Goodbye Australia

Well I certainly made the most of my last three weeks in Australia. Our time has been so filled up with new and exciting things that it came as an unpleasant shock to both Chris and I when my departure finally came around. I’ve become so used to my life in Australia that it will be strange to go back to an old one… although I suspect things will no longer be quite the same again.

I was more than ready to leave Brisbane after a month of relative idleness. We flew to Cairns in mid August, to warmer temperatures and the laidback feel of a small and tourist-oriented town. My favourite things here were the lovely lagoon by the waterfront and a brilliant pizza restaurant we kept going back to. Chris and I picked up a small white and orange backpacker van from a rental agency and after a few days in Cairns set off on a roadtrip, something I was anxious to do again after the fun we’d had driving around Tasmania. By Australian standards we covered a very small distance- a mere pen stroke across the map of Queensland- but we were inundated with things to do with only a week and a half of time.

First of all we set off south to head to the Whitsunday Islands for a bit of white beach and blue sea. I was happily surprised to find that the Bruce Highway out of Cairns was a wonderful drive; for several days we watched mountains, palm trees and lush green plains; trains transporting sugar cane rolling past and hawks and kites swooping overhead. I had already forgotten what driving in Australia is like; which is to say, nothing like the grim and impersonal motorways that connect everywhere in the UK. Here, the major routes across the country have only one lane so you can sit back and watch the scenery instead of focusing on the right moment to change lanes (perhaps this lack of practise is why drivers on inner-city freeways pick whichever lane they fancy regardless of speed). In any case, in our little hippy van we could feel the wind shake the sides when we got much over eighty, and the oncoming trucks passing by at regular intervals produced a spectacular boom of air which reminded us of the need to take a leisurely pace and add an extra half an hour to any expected arrival times. After a few nights in Townsville, the largest city of Tropical North Queensland, we arrived at Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsundays and a town with a similar tourist-oriented party-town feel to Cairns.

Before we left Cairns we’d booked a day out on a high-speed raft to see some of the highlights of the Whitsundays and unfortunately for us, it happened to fall on the first day of bad weather since we’d arrived up north. This meant that we found ourselves lunching on fresh fruit and salad on Whitehaven Beach, a 98% silica beach rated in the top ten in the world, and suddenly being forced back on the boat by rain as the grey clouds overhead broke upon us. The tour itself was great and the lively Aussie and South African crew did everything short of change the weather to make the day as fun as possible; we still enjoyed a snorkel amongst the beautifully colourful and varied soft coral (I even got sunburn!) and riding across the waves on an open craft with a fast motor was pretty thrilling (‘for some reason, the bigger the waves, the faster I feel the need to go’, the skipper said a little eerily). Even so, we couldn't help feeling that a blue sky would have made the views much more wonderful and, on waking up to a radiant day the next morning, impulsively decided to book another day trip with a different agency to see practically the same places all over again. The lad at the tour booking agency said he’d never seen anyone do it in the two years he’d worked there. Personally, I reckon it’s the advantage of being a cheap-skate; if we’d booked a really expensive tour to begin with there’s no way we could've justified spending more money just because of disappointing weather. But ultimately it was a great idea, because Whitehaven Beach turned out to be a totally different place when the sun was shining. The boat ride was considerably less wild than that of the previous day, but when we were released for our two hours of play on the pure white sands Chris and I were like a pair of dogs let off the leash: running, splashing and kicking a ball around just feeling exhilarated to be at such a beautiful place.

Looking out over Whitehaven Beach before the rain

And the glorious second day

The next day we said goodbye to Airlie Beach to begin our drive back north to explore some of the regions closer to Cairns. Our plans to get further than Townsville were scuppered when Chris noticed a small chip on the windscreen that must have been caused by one of the many trucks roaring past and throwing a shower of small rocks around us. It got worse when a call to the rental company revealed that we were liable for any damage to the windscreen, despite the fact we’d been persuaded to shell out more to reduce our liability to the minimum. Who actually reads the small print properly? Anyway, after I’d discovered that throwing a paddy by the side of the road doesn’t actually solve anything, Chris managed to find a bloke in Townsville who’d sort it out for dirt cheap, and all we had to do was spend another night in an inner-city caravan park, which is fine but not exactly what you have in mind when you plan your self-drive outdoors adventure.

