Tropical trees taken in Townsville, Queensland, Australia combining flash and a long exposure.
Cairns
Climate and weather
I always wanted to visit either an equatorial or a tropical area during the humid season, so I took the opportunity to try this time; when I landed I was first very impressed by how green the land and vegetation were.
The second strange (enjoyable) feeling appeared as soon as I got outside from the plane or any air conditioned building: an unexpected heat wave. In Europe this is quite unlikely as rain and humid weather comes with fresh or cold temperatures.
The weather was very similar during my stay: mostly cloudy with isolated rain drops, then once in a while a heavy shower and possibly a few sun rays.
Below: sunset in Cairns and weather forecast.
People visiting Cairns
The city in itself is really a special place with many tourist resorts and a very high percentage of stores are named tourist information and booking centre (understand: travel agents who make a commission of 20% on tours booked). I noticed that the average people visiting Cairns stays in shopping malls that could have been named either New Tokyo or New Berlin due to the amount of Japanese and German tourists crashing around. I believe that Cairns is a good place to open a store as so many of them are not original at all – got my idea :D.
Experience
Despite it was the low season, many people had the idea to visit it because it was. Despite it, I was the only person hiking outside the city where the only persons I met on my way were a couple of aboriginal people. At least now I know why they call rainforest rainforest; the experience was awesome despite the extreme humidity. I could not figure out if my outlet was wet because of the rain or my sweat: a shower was so enjoyable afterwards!
Due to the rain, I did not take many pictures, but below a sample is available:
Crocodiles like Germans. Crocodiles may be in this river.
Rainforest, creek, tropical plant and heavy rain:
Next stop
I caught the train to Townsville and did not know if it would have been on track as it was flooded. Fortunately, everything was fine and I jumped into the Sunlander, a train where the economic class was more like the 1st in European trains with an excellent service like in old fashion trains. In addition, it was almost empty and I shared the car with a youth going to Townsville too who I met twice there! Sugar cane and banana plants were common on the way; in addition the flood was impressive – the rest of Australia is (was) experiencing one of the worst dryness.
Melbourne
I arrived in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon and left on Monday morning.
This was quite a shock! Leaving Tassie’s bush-camping activities to the metropolis city during Chinese new year is just so much contrast. I was quite used to greet and talk to anyone I met in Tasmania, but here it is just not technically possible to say a quick “hi” to anyone you meet on your way. Honestly, it was not even possible to look at each person you meet.
Melbourne was really hot: 38 degrees Celsius (~100°F) in the shade but I didn’t find any shade on my way. Locals have been waiting for rain for months and I brought rain with in Melbourne too. Sometimes I am wondering if I could be a professional rainmaker?
I stayed in North Melbourne – close to the zoo and shared a place with an student from Canberra.
I bought on Sunday a transport pass for trams, trains and busses, for $2.50 – valid in three zones so I spent a few hours at St Kilda and the only stop announcement from the driver was “next stop: the beeeeeeeeeeach!”, so I went to the marina; it was one of those where you will only find boats from fortuned people who believe a boat is a another great sign of wealth to show; there was not even a single sailing boat there.
On Monday, I was quite happy to leave this place; big cities are definitely not for me. It’s time for me to take off to Cairns, gateway to the tropics and I feel insanely good about going to this area during the humid season and certainly won’t regret it! Crocodiles, jellyfishes, stingers, cyclones and other adventures are waiting for me.
Now for the lazy, here are the pictures!
This car parked on a cycling lane is normal, it’s only a cycling lane during commuting hours, followed by chinese new year:
A few buildings by night:
and during the day:
To finish, a flower in the botanic gardens and what it needs to survive, the rain which was coming:
Two weeks in Tasmania
I spent two weeks around Tasmania where the devil may become extinct due to human agriculture’s policy against the environment. Thus for economic reasons they use chemic products (fertilizer) that literally kill the Tasmanian devils; who is the real devil? The way they are protected against this tumor disease is very simple: lock them in a park where they can’t escape. Which choice would you make between liberty and life? Maybe life as if there is no life there won’t be any liberty either. But would you let anyone else take that decision for you?
So I flew to Tasmania; despite the least environment friendly, it’s the cheapest way to go to Launceston, a 70 000 inhabitants city that left me quite indifferent until I spent a second day after I discovered the Cataract Gorge Reserve.
