The Great Barrier Reef, by Ella

So I got done up like a kipper in a wetsuit and one of these contraptions, all to find Nemo, who isn't even lost because he's living in the corner of my cot with the black cat and the puppy dog and the kookaburra.

And then we went out on this boat for an hour and a half just so my mum can sit in a cage in a suit that zips up over her legs. Ha! now she knows how I feel when she puts me in my cot.

Poseidon Adventure - II

Friday 13th July

Darren's turn on the reef, though this time he did three introductory dives. You see my point about instructing the instructors.

As I wasn't there I can't blog his day but here's what he saw; a green turtle, two eagle rays and cuttlefish.

And lots more Nemo.

What with the cockroach-slaying and chopper-doctoring and now all this diving, I can see from the look on his face he's got his eye on Daniel Craig's job. Afterwards it was a long cold VB, shaken, not stirred.

Poseidon Adventure

Thursday July 12th

So we'd tried the family outing to the outer reef and it was a non-starter, especially for me as I spent more time babysitting and pacing about with a pram than I did in the water. We decided after that we'd take a day each from Port Douglas and head out alone to do our own thing and we chose to go with Poseidon on the recommendation of the hotel's owner, Jean.

Today was my turn and it was pretty overcast first thing. Once we set out from the marina the boat started swaying about like something from Captain Pugwash; a challenge even for those of us loaded up with double doses of medication.

And there I was looking and feeling like Billy No Mates and they start the briefing about snorkelling buddies and how you need to stay in pairs and as if that wasn't enough they drop the bombshell that they don't encourage snorkelling in a lifejacket because although it might save your life, it will hamper your snorkelling, so please, no lifejackets, just grab a noodle, a long flotation device, and hook it under your arms.

Then off we go to the outer reef, to Agincourt Reef to be exact, which is right on the edge of the continental shelf, promising an alarming drop-off into the depths of the South Pacific, not great if you're a bit scared of water and they're only offering a noodle, and especially not if it's choppy.

Thinking I'd better make some mates, I struck up a conversation with the people around me, mostly New Zealanders escaping the winter like us. In particular I talked to a family from Auckland, then the wife introduced her clan.

"I'm Lynn, this is my husband Tem, my son Tom and my daughter Lucy"

"Tem?"

"She means "Tim"" said Lucy, trying to mimick an English accent.

"Tim and Tom in the same house" I said. "Do you have Timtam biscuits in New Zealand?, your life must be hell"

"We stick to digestives" offered Tem. A wise choice.

Anyway, they were a nice bunch, Lucy in particular, in her first year at university on a sports scholarship because she's training to represent New Zealand in the 2012 olympics, a hockey player, you know, useful if I needed to hit anything between the eyes and swim off.

"We went out playing golf yesterday at the Sheraton Mirage" said Lucy. "We're not very good but it was a laugh, at least, until we saw the bloody crocodiles sunbathing at the ninth hole. Bloody crocodiles". She hushed up the last statement in case her mum heard her swearing, which seems to be where the Kiwis and the Aussies part company.

We arrived at Agincourt Reef in the rain. The sea was choppy to say the least but I didn't want to embarass myself by asking for a life jacket so I grabbed a noodle and climbed off the back of the boat, under some pressure from the queue of snorkellers behind me.

And then a wave broke right over my head and I swam straight back to the boat and clung to the side until everyone else was off. Then I climbed back up the ladder and waddled staight to the instructor in my yellow flippers to ask for a life jacket.

"A life jacket?" said the instructor. "Nobody has ever asked for one of those before"

"Well I don't mind being the first" I replied

"Look" He said "I'll give you a life jacket but it really defeats the object of what we're trying to do here - it's supposed to be a learning experience"

I sloped off feeling daft. I didn't want to look stupid, especially not being on my own with nobody to hang out with. I'd be like the ugly duckling, so I got back into the water and braved it and it was okay after a while. I even started to enjoy it and spotted a butterfly fish (top), giant clam (middle) and parrot fish (bottom).

I am a changed person. Bring on the cockroaches.

Down the River

Our guide down the River daintree turned out to be from Watford, though he knew his stuff about the river here and had his own opinions about crocodiles and the people charged with protecting them.

"Steve Irwin and all that, Crocodile Hunter, Crocodile Dundee, it's a load of bollocks" he offered. "You see these crocodiles here, the saltwater ones, they're cold-blooded. They need to stay warm otherwise they can't digest any food so they have to live up here in the warm parts of Australia. Now it's a struggle to stay warm, believe it or not, so they have to save energy, they can't afford to go using all their heat up chasing after their next meal, which is lucky because they don't need to eat very often in order to survive.

So they lie about on the river banks sunbathing and waiting for something to walk right past them, which means they only eat about once a week, which suits them fine. They're the laziest bastards around.