We finally got ourselves out of Townsville and this time turned off at Innisfail, the next town south of Cairns, to take the inland route towards the Atherton Tablelands, the food-producing hinterland for the region. Here we encountered a whole new landscape- tropical trees and banana plantations were replaced by rolling green hills and cattle. The area is known for its waterfalls and we pitched up at a campsite right next to one of them, on a huge site with its own mini menagerie of two baby goats, a gang of chucks and a pig. We liked it there! We spent our day in the Tablelands visiting a local village, experiencing the spectacular sight of a curtain fig tree, and a spot of morning tea at the Nerada tea plantations, one of the few teas that is grown and processed in Australia. We’d come out here on a local tip-off that we may be able to spot tree kangaroos from the site, and we did almost immediately. I hadn’t been fussed about going to this tea plantation despite- or because of- the fact that I am a massive tea lover. This is because Australian teas tend to be pathetically weak and tasteless. Honestly, these Aussies have so much British heritage but they just can’t do fish and chips right and have no palate for a good brew. Nonetheless, the heady scents when we arrived- which smelt like more cups of tea than Mrs Doyle could dream of- did excite my senses and in the café I even cautiously ordered a cream tea with a pot of their extra extra extra extra extra strong blend. And all my scepticism was pulled from underneath me because the tea was very strong and the scones were fresh and served with cream that didn’t come from an aerosol can! I had to relinquish all my snobbery.

In the afternoon we drove out of our way to reach the village of Herberton, which I had specifically requested to see because it is home to a historic Australian model village. As we drove in I wondered if the rest of the town had been required by the tourist office to stick to consistently retro signage to keep the main street looking as though it was the 1950s- it was a delightful place. And the historic village itself was fascinating. The huge collection of artefacts had been compiled by one local enthusiast, Harry Skennar, who had once been ridiculed for his passion for collecting ‘junk’ but is now recognised to have preserved a wonderful collection of objects that tell the story of Herberton and the surrounding region from the pioneer era. We had the place to ourselves and stayed until closing time, wandering around the blacksmith’s, the chemist, the butcher’s, the mechanic’s, the bookshop, the miner’s cottage and much more as the sun cast a warm glow on the wood of the buildings. By the time we left we didn’t have much daylight left to travel as far as we’d hoped that night, and as travelling after dark is risky business in Australia due to the abundance of wildlife that comes out, we had to find a back-up option of where to park up the van for the night. You know you’re in Australia when you can drive for two hours without going through a settlement bigger than a hamlet; and Mount Molloy was such a place, conveniently placed between the towns of Mareeba and Mossman and an ideal spot for the roads authority to set up a free campsite for weary travellers. We were tipped off about the site by a local and were impressed when we rolled up to find a site full of all types of campervans, cars and tents parked up, and campfires lighting up the dark. I was excited to have the chance to do some ‘proper’ camping. We could really see the stars out there, and it was lovely to get the camping chairs out and sit under the night sky, eating orange segments because we’d already finished off all our beers and pretending our neighbours' campfire was ours (we were just sat quite far away). Watching the stars was for me one of the real pleasures of our camping trip, and something I think I will always look back on fondly as a highlight of travelling in Australia.

Happy goats in the Tablelands

The magnificent curtain fig tree outside Yungaburra

Herberton

Some snaps from the historic village

We set off from Mount Molloy enthused about the day ahead of us as we were headed to the Daintree Rainforest, an area I have long been keen to see as a national park where tropical rainforest meets white sandy beaches via swampy mangroves. As you can imagine, this area is also a favourite haunt of the salties, and the first thing we did on arriving was to take a crocodile-spotting river cruise up the Daintree River. We got to see lots of crocs ranging from six months old to teenage years, but unfortunately didn’t catch sight of Scarface, the local big fella. Back on dry land, we took the van on a river crossing to get to Cape Tribulation, where we spend the day driving up and down through the national park alternating between board walks through the rainforest, playing on the beaches and admiring both landscapes at once from lookout points. We ended our wonderful day at a great campsite in Daintree Village, drinking bottles of Little Creatures beside the river.

