The Rainforest in Queensland

Life under the rainforest canopy is in an endless battle to reach the sun above.  Plants are not only  siphoning life from other plants, but also snagging unsuspecting humans (like me).

The Skyway Rainforest Cableway, almost five miles long, goes from Cairns through the rainforest to Kuranda, with stops along the way.  I leave the gondola for a stroll in the forest canopy on a walkway in the tree tops, high above the ground.  Dense greenery and rainforest sounds engulf me: a waterfall, a whippoorwill, rustling leaves, insect hums.  Tropical rainforests have as much as fifty percent of all the world’s known plants and animals, even though they form less than two per cent of the earth’s surface. 

The dampness is oppressive.  Parts of the walkway have dappled sunlight, others are immersed in shadow. Below is the dim forest floor where everything reaches up in a battle for light.  Above—the heavy greenery of the victors of those light wars.  And where I stand many feet above ground—trunks, branches, vines, and leaves, all struggling to get to light.

There’s a strangler fig wrapping itself around other trees.  It injects something to make the host tree rot faster, and then feeds on the decaying host.   

Below me and near by are giant fiddlehead ferns (you can see a few in the photo above), dwarfing the spring delicacies of New England.  There’s the large ball of a termite nest siphoning life from a tree branch.  When the branch is hollow, it might become a bird home, or fall to the ground to become part of the next life cycle…or maybe become a didgeridoo (more on didgeridoos later).

Nearby there’s a whole screen of vines similar to the strangler.  This ‘curtain fig’ takes over trees, sending out aerial roots that stream downward forming a curtain in search of life (sounds like the makings of a horror movie).   Every single thing here has developed some unique survival aide.

As I head back to the gondola, one of nature’s unique survival aides catches my shirt.  Literally.  A vine with aggressive hooks has latched on to the back of my shirt.  I am stuck.  I can either tear my shirt or hope someone will disengage me. As I dangle, weighing my options, I think how much I love these unique survival aides.

As a guide unhooks my hapless t-shirt, he explains, ‘This is called a ‘Wait-a-While’ plant.  It's a creeping plant with barbs that latch on to other plants or innocent tourists. If you get hooked, you’re going to wait a while to get free.”  Ha ha.  This plant is also called the Lawyer Vine (that doesn’t seem very nice, does it?).

Finally free, I return to the cable car and continue to Kuranda.

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A Little Careless in the Great Barrier Reef

Forget the glass bottom boat.

I start cautiously near the pontoon steps (my 'security point'), gradually going a short distance with my face in the water, exploring the reef, marveling at the sea life around me.  I return to the pontoon and set out again... eventually reaching the rope.  I see snorkelers on the other side, scuba divers below me.  We wave at each other.  From the rope, I turn back to the pontoon and start over, staking out a new area.

With my eyes downward, I lose track of my surroundings.  Suddenly I’m in a frighteningly narrow gap between two sections of sharp, bright coral.  I avoid hitting the delicate structures and return to the pontoon.  Then I swim out again. 

Once more, I focus on sea life and forget safety.  Abruptly I become aware of the sharp coral inches below me.  I scrape my knee as I redirect to more open water.  Back to the pontoon and then back out--and this time, I swim under the 'security'.  I note where the other snorkelers are and turn back to the depths.  I think I hear  the whistle for lunch.  I don’t care.

Now my security point has become the rope instead of the pontoon, and I return to it less often.  My excursions get longer, and I look around the surface less.  I’m peering into the ocean, taking in the dazzling display of coral, fish, and plants. I know it sounds trite, but I'm amazed. 

Finally I lift my head.  The pontoon is a large but distant shape and the sounds of other people are barely audible.  I spin around in the water looking for other swimmers.  No  one.    

I am alone. 

I remember there are sharks in these waters and hope they don’t remember me, as I turn toward the rope that cordons off the 'safe zone'.

Back to the rope, as fast as I can swim, under the rope, to the pontoon.  I realize I'm panting a little, and I know it isn't exertion as much as it was a little bit of panic--now receding.  One of the staff says something about a little fish.  It takes a moment to realize he’s talking about me. 

Seconds later the whistle indicates time to re-board. This little fish reluctantly climbs aboard the pontoon.  I realize just how tired I am.  I wonder,  for a second, if I was lucky to come back when I did.  Would they have noticed a missing tourist?*  The staff does a head count and announces that anyone who has scrapes from the coral should come to the first aid station; they issue dire warnings about bacteria that thrive in tropical waters.  I go.  My head is swimming (ok, bad pun) with what I’ve seen.  Jacques Cousteau ain’t got nuthin’ on me.

Even if you never look at any other links that I post, I  urge you to look at this short video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8RlGbpuhgc  from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)  This is a truly amazing piece of underwater film.  Less than five minutes long, it will give you an idea of the sights that enthralled me.

