From sharks in Sydney to a cyclone in Cairns

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Cyclones, storms, floods and shark attacks Tuesday 13th January 2009

Well, we are now sitting on a plane heading for Cairns, where parts of the town are underwater; cyclone “Charlotte” hit Northern Queensland yesterday and the flooding is said to be extensive. We did consider delaying our flight but decided not to and to take a chance on things being OK, after all, the cyclone has done its damage now and its now the mopping up stage for the unfortunate people who have been flooded out. Our original itinerary would have taken us to Cairns a week ago and then we would have been there when the cyclone hit, or further north where it was much worse; our change of dates (to allow a week in the Blue Mountains) was therefore quite fortuitous. All of this bad weather, including a terrific storm a few days ago when we were in the mountains, pales into insignificance compared to the devastation in Fiji. Presumably news coverage has been as extensive in Europe as it has been here; to see roads, beaches, towns and villages that we visited and enjoyed just a few months ago under water, with 9,000 Fijians homeless and in emergency shelters, seven people dead and a huge risk of dysentery and disease is truly shocking.

The big news here in Australia is all about the dramatic rise in shark attacks; seven since Boxing Day when a guy’s snorkelling trip in Perth ended in him being “taken” by a great white. There was one more in Perth, one in Tasmania and the rest here in NSW with some people receiving horrendous injury, including a 13 year old girl who was on a surfboard in shallow water, but not losing their lives. Yesterday two huge great whites were photographed circling close to shore off Palm Beach, north Sydney, where we were swimming less than two weeks ago and a guy snorkelling near Wollongong, just south of Sydney, was attacked yesterday in only two metres of water. So we are flying north away from the great whites to the haunts of the Box Jellies. The desire to snorkel off the Great Barrier Reef isn’t looking so attractive right now!

And now for the update since our last blog: On Friday we went in to Katoomba again just to browse around the shops and have lunch. On Saturday we went to a private part of Gorse Gorge where the views were stunning. The owners of the guesthouse we are staying in, Malina and Jack have twenty acres of land on the gorge rim and wanted us to see and enjoy it. That night, the stormy weather was quite dramatic with forked lightning, torrential rain and deep rumbling thunder; this Australian summer weather is quite extraordinary! On Sunday we had a really lazy day, with a gentle stroll to the pub and then a picnic in the park. Nice, even although a Gin and Tonic here is just tonic with a tiny hint of spirit which is almost hard to taste, rather like in England; living in Spain spoils one somewhat for the ol’ drinkies!

Our last night was spent in good company with Malina and Jack and a couple from Melbourne. We probably drank a little too much champagne (on the house) so our packing was quite a hasty job the next morning. We journeyed back to Sydney, spent last night in a hotel near the airport and now we are cruising at about 30,000 feet over southern Queensland and soon we will be in Cairns. Hope Charlotte has finished wrecking havoc!
Arrival (evening) Tuesday 13th January 2009
Arriving in Cairns was pleasantly surprising. Australian weather forecasts are notoriously inaccurate and so instead of arriving in torrential rain we landed in sunny balmy weather; 28 degrees, not too humid and a sea breeze gently blowing in from the Coral Sea. We saw a fair amount of flooded fields as we flew in but the city is dry. The rivers are swollen and brown and so the sea is brown and murky for several hundred metres out from shore. We are going to wait about a week before going out to the Barrier Reef to give the sea a chance to clear again to its natural pristine turquoise blue.
Cairns is a green and pleasant city and so much cheaper than Sydney! The hostel that we are staying in is right in the centre of everything and a friendly place. An Irish bar downstairs serves $5 steak and chips. We spent this afternoon finding our way around and checking out bus routes, trains and tours. We might go for a seven day car rental, haven’t fully decided yet but it looks like it will be cheaper and we’ll see more of the many sights here in northern Queensland. We are now sitting having a beer listening to the parrots squawking as the sun sets and watching the giant fruit bats leaving the trees to head out for a night’s feeding session. We think we like Cairns a lot already and we’ve only been here six hours! The only depressing thing is the insistence of Aboriginal locals asking for money with phrases such as “You are rich and I am poor so you should give me something” and “I’m pregnant so I need $3 for the bus” which are two we’ve had already.

Wednesday 14th january2009

On the esplanade here in Cairns there is a huge salt water lagoon for swimming, with no Box Jellies to worry about. We spent some time there this morning, relaxing in the shade of a tree and swimming about in the cool salt waters. Lovely! The sea is still dirty brown following the flooding. The weather is glorious, sunny and hot and although it is humid it isn’t unpleasant thanks to the sea breezes. The hostel is really good (and cheap with Woolworths across the road for buying food) except, despite being very clean, it does seem to have a few giant cockroaches scuttling along the corridors. I braved the corridor early this morning to go to the loo and was greeted by an enormous beast when I got there. I know they are harmless but when their bodies are between two and three inches in length, their ugliness is shown in all its nasty detail; these giant roaches, make our Spanish cucarachas look quite cute! We’ve booked up car hire from Saturday when we check out of here and plan to head north. In the meantime, Cairns is proving a great place to chill out, browse around the shops, swim and relax; really glad we came here.

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Photos

Gorse Valley
From Marina and Jack's garden

Pinnacle Rock
Gorse, Blackheath Gorge

Garden on the gorge rim
Marina's beautiful terraced garden on the rim of the gorge

Having a dip in Cairns Lagoon
The sea should be the same colour!

Lake Street, Cairns
View from the hostel terrace

Cooling down with a beer
John on the terrace