We didn't need to be told twice

...As promised

Further Aussie dangers

Being big kids at Cow Beach

This busy day was followed by another equally busy one; another pre-arranged tour we had organised in Cairns was a day out on the Great Barrier Reef snorkelling and trying our first scuba dive. The tour left from the chic town of Port Douglas and took us to the Agincourt Ribbon Reef, an area of the reef as of yet still unspoilt. We’d booked the tour without much research, on the assurance that this was one of the best parts of the reef, but I hadn’t realised that the coral here was hard, not soft, and therefore much less colourful than the stuff we’d seen in the Whitsundays. Nevertheless, there was a great variety of life down there and we saw loads of colourful fish. Chris and I were both nervous about the scuba dive, but were lucky enough to have an instructor to ourselves who had a lot of experience and put us both at ease brilliantly. The prospect of the dive was vastly more nerve-wracking than the dive itself, and once we got used to the breathing apparatus it was easy to descend deeper and deeper without much noticing. Looking back up to the shimmering surface, with schools of fish and the occasional snorkeler swimming above you was a sight like no other. We even saw a white-tipped reef shark, which I spotted myself, and followed it along for a while. And that is really not how I would've expected to respond to being five metres underwater with a shark in near proximity.

After all the travel and activity of the week we took it super easy on our last full day in Queensland, relaxing and swimming at beautiful Mossman Gorge, which looks green from the overhanging trees, but in fact the water is as clear as drinking water. The next morning we said goodbye to our trusty camper Jim who had been our home and travel companion for two weeks, and boarded a flight to Darwin, Australia’s only tropical capital and home to a culture influenced by its high Aboriginal population and its proximity to Asia. As we had been so preoccupied in Queensland we had neglected to make any plans whatsoever for our week in Darwin and found ourselves in arrivals without a place to stay that night. Under the circumstances, we landed right on our feet when we found an Airbnb listing staying with a lovely woman called Robyn, who said she’d have the room ready for us in an hour. The airport shuttle miraculously dropped us right outside a trendy cafe specialising in ‘sourdough, coffee and sweets’ (how did they know?!) where we enjoyed brunch, fresh juices and a chat with the friendly waitress sat outside in the hot Northern Territory sunshine. We then made our way to Robyn’s, a beautiful apartment complete with dark wood furnishings, Aboriginal artwork and wonderful sunset views over the beach from her balcony. We couldn’t believe our luck, and basked in the luxury of staying in a real home after two weeks sleeping in the back of a van filled with sand.

Leisurely beach breakfast at Port Douglas

Mossman Gorge

We didn’t do much during our three days in Darwin; Chris did a little work, I ran some errands and we were generally slowed down by the pressing need to stop for an ice-cold drink every hour or so of walking in thirty-degree heat, which must have contributed to at least half of our total expenditure in Darwin. After three nights at Robyn’s we picked up a hire car and drove to the out-of-town shopping centre to pick up a cheap tent from K-Mart and fill up on snack-food groceries. Then we set off for Kakadu. Kakadu is one of the most well-known national parks in the Northern Territory, and is world heritage listed due to both its spectacular natural environment and its rich cultural history as the home of numerous Aboriginal clans for up to twenty thousand years. Today the park is jointly managed by Parks Australia and the Aboriginal custodians of the land, and it appears to be managed really successfully and culturally sensitively. Our first night was spent at a campsite by the Mary River just outside the park’s border, where we awoke to the view of bounding kangaroos from our tent. The majority of that day was spent travelling the full length of the park on the recommendation of seeing Gunlom, a waterfall and swimming hole near the park’s southern border. The final part of the drive comprised of thirty kilometres down a bumpy dirt road, which took a good hour and a half in a Toyota Yarris. Eventually we were so fed up that I was imploring the road to come to an end, and we declared that this place would have to be the best thing we’d ever seen or there’d be trouble. First sights did not look promising, as I uneasily pointed out an almost dry waterfall that appeared to be what we’d driven all that way for. Well, the waterfall did turn out to be a modest trickle, but the still green pool underneath towering rock was a beautiful sight, and it only got better after we scrambled up the rocky climb to the top. Here there were a series of natural pools, the last one an infinity pool looking out over a huge swath of land below the waterfall. The incredible views, and the immense satisfaction of climbing into the water after a very hot and sweaty climb left us with no doubts that it was all more than worth it. We stayed up there for hours with the small number of other people who had made the long journey, and watched a fiery sunset over the park from the rocks above the pools.

