Greetings from the Top End

I'm writing this entry from the YHA in Darwin, Northern Territory - otherwise known as the Top End. It is incredibly hot and humid here, and Mom is not taking the heat well. PLUS I'd somehow completely forgotten about Easter Weekend! It's Good Friday today and all the museums and shops are closed. This is my only day in Darwin. WAH! So once the laundry's done we're going to head out and do as much exploring as the heat will allow, but I'm not sure what we're going to be able to see. At least we have a rental car and it has air conditioning, so we'll be able to move about in comfort.

Anyhow! It's been a few days since I've had the ability to write, so let me bring you up to speed. I last left off on the day that Mom, Dad and I went out to the Great Barrier Reef. We were all soooo tired when we got back to the hostel that night, we made it an early night. Which was good 'cause we had to be up at 6am the next day for our next tour! We'd booked a day trip with the Billy Tea Bush Safari company. They picked us up at 7am (so early!) in this huge, 16-seat Toyota 4WD SUV. So cool! Our destination was the Daintree Rainforest.

It took about 1.5 hours to drive north from Cairns to the Daintree, along the spectacular coastal highway. The land north of Cairns is mountainous and I spent the whole way staring at the scenery. The hills were lush and green and so high that many of them were topped by clouds. This is one of the only places in the world where the coral reef systems are close to shore, too - so there were spots where literally out one window of the vehicle we were admiring rainforest and out the other window we were looking at the tops of coral reefs in the ocean. Simply beautiful.

The Daintree Rainforest has World Heritage listing, as it is one of the oldest rainforests in the world. There has never been an ice age here, and scientists have dated some of the plant families found in the forest back 125 million years! The Daintree is not a huge forest, but it contains something ridiculous like 25% of all the species found in Australia, so it is also hugely significant for biodiversity. So all in all, it was definitely a worthwhile place to visit!

Our tour made many stops throughout the day. We went for an interprative walk along a boardwalk in the rainforest, where our guide explained about many of the plants we were seeing all around us. There were King Ferns growing in some of the gullies - their fronds were upwards of 10 feet long! We spotted several cool critters along the way, including a Boyd's Forest Dragon, a cool lizard that was hanging out on the side of a tree, waiting for insects to come by. We also saw many Golden Orb spiders, web-weaving spiders bigger than the palm of my hand. You will have to be proud of me. I got as close as I dared to one and snapped a cool picture! Whenever I manage to make it back to my own computer so I can upload pics, I'll post that on facebook for sure. The spider was beautiful, but as soon as it started to move, I backed away rapidly! (I was glad that our tour guide was taller than most everyone else in the group - this meant that as we walked through the forest, HE could encounter all the spider webs for us! Ha ha!)

Our next stop was way, waaaay up in the hills, to a beautiful stream where we could safely swim (no crocodiles!). To get there we had to drive down some pretty rough roads, and I was sure glad we had a 4WD! There were several places where rivers crossed the road and the truck had to drive right through the water. It was clear that this was a normal procedure, and that the water levels were currently low-ish. The way that the roads were situated, it appeared that you couldn't build bridges to cross the water - in flood, the water would simply wash the bridges away. Hence the fords.

The stream was absolutely crystal clear and cold, but refreshing, since the air was hot and muggy. Dad and I plunged in with many of the other tourists, while Mom watched us from the shore. The water was surprisingly deep and the current was really strong. It took all my strength to swim upstream, and even then I couldn't do it for long. While we were swimming our tour guide was preparing a snack for us of various tropical fruits. We sampled dragon fruit, custard apple, and several others whose name I now forget, but they were all yummy. We also ate damper (the Australian version of bannock) smothered in golden syrup, and billy tea, cooked in a billy can over a fire. Yum.

Then it was back down the mountain for a stop at Cape Tribulation. This is one of many places along the east coast of Australia that was named by Captain Cook as he did his explorations in 1770. His ship got stuck on the reef just off the Cape and it was only through some quick thinking that he and his crew managed to save it. They were beached for 5 weeks as they repaired the ship, and Cook began naming all the landmarks in the area - including Cape Tribulation, where all his "trials and tribulations" began. It was very beautiful. Too bad we couldn't go swimming here too - the risk of lethal jellyfish in the water was too high. We did see a lace monitor, though - a huge, 5-foot long goanna lizard - as it wandered through the brush looking for food. COOL!