And that's why I say it's all bollocks because Steve Irwin said he was out to save wildlife and then he adds to the perception that these fellas will snap you in half soon as look at you. Now the public are scared, and that's bad for the crocodile.

This dominant male here, Fat Albert, he'll chase away any adolescent males that come up the river because it's his patch. They're much smaller, perhaps three feet long, but after Albert chases them away they've nowhere else to go so they swim into the sea and then end up washed onto the beaches in places like Port Douglas. Left to their own devices they'd stay there until they were big enough to come back and challenge him but, of course, the tourists are terrified and they alert the authorities, the people who are supposed to be in charge of protecting the crocodile.

So the authorities go down to Port Douglas and remove the croc from the beach but they don't return him to the river, they sell him to crocodile farms. So they're removing all the male crocodiles from the river and that disturbs the natural course of things, that's not wildlife conservation, it disturbs natural breeding patterns".

I see his point, it's pretty clear, though I can't say I'd be happy sunbathing next to any of Fat Albert's crew either so I'm not sure how you solve it, as with many of the ecological concerns in Australia, the damage is already done.

Anyway, this is Mount Thornton, the wettest point in Australia, constantly wet and cloaked in cloud 75-80% of the year. London gets 58cm of rain every year; the wet tropics here get about six metres of the stuff, more at the top of the mountain and most of it falls in the three months between February and April.

Crocodile Hunters

Okay, okay, we couldn't resist it. Faced with a crocodile infested river and given with the opportunity to take a pleasure cruise, well, it was just too tempting.

So we boarded the so-called river train on the north bank of the Daintree, which we approached by walking down a jetty moored at the end of somebody's garden.

The somebody was called Steve, as many Australians tend to be. He'd built a house on this plot of land, in between the vines and the palms and the towering trees, but he hadn't got round to finishing it yet because he'd been too busy doing other things so it had become a bit of a work in progress.

Now Steve's wife must be the understanding kind and she must be an aussie because the parts of the house he hasn't got around to finishing include the windows, which have no actual glass in them, just some plastic sheeting hanging in strips and blowing about in the wind.

"You must get lots of insects in there?" I asked

"Oh sure" he replied. "and snakes and bats, but you get used to it. And anyway, the snakes eat pests like mice and rats so I don't mind them fellas, they're not poisonous and they'll not bother you"

"Sounds like hard living" said Darren. I'd lost concentration because Ella was in one of those moods and was trying to escape down the jetty and straight into the crocodile swamp.

"Yeah" he went on. "We get our electricity from a generator and our water from a rain strorage tank because we can't use bore water living so close to the river here. We get plenty of rain but one year the tank got down to 10%, I guess that's the lowest we ever got. The main problem we have is when the river floods in the wet season and then the waters receed and we find the crocodiles further inland, you know, like in the garden here, looking for food".

Crikey.

Anyway, we boarded the river train and headed off down the Daintree, which was a mixed experience because Ella's mood and behaviour continued for the next hour and her main goal seemed to be throwing herself off the (open) end of the boat.

Still, we spotted some crocs - this is "Fat Albert", the dominant male in this section of the river. Can't think how he got his name but I bet it takes ages to iron his shirts.

Croc-Wise

We stopped for drinks at Mason's stores in Cape Tribulation village. It looked a bit different than we remembered it; a little shop in the Mason's home where you pointed at what you wanted and they let you swim for free in the croc-free water hole out back.

Darren got talking to the owner, Mrs Mason. He told her we'd been here eleven years ago and we thought things had changed a bit. She agreed - the old house was still out back but now they'd built this swanky new shop closer to the road and they'd opened a coffee shop and pumped up the advertising for their tours of the rainforest, which they've been doing for much longer. It was different alright, and not good different either because Mrs Mason longs for the old days with the creaky old shop and Arkwright's till. Cape Tribulation is changing, it's been discovered.

"We were thinking" said Darren to Mrs Mason, "how can you be sure the water hole is croc-free? I mean, we swam in it without stopping to think how come you can guarantee this".

"It's too cold for them" she said. "All overhung with shade, they'd never go in it"

She's probably right but Dingos and Cassowaries are enough, the grannies will be pleased to know I wouldn't risk it with Ella, especially with those chunky little legs.

Anyway, we continued back down the road towards the Daintree River until we reached the chain ferry, where we bought local bananas from a stall while we were waiting. It's not like they don't warn you about the crocodiles in northern Australia, as you can see from the photos.

Maybe Next Time

Cape Tribulation marks the beginning of the road to Cooktown, the so-called Bloomfield track, for which you need to be in a 4WD vehicle.