Sunset at Mindil Beach, Darwin

The brilliant colours of Kakadu National Park

Colossal termite hills

Gunlom from below...

...And from above!

Our reward for doing so much driving in one day was that the following day we were well placed to make our way back up the length of the park enjoying all the attractions we’d passed by before. These included a beautiful wetland area called Yellow Water, the informative Aboriginal cultural centre and rock art sites preserving up to a thousand years of Aboriginal culture. That night we enjoyed another wonderful sunset from Ubirr, a rocky escarpment that affords 360 degree views of the park and out towards neighbouring Arnhem Land. Finally, we were lucky that our last day coincided with a cultural festival at Jabiru, the park’s small town. There was a lovely atmosphere at the small lakeside festival and it was a great way to tolerate the forty-degree heat of the afternoon. Here we chatted to a park ranger about crocodiles, watched basket-weaving and spear-making demonstrations and tasted some freshly killed and barbequed magpie goose. However, in the late afternoon I started to feel upset at the realisation that it was my last day with Chris, and we decided to say goodbye to wonderful Kakadu and begin the three-hour drive back to Darwin. We spent our last evening together drinking cocktails and eating pho at a popular Southeast Asian restaurant and watching one last sunset over Mindill Beach. Chris dropped me off at the airport at midnight and we said our sad goodbyes. Then I boarded an overnight flight that took me to Sydney.

Rock art depicting the evil Lightning Man spirit

Sunset at Ubirr

Sculptures erected for the Mahbilil festival at Jabiru

My day in Sydney was nothing more than a precaution to ensure I didn’t miss my flight out of Australia (not that I would’ve minded much) and I wasn’t all that happy to be there. Although it has a beautiful harbour, I’ve never developed much affection for Sydney- being a Melbournian through and through- and I felt particularly sorry for myself spending my last day in Australia by myself somewhere I didn’t want to be. But I kept myself busy with a trip over to Bondi Beach, which is essentially like a more famous version of Scarborough in East Yorkshire, from where I did the nice coastal walk over to Coogee Beach. In the afternoon I wandered pretty aimlessly around the city and in the evening joined in a free walking tour of the Rocks area, historically significant as the site where European colonists first settled and from where the town of Sydney emerged. Afterwards, I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to see a firework display over the Opera House; it was quite a send-off for my last night in Oz. In the morning I had time to go for one last flat white at the popular coffee shop next to my hostel, where I read the papers and watched Pott Point's well-dressed residents walk their designer dogs up and down and pop in to pick up their morning strong skinny capps. Finally I took a walk through the beautiful botanical gardens to Australia's most photographed lookout point at Mrs Macquarie's Chair, where I saw the harbour under a blue sky possibly for the first time ever. Although I didn't want to leave the country that had become home to me, I was in a happy state of mind on the shuttle bus to the airport, enjoying the sunny weather, the breeze through the window and the funny driver cracking jokes and shouting abuse at taxis. On the flight I was seated in the middle row, so I couldn't look out the window to say goodbye.

Now I'm in Hong Kong, where I have a week's stopover before heading home. I miss Australia already but being forced apart from it has at least made me excited to go home. The past seven months has been the most full and exciting period of my life and I'm afraid I've set the bar very high now! I hope that going back home and returning to Liverpool Uni won't feel like going back to an old lifestyle; instead I want to take everything I've learnt from my time in Australia and use it to make sure I live life to the fullest and always make the most of the present moment. I will always treasure the fantastic memories from my exchange and my travels; the only thing I'm afraid of now is resigning it all to the past.

Outdoor adventures and confronting exhibitions

In the past week I've begun to enjoy being in Brisbane more; I feel more relaxed into the pace of things, while simultaneously making efforts to keep myself busy with fun and interesting activities. Our plans to travel north to Cairns and later to Darwin are coming together nicely, which is making me excited and lifting my spirits. It looks as though we have one more week in Brisbane before setting off for our next adventure, and it feels like just enough time to see everything I'd like to see.

