Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Its interior has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world and about three-quarters of the land is arid or semi-arid. Its fertile areas are well-watered, however, and these are used very effectively to help feed the world. Sheep and cattle graze in dry country, but care must be taken with the soil. Some grazing land became desert when the long cycles that influence rainfall in Australia turned to drought.
Cairns and the end of civilization
Once a tiny surfing community with a terrific coral reef 20 miles to the east, Cairns has grown to become a huge city, with casinos, deluxe hotels and shopping malls sprouting everywhere.
Cairns and the end of civilization, 12.14-16.05
Fair warning: It's so far up the east coast of Australia with so little around it, yet Cairns turned out to be a large, fairly bland city instead of some kind of outpost of civilization. People on the sailing ship a few days earlier warned me that Cairns had little charm and the city I hoped for would instead be Port Douglas, a still-quaint tourist town another 25 miles to the north. They were right. All the major east coast train lines end in the city, and the next significant settlement farther north is Darwin, so it only makes sense that 110,000 souls should reside here at the northern end of huge tracts of sugar cane fields and the eastern end of formidable mountain ranges. Because of the reputation of the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns is chock full of resorts and hotels, slavishly catering to the tourist hordes.
Through some fit of madness, I took a large jet boat with a few hundred Asians to Green Island, a sandy island so completely transformed for the purposes of tourism that it is difficult in certain places to tell whether you are in the middle of the ocean or the middle of a shopping mall.
Everybody into the water: I thought I would get out to sea and catch a cool breeze, so I caught the next tour boat heading east, but it turned out to be a descent into tourist hell. The idea was to take a jet boat to Green Island, a spit of land operated by the people who operate the jet boat, and do some snorkeling (or ride on a glass-bottomed boat - an unappealing option). I knew I was in trouble when the concrete jetty at which the boat parked was so large it obscured the island. The hundreds of Asians who joined me for the outing appeared to accept the premise at face value, crowding (as they do) into the designated beach area to soak or snorkel. Trouble is, Green Island has no reefs or even any fish for that matter. The waters offshore are sand or scraggly weeds, nothing else. I retired to the tepid swimming pool in the middle of the shopping complex and watched four Japanese guys play an aquatic version of baseball with a beach ball.
Shop til you drop. A Disney-like map directs bargain-hungry tourists to Green Island's many trinket shops, bars and cafes. If a 30-minute jet boat ride is too slow, you can always charter the island's private helicopter.
So Australian: Aussies have small aspects of their society that set them apart. Examples:
- When traffic lights turn green and the walk sign is illuminated, the lights emit a staccato tapping noise to assist blind people. The sound is exactly like the sound emitted by the little wind-up monkey toy that beats on a drum.
- When a service worker presents one with a bill, he or she announces the price and immediately follows it with "thank you," even though you haven't yet given that person any reason to say it.
- Weather forecasts for clear and sunny weather are listed as "fine," not clear or sunny.
- A lot of young people and gearheads who buy sporty cars modify their vehicles by cutting off the stock mufflers and replacing them with what Americans used to call glasspack mufflers, which gives their revving engines a throaty growl.
A bar in Port Douglas has made use of the resources
available and regularly holds cane toad races.
Citizen cane: I have been waiting weeks for any mention of Australia's number two (behind rabbits) and soon to be number one pest - cane toads. The amphibians were imported from South American with the intention of ridding the country of a sugar cane-damaging beetle, which the toads like to eat, but the Aussies forgot one important detail - cane toads aren't awake at the same time of day as the beetles so they never encounter one another. Because they secrete a deadly poison on their skin, cane toads have no surviving natural predators and have been spreading unchecked for decades. A tour guide said the ubiquitous creatures now range across all of northern Australia from just north of Brisbane on the east coast to Broome on the west. "Help us out," she added, "and squish them if you see any."
Civilization mostly ends at Cape Tribulation in the deep rainforest north of Cairns. It used to be the end of the road until the two-lane blacktop was extended to isolated Cooktown a few decades ago. You can pretty much have the entire beach to yourself anytime.
Welcome to the boomtown: I finished my rail trekking at Cairns, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, largest reef in the world. I expected a remote outpost; I found a burgeoning metropolis with huge hotels and casinos rising around the ferry docks. Other than a pleasant esplanade along the coastline, the city had a very utilitarian look about it.
Ferry business is sufficiently efficient (and lucrative for the owner) on the Daintree River north of Cairns that no one ever bothered to build a bridge across the waterway, home to significant numbers of crocodiles.
Northern exposure: A bus tour north of Cairns reveals the end of civilization in northeastern Australia. Port Douglas is a charming little tourist town about 30 miles up the road, but beyond that is thick rainforest and little else. Cape Tribulation is a tea plantation, an orchard, a handful of upscale resorts and PK's Jungle Village, a favorite hangout for the budget-minded backpacker crowd. The road is mostly a jarringly bumpy rollercoaster ride with a ferry crossing in middle because no bridge crosses the Daintree River, in the middle of Daintree National Park.
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Kids these days, 12.13.05
Gone tropical - 20-somethings strip down to essential garb confer while seeking shade and cold beverages at a picnic table early in the afternoon at PK's Jungle Village, an affordable accommodation at Cape Tribulation.
