Saturday was another travel day. After a relaxing morning and lunch in Queenstown, we had an easy flight to Sydney, a short layover and then another flight up to Cairns; that is, TS1 and I went from the very south of New Zealand to the far north of Australia, crossing three timezones along the way. We had a friendly, loquacious driver for the ride out to Palms Cove Resort, about 25 km west of central Cairns, where our fantastic accommodations are courtesy of my parent’s time share. This is a huge apartment, three bedrooms and two baths, full kitchen, living room and laundry, Too bad we only have three days to enjoy it, and two of them we’re out for full day trips.
Yesterday we went to Kuranda, a hippy village turned tourist attraction way up at the top of a nearby mountain in a rain forest. The trip up was on the Kuranda Scenic Railway, a refurbished real train that climbs through absolutely beautiful scenery, and our travel agent put us on the gold coach, equivalent to first class with free-flowing alcohol or soft drinks, tasty pastry snacks and comfortable individual chairs rather than the bolted-down benches in the other cars.
At the top we had passes for Birdworld, a lovely assortment of tropical birds, and some time to browse the markets. Karoline, our hostess from the local tour company, was wonderful in arranging on the fly a substitute for the second half of the day after I found out that to get to Tjapukai Cultural Park required 45 minutes travel on a gondola. With my deathly fear of open heights that was just not happening, so she switched us to a visit to RainForeStation Nature Park, including getting us a bus ride over, and then back down on the train instead of what would have been another gondola ride.
Which turned out great. We had three activities, a ride through the rain forest on an old Army Duck, a show by Pamagirri Aboriginal Dancers and demonstration by one of the dancers of djidgeroo playing, spear throwing and boomerang throwing, plus TS1 got her picture taken holding a baby koala.
The rain forest ride was my favorite. We had a funny Aussie guide named Matt, who pointed out the amazing variety of flora, showed us some huge termite nests and lovely butterflies and gave us an extended, rare view of a gorgeous wild Cassowary. The latter is a leftover species of flightless bird dating back about 150 million years, picture a cross between a large turkey and a peacock (without the colorful tail); they’re loners, coming together only to mate, quite dangerous if disturbed and endangered due to human encroachment on their native territory. The ducks are six wheeled amphibious open-topped jeep-like vehicles built during World War II and still quite functional; we drove right into a small lake without a drop getting inside.
The four men and two musicians performed about half a dozen aboriginal dances, finishing by calling six people on stage from the audience to learn one of them. Enjoyable but not too exciting. The we were split into smallish groups, with each performer taking one group around the demo spaces and we were fortunate to have what I thought was the best one, Aaron. He explained how a djidgeroo is made (most commonly by inserting a bunch of termite in the center of a small log for three months, then turning the wood over and putting another batch at the opposite end, after which the instrument is used in one ceremony and then is broken and trashed.
Aaron demo’ed how his people throw bamboo spears for hunting and fighting. The trick is not only the throwing motion and choosing the proper bamboo but in a second wooden piece that hooks at the back end of the spear and triples the potential distance as well as substantially increasing accuracy. Plus the hard piece of wood is helpful in delivering the killing blow to a downed animal or opponent, eh? Last he showed us proper boomerang motion and I even got to try a couple of tosses.
All told, ten hours door to door after a very early start. We were pleasantly exhausted, barely able to drag ourselves the better part of a kilometer back to the main building for dinner. Today is a lazy day, maybe a little swimming and a bus ride to central Cairnes in the afternoon. Tomorrow is the centerpiece of our whole vacation, a boat trip out to Michaelmas Cay in the Great Barrier Reef and I’m very excited about going!
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