Chris and I had a lovely weekend last week; we started our Saturday with a visit to a French bakery for coffee and fresh sandwiches, and then gleefully discovered the New Farm Confectionery chocolate shop over the road. In the afternoon we hired some kayaks with our friend Leo and spent a lovely hour and a half firstly cruising downstream and enjoying the fabulous waterfront city views, and then working hard to get back to base against the current, which took three times as long as the downward journey! On Sunday we took a bus to the D'Aguilar Range National Park, which is not far out of the city but is an incredibly peaceful place to spend a Sunday afternoon. We went for a lake-side walk through the woods and visited the park's small wildlife centre, where we saw their resident platypus as well as kangaroos, wombats and wallabies. No matter how long I spend in Australia I never get tired of admiring their fantastic wildlife!

Furry friends at the wildlife centre, D'Aguilar Ranges

On Monday I spent another day volunteering for Conservation Volunteers Australia, and was admittedly quite disappointed to find we were appointed to the same exposed wasteland I had worked on the previous week, rather than some nice bushlands as I had hoped. Nonetheless it was good to see the progress of the plants we'd helped to install, which were battling against the poor soil and dry climate. It was a smaller team this time and we all chatted a bit more than last time. Most of the team are retiree-aged Aussies, and it was interesting to hear some of their perspectives, especially when they talked about their memories of the Vietnam War; all seemed to have a cousin or brother who had been called up, and those who didn't succeed in getting out of military service all came back as changed men, they said. Some believed themselves to have been contaminated by Agent Orange. I hadn't had much contact with Australians of this age group before and it was really interesting to hear their perspectives. They were all really friendly towards me and asked me about the UK and my experiences in Australia. 

Another good experience this week has been a visit to an exhibition focused on the nuclear age, called 10 Minutes to Midnight and displayed at one of the Queensland University of Technology campuses in the suburbs. Coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the exhibition explored the little-known nuclear testing conducted by British scientists on Australian soil between 1952 and 1967. Two powerful multimedia films presented in a 'surround projection arena' explored the nuclear testing and its impacts on the British workers involved and on the local Pitjantjatjara Anangu people, who suffered displacement, illness, premature death and degraded environments due to the bombings and their aftermaths. There was also a series covering the life and work of Avon Hudson, a whistle-blower who publicly revealed what had been taking place at the Maralinga and Emu Field sites in South Australia and went on to campaign against nuclear weapons. Finally, a piece by Japanese artist and third-generation atomic survivor Yukiyo Kawana was exhibited in the centre of the room. Named 'Little Boy' after the bomb dropped over Hiroshima in August 1945, the sculpture was a representation of the bomb made from kimono silk and sewn together with strands of the artist's hair, which carries DNA imprints of the atomic blast. As it swung gently in the darkened room under spotlights, the hairs reflected in the light and the sheets of silk billowed slightly, some imprinted with flower motifs, others with dark stains on. It was really powerful in the way the artist brought life into something so destructive, demonstrating the horrifying human impact of the bombing and its lasting intergenerational legacies. In the hour I spent at the exhibition I was the only person present; I left feeling that it was something that more people should see.

Little Boy by Yukiyo Kawana

On Friday night Chris and I walked down to the Brisbane Powerhouse, a venue I'd visited a few times before in New Farm Park on the banks of the river. The former power station has been reclaimed as an arts and cultural hub, keeping much of the original infrastructure untouched (including the graffiti'd walls of a once-abandoned building). We went to see the opening night of the World Press Photo competition 2015; although we couldn't enjoy the free drinks and nibbles reserved for invitees only, we enjoyed the live music, the wonderful building and of course the fantastic exhibition. Many of the photos were greatly confronting- indeed, as the organisers stated during the formalities, this should always be the aim of photojournalism. 

So it has been an interesting and educational week. I am looking forward to a nice weekend and another week of exploring Brisbane before we embark on an adventurous three-week trip that will conclude my time in Australia. Already nearly at the end!