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Published: August 26th 2007
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We've got ourselves a set of wheels!! For the next three and a half weeks Madge (the station wagon) is going to get us all the way down the East coast to Sydney. She's not the most beautiful vehicle I have ever seen, but we love her none the less. She's kinda, eh, oversized. Not BIG or anything, just broad. And long. AND WE LOVE HER. She doesn't come cheap, mind you, but we're hoping she's going to get us a long way. We had to go for a bit of a jaunt (on foot) to meet Madge for the first time - she was staying at the other side of Cairns, until we invited her on our road trip. And we have been going hell for leather ever since!
There was a bit of a moment when we were renting Madge at first - the girl who worked in Travellers Auto Barn (sound dodge to you??) was talking us through the car, when she opened the driver's door and me and Sibs (the drivers) realised Madge is an automatic. Simple, but daunting all the same. So there's me, never having driven an automatic before, and never having driven in Australia
before (or any foreign country) and I had to reverse onto the highway in Cairns and head towards the traffic lights.......there were a few jolts and bolts along the way, but I got the hang of it....
Anyhoos, once we got over the initial surprises, we headed north - we stopped off in Mossman Gorge along the way, which is just lots of water and rocks in a very attractive arrangement.......after that we headed for Cape Tribulation and the Daintree, but ended up staying in Port Douglas for the night first. Port Douglas is gorgeous, but completely out of our price range. It's a high end resort town, with an understated strip of restaurants and craft shops, and a marina full of yachts that would put the OC to shame. Not surprisingly we couldn't afford ANYTHING. Hence I had a tuna sambo for dinner. Our hostel, however, was fab, even if we did have to share our rooms. It was a YHA called the Port O Call Lodge, and good lord, it was well equipt - perfectly turned out rooms, a giant kitchen full of utensils, an internet room, and a tv room with proper channels!!
From there we
drove on to Cape Trib (over the Daintree car ferry) and we ended up staying in a "cabin" in PKs camping ground.
Our cabin was really a shared dorm with six beds - the first night there was just us and a "mature" lady who snored like a wild boar, and the second night there were a couple and two English girls who slept 17 hours solid. Oh, and there were no plugs in our "cabin". Surely we would just stay in a tent if we had no need for external electricity. Flamin hostels.
Unfortunately it rained (in the RAINforest!) most of the time we were there, but the area was amazing all the same, and I saw a cassowary in the wild!! There are these really rare wild birds, that are about five foot tall with a blue head - I went for a walk on our final morning, and this one stepped out of the bushes; apparently they can be quite aggressive, but he didn't bat an eyelid in my direction. Cape Trib is completely undeveloped, all there is is a couple of campsites and resorts, and it really is in the middle of the rainforest, and there's
boardwalks everywhere so you can literally walk through the jungle. Thankfully aside from the cassowary, we saw no other wildlife to speak of (i.e no giant spiders. Seriously thank god, I would have swam straight home.) and after two nights we hit the road again, and would ya believe it we've ended up back in Cairns! It really is hard to leave this place.....but along the way today we visited Hartley's CROCODILE FARM!!!!!! Ah, it was great craic, despite the fact that we were the youngest people there not in the company of children. We petted koalas, stroked a baby croc and a python, took a river cruise where the crocs were being fed and there was a fantastic show at the end; you know the routine - one man and a crocodile the size of a small bungalow teasing each other with various props. LOVE IT.
So here we are back in Cairns - we've decided to be good to ourselves, so we're going to stay an extra night, so we can go out tonight and not have to worry about moving tomorrow. And then we have about three weeks to make our way down the coast to Sydney
- our only restriction is that Madge has to be returned by September 6th - such FREEDOM!!!
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Sharleen
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Did you know..
That cassowary's have three-toed feet have sharp claws; the dagger-like middle claw is 5 inches long. This claw is particularly dangerous since the Cassowary can use it to kill an enemy, disemboweling it with a single kick. They can run up to 50 km/h and They can jump up to 1.5 m and they are good swimmers. :) so when you see one, go the other direction