Kuku Yalanji bama - The Land of the Yalanji people

Above: Cameron, our Yalanji guide shows us the use of the Karrandal (Latin Alphitonia philippinensis; English - Soap Tree) - by crushing it a lather is produced. The soap also has antiseptic qualities. It smells of linament - nature's Dencorub!)

Before Captain Cook foundered on a reef off Cooktown, before the cane-growers and dairymen, and tourists arrived in the land from Mossman to Cooktown, there lived the Yalanji bama (Yalanji people), taking care of the land and having the land take care of them.

At Mossman Gorge you can take a guided walk through the rainforest with the traditional owners and custodians of this land. The wonderful Cameron taught and showed us things we never would have learned or seen otherwise. It was fabulous to have someone so enthusiastically share aspects of his traditional culture with us.

Below: Ochres mixed with water were used for body decoration. The dots represent raindrops, the stripes the rivers.

Finding Nemo

If you come to far north Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, it helps to bring big wads of cash, because so many of the activities are very expensive. It is also reasonably hard to sift through what's available and decide what's best for you. There is no official tourist information bureau north of Cairns to help get unbiased information, so you are at the mercy of word-of-mouth and the overtures of the commercial operators.

We chose a day trip on the Reef to the Low Islands. Many of the reef trips are for keen snorkellers and divers. Our group had one enthusiastic snorkeller (me), one non-snorkeller and one keen to gove it a go. The trip we chose turned out to be perfect for all of us.

And yes, we snorkellers saw all of the critters above, which are - top left "Nemo" - a clown anenome fish, top right - sea turtle, bottom left - giant clam, bottom right - Regl Angel Fish. My favourite was the angel fish - we saw some very large ones in a large group, all hungrily feeding amongst the coral. I also have to confess that I did NOT take these photos - they were available on a CD. I didn't have an underwater camera (but they can be hired at a pretty high cost).

Below: The coral island we visited.

Pool

Pool (that's the name of a resort), Port Douglas.

Forget swim-up bars, it's swim-up apartments now!

Warning! Achtung! There are Crocs!

At Cape Tribulation, I saw the warning, and then, on the beach, I saw the Crocs (true! I didn't put them there!)

A little bit of Sydney in Cairns

An old Manly ferry, brought to Cairns.

I'm currently sitting in the car on a headland/lookout in the middle of the Daintree rainforest north of Cairns updating this blog....there's very little signal anywhere else. So, I'm not responding or interacting with anyone at the moment! It's a bit disconcerting being without mobile, computer and anything else for so long at a time!

Spot the croc

The boys did a cruise along Trinity Inlet and a tour of Australia's largest crocodile farm. Mainly the crocs are farmed for their skins (they have contracts with companies like Louis Vuitton). They are fed chickens, and many of the crocs which are sold for meat end up on local restaurant plates, and as the classic saying goes "taste like chicken".

This is a croc along the bank of the inlet in its natural habitat, a saltwater estuarine, not from the farm.


Its mouth is open because that is how they keep cool, by expelling hot air.

I'm not in Sydney...

....but where am I?


I'm attending a conference in Cairns in tropical north Queensland. Cairns is the "gateway" to the Great Barrier Reef. It's situated on Trinity Bay, part of the Coral Sea. There's no beach to speak of, as the "beachfront" is a tidal mudflat - not what tourists are generally looking for! (though apparently it was orginally a sandy beach, but dredging the shipping channel covered the sand with mud. Cairns has traditionally been seen as a convenient base for trips into World Heritage Rainforest and the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef.

In recent times, the Esplanade area has been completely made over, and as well as boardwalks, kids' playgrounds, large swathes of grass and shade trees, barbecues, there is this massive free swimming lagoon, complete with sand beach. It covers 4 hecctares, and is open daily between 6am and 10pm, and patrolled by security guards outside those times to prevent damage.

The water in the lagoon is sea water, but cleaned and filtered every few hours. No marine 'stingers' can enter the water, so it's safe for swimming all year round (you don't go in coastal water in northern Qld between November and April unless wearing a "stinger suit" to protect against deadly jellyfish). And the beaches and estuaries are crocodile territory as well.

So far I've swum here both days we've been here.

For a whole heap of my pictures of the Cairns lagoon, click here.