Cooktown is pretty much the most northerly place that tourists ever get to, unless you include people like me who'd go trekking right the way up Cape York if it weren't for the fact we have a toddler in tow. It has a population of 2000 and promises it's the closest town to the barrier reef, a claim Port Douglas has been making for years. There are coral reefs here so remote they haven't even been named so if you want to make your mark on the globe, you might think about starting here.

Anyway, we're not in a 4WD, we're in a hire car and it's a Nissan Tiida so we're saving the Bloomfield track for next time. This area of the world gets right under your skin and once you've visited, you just know you'll be back again and again.

Paradise Found

An hour and a half driving time from Port Douglas we reach Cape Tribulation, so called because Captain Cook got into all sorts of difficulty with the rocks here - if only he'd had GPS this place might have been called Cape Coconut or Cape Beauty or Cape Crikey What's That Bloody Great Scary Bird Looking At Us.

Then perhaps it might have been one of the only places in the world to have a question mark in the title.

Anyway, here's Myall Beach, around the headland from the busier Cape Tribulation beach itself. We enjoyed this for an hour or so before disappearing into the trees and the mangrove boardwalks directly behind it armed with sausages and bread rolls and a bottle of squirty tomato ketchup from Coles. The barbeque instinct is one of the first we have succumbed to, that and the turning up of our sentences.

Rainforest Residents - III

The Cassowary - another way to get yourself killed in Far North Queensland.

There are only about 1200 of them left in the wild but you can see their cousins in any Australian zoo, pacing the floor menacingly.

The thing on his head isn't a crop of feathers, it's a hard thing a bit like a rhino horn - this is a prehistoric bird and it looks like one. If he feels threatened he'll jump up and kick you with his powerful feet and well, you'll be in trouble.

Rod Hull and Emu, it ain't.

Rainforest Residents - II

....or another way to get yourself killed in Far North Queensland - the Box Jellyfish, keeping people out of the water between roughly November and May.

Once again, on behalf of the tourist board, visit this part of the world in the winter.

Rainforest Residents - I

We stopped at a beach cafe to use the loo and there were a whole family of these hanging menacingly over the wash basins when I emerged from the cubicle.

I composed myself enough to take the photo but did I wash my hands?

Rainforest Meets the Reef

I could bore you for ages with facts about the Daintree section of the Australian rainforest but it's somehow not as photogenic as the turquoise of the ocean so I'll stick with the main points again.

Right, well it's the oldest continually surviving rainforest in the world and it's more than 100 million years old, which means it's like stepping back into the past and looking at what the earth might have looked like at the time. Dinosaurs used to live here - ecologists and botanists and other beardy-type people love it.

The rainforest covered much more of Australia than just this Daintree section but then the climate changed and much of it receeded to the parts of the continent that were warmer and more humid, which explains why you won't find trees like this in Sydney.

Have I mentioned that Sydney is bloody cold in the winter?

It's been on the world-heritage protection list since 1988, along with it's neighbour the great barrier reef, which means both are national parks and both have strict rules about what you can and can't do, things like you can't take anything away and you're not supposed to destroy anything. This doesn't extend to the chocolate pudding fruit, which you are welcome to take away if you can smuggle it past customs at Sydney airport without them thinking you've got a fruity-shaped bomb in your suitcase.

You can drive through the Daintree on a sealed road as far as Cape Tribulation but then it's dirt track all the way to Cooktown. Beyond that I don't know. Perhaps it's donkey or nothing.

Anyway, the forest is so dense that it's a bugger to photograph and you can't just wander into it either. These are a couple of shots I took while we were driving through but they don't really do justice to the heights and depths and the sight of all those ferns and palms when the sun sneaks through the canopies. They've built the occasional boardwalk and a visitor's centre so you can get closer, but I'm boycotting on account of it reminding me of something you'd find in Delamere Forest, and seeing as I'm in Australia then no, I don't want a Magnum and a Diet Coke while I'm admiring the view, but thanks.

Is a rainforest the same as a jungle? We've been debating this and Darren thinks it is but I think a jungle has monkeys in it, you know, like in Jungle Book. He looks at me like he thinks I'm an idiot. I know I'm not likely to run into a singing bear but I genuinely don't know what the difference is.

Ooh-hoo, I wanna be like you-hoo......

The Daintree

Wednesday 11th July

"Right, so we'll have a few days mooching about Port Douglas then"

"Yeah, I suppose so"

"I mean, it would be nice to drive up into the rainforest but not with Ella, and anyway, we've been there before"

"Yup"

"And there's a playground at the end of the road and the beach right next to it, and there's a little steam train down by the marina"

"Yup"





"Oh sod it, you only live once, let's go"

1. The view from Alexandra Lookout, looking towards the Coral Sea.
2. Crossing the river Daintree on the chain ferry - mangroves and rainforest

Chocolate Pudding Fruit

Tuesday 10th July

So you thought I was joking when I told you they have a custard apple fruit that tastes of Ambrosia in a pot.