Another 30-minute drive took us to the lunch stop, where we enjoyed BBQ'd steak and all sorts of other goodies. There was a small wildlife sanctuary here too, and so we all got a chance to hand feed some kangaroos and pandemelons. They were so cute! Mom's now finally gotten to see a roo up close. And personal! She was trying to feed the big grey kangaroo, and the roo was being a little pushy, and it planted one of its forepaws right on my mom's thigh! Problem was, the ground was all muddy and it left a big mucky footprint on her pants. Ha ha!

The last stop for the afternoon was at the Daintree River, where we enjoyed an hour long cruise. The skipper of our boat was very knowledgeable and taught us all sorts of things about the river's mangrove ecosystems. We also went hunting for crocodiles! We spotted two female crocs, each about 4m long, stretched out in the mangroves on the river's bank. It was a little unnerving though... the female crocs were so beautifully camouflaged that we wouldn't have seen them if our guide hadn't already known where to look. AND, along this stretch of river, all the females are "girlfriends" to one big dominant male croc, which we never spotted. It was kinda creepy to know that there was a 6m-plus long croc cruising the river that we never saw!

By the time we got back to the hostel it was 6:30pm, and we'd been touring for almost 12 hours. Suffice it to say we were a little pooped. We dragged ourselves out for dinner and then basically went to bed!

Yesterday we enjoyed a bit of a sleep-in - all the way to 8am - and then packed, ate a leisurely breakfast, and got ready to leave. Mom had bought a didgeridoo a couple of days earlier and Dad was a little worried about having to carry the blasted thing through all the airports for the rest of the trip. So he and I set off to find the one company in Cairns that specializes in shipping didgeridoos overseas. The cost? $130 to ship the didg to Canada. YIKES. But it's winging its way homeward now, and we don't have to carry it. :-)

We caught a taxi around noon to the airport, thinking we would be arriving in lots of time, as our flight wasn't leaving until almost 2. So imagine my surprise/shock/horror when we arrived at the domestic check in counter for JetStar to discover that our flight was leaving from the international terminal - and we only had 15 minutes to get there and get checked in! AAAA! The international terminal is located in a completely separate building, and we really had to hoof it to get it there in time. Poor mom - with her broken arm, she's not moving so quickly, and she can't carry any real weight - so Dad and I had all our luggage and we booted it as fast as we could.

Turns out our flight was leaving from the international terminal because it was stopping in Darwin on its way to Singapore. We got checked in OK, but then because we were on an international flight, we had to go through customs and extra security. Both Dad and I had completely forgotten about the sunscreen we had packed in our carry-ons (which would not have been an issue if we were flying domestic), so we lost all our sunscreen in the security screening. DRAT. But we finally made it to our plane and settled in for the flight.

Now for the next surprise - we actually got FED on the plane! This was funny, 'cause we'd packed ourselves a lunch! I thought it was rather surprising that we'd get fed on the way to Darwin, instead of waiting to only feed folks who were flying to Singapore. Ah well. We enjoyed the extra sandwiches and snacks anyway. When we got off the plane, we discovered we had to go through Quarantine - even though we'd not actually left Australia. How confusing! Then it was off to the car rental desk, where we picked up our rental car for the next three weeks, and then into Darwin itself.

We didn't have much time to explore yesterday, what with all this excitement and the time change (I forgot again) and all. By the time Dad and I had come back from the grocery store it was almost 7pm, so we grabbed Mom and headed out for dinner. Mom did some laundry in the evening while Dad and I enjoyed the pool (which felt great, except for the part where I misjudged where the side of the pool was and kicked it really REALLY hard with my toe, which still hurts - I'm amazed it didn't bruise). The air conditioning in our room leaves a lot to be desired, but it's still better than the mugginess outside.

And so now we're off to do some exploring and see what's actually open. More later!