I went from indolence to a masterplan that stretches into the far distant horizon - that’s right, next week! Amazing, huh? So here it is, the fruit of my labors: This weekend we have Grandstand two day
tickets for Townsville’s major V8 festival - the whole town is turning into a racetrack for fancy cars - and we have, courtesy of Antony, great seats in the main grandstand - actually Antony and I rather naughtily, snuck onto the track and walked the entire thing on Wednesday night - fully expecting to be arrested and chucked in jail at any moment, but in fact walking around the whole circuit unmolested - we must have looked like we belonged. The famous 1980’s Aussie band INXS play on Saturday night, while the National level races come to a head on Sunday. Should be a blast - quite literally.
On Monday morning at 4:00am, it’s the World Cup Final. Come on Holland! On Tuesday at the crack of dawn I’m getting a Greyhound bus to Airlie Beach where I get on board a sailing snorkeling adventure that leaves for three days and nights sailing and exploring the Whitsunday Islands. I get back to Airlie beach on Friday, get the bus back to Townsville in time to take another two day boat trip to the outer barrier reef for more snorkeling, leaving on Saturday morning at the crack of dawn (why
do they always have to leave at the crack of dawn? Hasn’t anyone heard of leisurely breakfasts?) returning on Sunday afternoon to Townsville. On the next Monday afternoon, I take a plane to Darwin and on to the Northern territories, arriving at 9:15pm and into the next phase of the journey to the far North.
That’s the plan as far as it’s been paid for. I still need to get a Hotel in Darwin, figure out a trip into the Kakadu National Park there, and then get the tickets on the Ghan train to Adelaide via Alice Springs, where I intend to visit Uluru, if possible. Gosh. I guess I’ve still got quite a bit more planning (and paying) to do! Gulp.
Man, it’s getting even gloomier outside. The cloud is now so thick you can’t see ten feet. The Inn in which I currently shelter will soon be closing, and I’ll be stuck outside - Antony is coming to pick me up in the village here between 4 and 5:00pm - it’s now 3:00pm. Unfortunately, the phones don’t work here, the public phone is busted and so who knows how this whole day will turn out, especially
given me and Antony’s slightly out of character ability to create organizational confusion in the simplest of situations - getting locked out of the apartment, losing the car at the mall yesterday, etc. It’s weird that two blokes who are each pretty well orchestrated alone are able to screw up simple stuff when they’re together!
See you on the flypaper!
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Linda
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The Great Barrier Reef
Mike, So glad you're getting to the reef, you MUST go! and make sure you save $ for an underwater camera. Linda (Sarah enjoying the summer, meeting some new friends from Friends, and reading Maximum Ride.) We will await your underwater pics from the reef!