And now I'm pleased, no, I'm ecstatic to introduce you to the so-called chocolate pudding fruit, or the Black Sapote to use it's proper name.

I saw the chocolate pudding fruit on a programme on the ABC channel a few months ago. ABC is the Australian equivalent of the BBC, which is handy because they seem to buy most of their programmes from them on account of being unable to come up with ideas of their own.

Anyway, it was an actual Australian programme about tropical fruit that you might like to grow in your garden and we sat laughing at it and wondering which of these tropical delights we might feasibly cultivate on the windowledge of Ella's bedroom back in Warrington, you know, seeing as it gets the sun in the morning.

And then the bloke comes up with this little beauty and he bites into it and says "mmm - just like a chocolate pudding". And because I've tasted several custard apples I know there's a good chance he's not joking so then I spend the next four months trawling the greengrocers and specialist organic shops of Sydney in search of this delicacy, but hardly anybody has heard of it, even when I call it by it's proper name.

And we go to Queensland and no, I can't get it in Brisbane either.

But now we're in the tropics and yes, you can buy the black sapote in the specialist fruit shop behind Coles supermarket in Port Douglas, so here it is.

The only fly in the ointment here is that my beautiful fruit isn't ripe yet. It's hard as nails and as it's illegal to transport fruit across the border into New South Wales, we face an agonising few days waiting to see whether we'll be eating it, chucking it, or, heaven forbid, attempting to smuggle it back to Sydney.

Ripen, dammit, ripen.

Four Mile Beach

Four Mile Beach, Port Douglas.

I'd have measured it to make sure but I was too busy thinking about designs for a communication passport.

Tropical

And this is our holiday flat at Port Douglas. I took a photo because Darren's memory has become addled through drinking too much VB (Victoria Bitter) and he can no longer separate Port Douglas from Fraser Island from the beach cabin at Murramarang.

This is a worrying development because it puts me in mind of communication books or communication passports, the sort of things speech therapists make to enable their patients to tell people about themselves, you know, like "this is the house where I live" and "this is my goldfish". I shall be watching his intake of VB over the next six months very carefully because, what with all this blogging, I've hardly time to set about making a sodding communication passport as well.

Anyway, the flat was lovely, though it was kitted out with cane furniture to make us feel, well, tropical. Cane furniture is never comfortable after a hard day's trekking through the rainforest and anyway, the cluster of enormous green tropical ants on the balcony did the trick just as well.

Rex Lookout

Continuing north along the Captain Cook highway we reached Rex Lookout. You can go hang-gliding off the cliff here, if you're feeling up to it after the journey along the winding road.

Palm Cove

Like Sydney, Cairns lays claim to a series of so-called northern beaches. If you're swanky and loaded up with cash then you can probably afford to stay here at Palm Cove.

Last time we came we were backpacking and we stayed at Yorkey's Knob further south, which tells you everything you need to know about the state of our finances at the time. I mean, it was okay, but what we saved in accommodation costs we probably shelled out in tropical-strength insect repellent to ward off the sand flies and the blowies (blow flies), both of which are partial to nibbling on pale European legs.

I suspect they have mosquito nets at Palm Cove.

We still probably can't afford to stay here but we can afford to have lunch and the flies aren't interested in us since we developed a good bit of aussie immunity. It was a bit windy down on the beach, but Ella had a great time.

The Cane Train

Monday 9th July

It's goodbye Cairns today as we head north up the Captain Cook Highway to Port Douglas, an hours drive on a road clinging to the edges of the Coral Sea. As holiday routes go, it knocks the Cornish section of the A30 into a cocked hat.

As I've mentioned before, they grow sugar cane up here in Far North Queensland. Both times we've been here it's been mid July, the height of the cane-crushing season, which is when they cut it all down and load it into cages on little narrow-gauge railways.

Then the cane trains wind their way across the fields and across the main roads at little unmanned crossings to sugar mills like the one at Mossman (open for visitors but alas, not visitors with children under five years old), where they boil it up and make all sorts of things out of it, no doubt including Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate, which seems a lot of effort to go to for something so plainly wrong.

They even have public information films on telly at this time of year warning people to watch out for the cane trains, which are all named after famous prostitutes who serviced the needs of the men who worked the cane industry in nearby Mossman back in the days of old.

Here's some photos I took as we drove up to Port Douglas today. This is Ivy, which puts me in mind of Ivy Tildesley from Coronation Street and the late great Lynne Perrie and conjures up all sorts of horrible images about the era of prostitution in this far colonial outpost that I really wish it hadn't.

Sunset

Right then, who's for Malibu?