Fashion trends: Billabong is the Levis of Australia, a line of apparel that reigns supreme among people younger than 30. Its hugely-popular line featuring graffiti-inspired multi-colored, multi-layered script renderings of the company's name can be seen everywhere. A distant second in popularity is Rip Curl, followed by Quicksilver and a European line called Enties. Footwear consists overhwelmingly of flip-flops, called thongs, with V-shaped straps; the cheaper the better. Cargo shorts for guys and very-tailored capris or gauzy skirt wraps for gals fill out the look. Almost no one wears hats or caps Down Under, mysterious considering the prevalence of skin cancer.
Goth teens, dressed all in black, are readily evident in tropical Australia. The pony-tailed dude, center, showed up surfside in Airlie Beach an hour before sunset, standing in the heat without moving until stripped-down friends showed up to compare notes. Soon after, teenage girls arrived to fill out the scenario. As darkness fell, the girls and half-dressed boys left, but the gothic dude remained.
Gothic revival: Because they look so strikingly different in tropical tourist settings, goth kids catch my attention - and everyone else's for that matter. A flock of them marched through a comfortable pedestrian mall in central Brisbane, conspicuously dressed in black with shaggy purple- and green-dyed hairdos. The inscription on the back of one hulking kid's t-shirt proudly proclaimed "pure fucking metal." He drew a nod of approval from a compatriot at a nearby table swilling beer. That guy's black t-shirt proudly proclaimed "violence is not a family value," anthem of Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys.
Ken and Terry await a tour bus near a scenic overlook in the Blue Mountains northwest of Sydney. They joined me sitting in the shade across the road initially, explaining that they were Britons on vacation. We noted that it was beastly hot, and we admitted we weren't used to such climatic extremes. Soon, they abandoned the shade to dutifully wait in the sun at the bus bench, proving once again that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
Staying out of the news: A favorite hangout for beer-swilling kids in Surfers Paradise is a second-floor open-air saloon called O'Malley's on the Beach. Well-lubricated punks ogle and verbally accost women passing on a pedestrian walkway below heading to and from the beach. During the weekend before Christmas, however, the police were out in force to ensure there would be no problems, in response to the recent racial riots at a beach in Sydney. Whenever a lout would get too lewd in his remarks about the passing women, one or more cops would glower up in his direction. This prompted a companion to chastise his noisy friend, saying, "Play the game, boy, just play the game. The coppers are only here for a day, so be good." It elicited a laugh all around.
Check out the shoes - polka-dot Converse All-Stars high tops. Her wardrobe cinched together with what appeared to be standard medium-weight industrial chain, the girl and her ragged friends dawdled in the botanic gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Cricket update: A local fan of the sport explained why no one pays attention to the cricket matches endlessly playing on televisions in public places. It is because the "tests," or matches, usually last for five days. "It's easy to catchup the next day if you miss anything," he said. Five days!
Another fine example of Aussie graffiti, viewed from a city train, streams past on the outskirts of Brisbane.
Christmas in Surfers Paradise, 12.22.05
Happy holidays from Surfers Paradise on the northeast coast of Australia where the temperature is at least 95 degrees in the shade. Several white star-shaped balloons provide an unmistakeable reference to Christmas and prove to be a magnet for tourists who queue up at the tombstone-shaped surfboard fence to scrutinize the Santa Claus sand sculpture. Santa, of course, is wearing wraparound sunglasses and carrying a surfboard. Somehow, the brown Christmas tree seems odd.
Ho ho, er, ho: For people who are accustomed to cool if not cold weather and dormant vegetation if not snow-covered ground at Christmas, just about anywhere in Australia seems damn strange, most especially Surfers Paradise on the Pacific coast south of Brisbane. Air-conditioned shopping malls are packed with manic materialists dressed in beach wear desperately seeking bargains while jaunty - too-often disturbingly disco - Christmas carols waft from shops festooned with red-and-green banners trumpeting pre-Chistmas sale items.
Many of the public Christmas decorations seem like half-hearted orphans in otherwise lazy summertime settings, including this Christmas tree clinging to the balcony of the corrugated Iron Bar in Port Douglas, located in serious rainforest country north of Cairns.
Have it your way after all: American fast food reigns in Australia as it does just about everywhere in the world, the only difference being the mix of offerings. Not surprisingly, Starbucks is familiarly prominent in urban areas. Subway sandwich shops have a surprisingly strong presence throughout the region. McDonalds is here, along with a hybrid that appears to mimic Starbucks called McCafe that is heavy on coffee and pastries. Burger King is called Hungry Jacks with the usual menu plus something called an Aussie burger (with beets?). Both of the burger giants offer breakfast menus, except Hungry Jacks uses the term "brekky" whereas McDonalds spells it "brekkie." Who is correct? Who cares? Because the big boy in Australian fast food is KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken is everywhere, probably matching all the other American competitors combined. Why? Given that it is a country dominated by cattle and sheep, there is no understanding it.
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Tasman had it good: While southern hemisphere explorer Abel Tasman, star-crossed hero of New Zealand, had a checkered navigational history, his problems seem trivial compared with Captain Cook, revered discoverer of Australia. While sailing up the east coast of Australia, his fleet somehow slipped inside the lengthy and steadily confining Great Barrier Reef, only discovering the error at Cape Tribulation, hundreds of miles north of the point of the miscalculation, where at least one of his ships ran aground, hence the name. He sent dinghys rowing north to seek an exit only to arrive at what would be named Weary Bay, accurately describing the rowers' state of exhaustion. The fleet eventually extracted itself and continued its northern route to prompt the founding of Cooktown, a remote outpost north of Weary Bay.
Copyright Gary Olson 2010
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