Will Around the World

Today I took a tour of the Atherton Tablelands, a mountainous forested region 90 minutes inland from Cairns. My tour, called On the Wallaby, had a mix of people. There was a Norwegian, an Italian, and a Bulgarian living in Melbourne, but most were British and Germans. The guide, named Bob, is a musician and even opened for INXS on their revival tour earlier this year.

We spent the first half of the tour walking through rainforest. We saw the Cathedral fig tree, one of the largest trees in all of Australia. We capped off the morning with a dip in Lake Barrie and a picnic lunch.

Cathedral fig tree

After lunch, most of the group went to see waterfalls, but I elected to go canoeing. I joined a smaller group for an afternoon on Tinaroo, an artificial lake. There were seven people in this group, three pairs and me. Everyone had their own two-person canoe except for me, and I had never canoed before. Still, I quickly got the hang of it. I signed up for this activity because I was told there was good chance of seeing Australian wildlife. I was not disappointed. Up to this point I had seen only one kangaroo, even though they are about as common in Australia as deer are in the States. But this afternoon I got a special treat—a sighting of a rare species of kangaroo known as Lumholtz's tree kangaroo. (Less than 1% of Australians have seen this kangaroo.) This species is about as big as a raccoon and has large eyepatches, too. It stayed frozen in the trees, watching our canoes as we tried not to startle it. We paddled up the lake to a deposit of ochre, an iron oxide compound that the Aborigines used to paint their bodies. We had a go at that with mixed results. After two hours on the lake we went back to shore and rejoined the waterfall group.

Bush turkey

Lumholtz's tree kangaroo

Back at shore I chatted with a couple of Canadians that canoed with me. Robin and Kathleen are nurses and are in Australia for one year, on special visas that allow them to work as nurses. To protect domestic jobs, they can work only in the outback in towns that are short of medical professionals. This seemed like a great way to travel—by living in a town without many tourists and interacting with locals on a meaningful level, they are getting a much richer experience than the typical working/travelling backpacker's.

Going aboriginal with Robin and Kathleen

At 5PM we drove back to Cairns. We listened to Canadian rock selected by Robin and Kathleen. In the back of the bus I saw an odd sight, a short man giving a British girl a massage. This man was Dave, a Brit of Chinese origin. The whole day he annoyed me, and creeped out a few others, by getting in everyone's face with his mega-zoom-lens SLR camera. Just before we left the Tablelands I heard him challenge this girl to see who could give a better massage. I was surprised that it worked—I guess I'll give it a try one day.

Dave the masseur

I got back to Cairns at 8PM. Since I would be flying to Sydney next morning and then leaving for New Zealand the same day, this was my last night in Australia. I met up with the Finn, Miruna, from the dive boat. She got back from the boat earlier in the day and was hanging out at her hostel. We had some drinks with other people in the hostel in an attached bar. After a couple of hours, these guys wanted to check out a bar in the center. Unfortunately, I had to pass. I had to wake up at 5 next morning to catch my flight. This was yet another case of my take-no-prisoners schedule holding me prisoner.

# posted by billklee @ 22:14