*Since my first snorkeling adventure, I’ve heard about movies and stories of snorkelers and divers left behind on the reef, some true, some not.  Since I was pretty much hypnotized by what I was seeing, I can understand now how easy it is to get a little careless. Only on hearing those stories did I realize how dangerous my carelessness was.  Well, I said I was a wanna-be adventurer.

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Next:  The Rainforest

Snorkeling in The Great Barrier Reef

Think of the Great Barrier Reef reef as a single, very old, living thing.  The outer reef is as long as the distance from Maine to Miami.  It’s an 18,000-year old, twelve-hundred mile organism, where fifteen hundred species of fish have made their home.  And I’m going snorkeling (for the first time in my life) there. 

I said at the start of my blog I have always been a wanna-be adventurer.  It’s one thing to spend days sunning by the ocean.  It’s another to put on a snorkel mask and swim in forty feet of ocean.

So as I board the boat to Agincourt Reef, I am thinking,  “I have to try…”

I’m listening to ‘snorkeling for beginners’, but I’m thinking,  “I’ll put the gear on, put my face in the water for a second, and then just get out and go find the glass-bottom boat.”  That’s my plan.  

We arrive at an elaborate pontoon, one with lockers, changing rooms, dining facilities, a bar, and a roped off area of water for snorkelers who want a boundary to enhance their feeling of safety.  It's not a restriction--just a sort of 'guide'.    Except for the part where I’m going to be in the water, this all looks fine.

So I begin to enact my plan.  I don the mask and snorkel, breathe (yup, that works), creep down the steps into the water, put on my fins.  I’m just going to put my face in the water, look, and then get out.  That’s all.  Just put my face in the water, look , and then get….

I put my face in the water, look, and am hypnotized.   I stare in wonder—multihued coral shapes and towers, sea life of every size and color, schools of tiny silver fish moving in perfect choreographed unison, feathery plants, an octopus, sea horse, groups of iridescent blue fish, zebra fish—it’s just amazing.

Here’s something I learn right away.  You can’t talk with a snorkel in your mouth.  Not even to say, ‘It’s just amazing!”

Agincourt Reef, taken with a disposable (!) camera

Nothing, not all the Jacques Cousteau specials, not the aquarium, not the beaches of my summers, nothing, could have prepared me for all the life, activity, colors, and shapes that I see under the water’s surface.  I immediately take all the pictures in my disposable underwater camera, rush back onto the pontoon to stow it, and return to the water so I can just swim and gawk.

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Next:  a little careless

Tim Tam Slam, Going East

(I apologize for the gap between posts.  This New England winter has robbed me of time, energy, time, ...did I mention time?  Onward...!)

There is so much more to Australian food than pink lunch meat and witchetty grubs.  Good restaurants, a variety of ethnic dining options (especially in the city) and varied, flavorful cooking abound.   And Tim Tams.

On returning from my visit with the Walpiri, I stop at the market looking for a treat after my Outback grub (pun intended).

Tim Tams catch my eye. Tim Tams are two chocolate cookies with a chocolate cream filling, coated with a layer of chocolate.   Yes!   (Sorry, I was getting kind of into the chocolate thing there, and anyone who knows me would have expected as much.)

Tim Tams have a unique quality not found in any other sandwich cookie (really).  Tim Tams can be used as straws.  There's even a name for this: Tim Tam Slam.

How to do the Tim Tam Slam

Bite off the two diagonal corners; put one bitten end into a beverage;  put the other bitten end into your mouth. Hot beverages lead to a melting warm and luscious disintegration that you have to pop into your mouth wicked fast.  Cold beverages make it possible for you to bite the soaked Tim Tam more neatly. 

It may seem odd that I would devote this much space to Tim Tams.  Bear in mind I had recently eaten a witchetty grub.  Also …a quick Youtube search reveals dozens  (really) of Tim Tam Slam videos.  It ain’t just me.     To watch a family Tim Tam Slam, go to   http://tinyurl.com/SlamTimTam  

With my chocolate needs sated, I head east. Going from Alice Springs to the northeast coast is like flying from the Mojave Desert to Florida in summer.   The Cairns hotel lobby is open to the warm, sea breezes, and I can hear the crashing waves on the beach not far away.

As I'm checking in, I say, “Maybe I’ll walk the beach before I go to sleep.”

“Only if you want to get eaten alive by mozzies,’ replies the woman at the desk. 

I just stand there, looking blankly at her as if she'd spoken a foreign language (which she sort of had).  

“Mosquitoes,” she clarifies. “They’ll eat you alive on the beach at night.”

Much as I love bugs of all sorts,  I decide to skip the beach walk and go straight to my room instead.

                                                    Outside my room in Port Douglas

I cross a footbridge over a pond filled with water lilies. A lazy fan circulates the air, crickets serenade outside, the surf echoes in the distance, and I get ready for my next big adventure—the Great Barrier Reef, where tomorrow I’m going snorkeling (for the first time in my life). 

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Next:  The Great Barrier Reef