As I forgot to take with me all cartography software, you’ll have to be a bit patient until I draw a map of my journey. The way I travelled across Tasmania was from North to South on the western coast and from South to North on the eastern coast, from Launceston to Launceston. This was a tour from an eco-tourism certified professional where we left for camping adventures across the island where we were 6 people (7 for the last days) traveling together feeling close to the nature: for example cooking potatoes in sea water on campfire. After this tour I spend some time hiking around Launceston and quickly visited Devonport before heading on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry to Melbourne.
On the first day, we stopped for a warm up walk and visited the Marakoopa Cave and we hiked up to over 1200 meters (4000 feet) high on Cradle Mountain and stopped at the point named Marion Lookup and we ended up camping in a historic mining town.
On the second day, we continued our trip and hiked up Macdonald Mount after a walk in the biggest Tasmanian rain-forest, followed by a swim in the Pieman river and we set up our camp on a beach beside the Great Southern Ocean where the wind decided to join us. On the next day we left to the Montezuma falls (near Zeehan, old mining town). Montezuma was the mexican company that exploited the mines in the mountains. These falls are the highest in Tasmania and are reachable only after a walk through the rain forest. Then our camp was settled in Hells Gate, a place that people don’t want to leave when they saw it, where I swaged until rainfall woke me up. During that day, I found some Wonka chocolate – but it’s all eaten…
On the fourth day of the trip, we went through a place named Queenstown, also known as Mordor due to acid rains that occurred in the area; thanks to these clever people who only think about short term.
The trip went on, and we stopped at Hobart where a shower was more than welcome after spending five days swimming in rivers, lake, or washing ourselves in the sea, without soap. Anyway all the nature around was worth the effort.
In Hobart, I visited the Wooden boat festival where I fell in love with many (if not most) of the boats – and met one of the exponent on the Ferry leaving Tasmania and we spent hours talking about sailing; I’m currently looking for a sailing school and will move to the area where their concentration is high as low holidays season just started.
Leaving Hobart, we went straight to Port Arthur but just had a quick look around this prison where the british used to jail starving people who grabbed a simple piece of bread. We walked to Cape Raoul then had a tour to Devils Kitchen and Tasman Arch. On the next day we went to Freycinet National Park where only three people of our group chose to climb to Mount Amos where the view is a symbol of Tasmania.
On the last day of the tour, our nice and engaged guide showed us an area where tourists don’t go. They even recommend not to go there as the lands are private and belong to a forest exploitation company that uses a violent technique to exploit the forest: throw napalm gas over it so they only keep the massive trees and make some paper out of these multi centenary rare eucalyptus trees. Since the rest of the rainforest doesn’t have enough commercial value, they just burn it. This paper will be sent to Japan to meet bureaucratic requirements that will always require more bureaucracy – and I believe (Joerg told me once) it would destroy the capitalism system one day. Afterwards, this forest will most likely be a monoculture area. To finish, it was the most beautiful rainforest I have seen during my Tassie trip and I did even fill my water bottle from a creek and drank all the water, proving that the environment is clean.
Below are some pictures taken from this rainforest:
Later on that day, Dave brought us back to Launceston, where I hiked around and even climbed and jumped between rocks on the river for two days before I left to Devonport, the city where I took the ferry back to Melbourne: Spirit of Tasmania.
Deux semaines avec le diable – l’extrême Nord
Un ciel magnifique m’a accompagné au long du trajet.
Et bien, Devonport n’a rien de particulier, si ce n’est que c’est la gateway du Ferry Spirit of Tasmania. J’y ai certainement dormi à l’endroit le plus vétuste de ma vie où les douches m’ont plus fait penser aux douches des camps nazis et le lieu était rempli de Koréens travaillant à la récolte des fruits sur leur visa Working Holiday. Il y a tellement de touristes qu’à peine sorti, des policiers ont patrouillé et m’ont demandé si tout allait bien.
Le lendemain matin, lever de bonne heure afin d’attraper le Ferry pour Melbourne qui embarque à 9 heures, pour débarquer à 19h.
Le trajet fut bien sympathique, j’ai partagé ma table avec une dame que je pensais seule, mais qui était accompagnée par son mari (je suppose) et un ami; qui a exposé au Festival des bateaux en bois de Hobart. On a donc beaucoup parlé de bateaux au long du trajet, ce qui renforce mon envie de faire le pas vers ce monde 🙂
L’arrivée dans la baie de Melbourne s’est sentie d’un coup de chaud; en l’espace de 30 secondes, la température extérieure est montée à 38 degrés.
À bientôt pour de nouvelles aventures!