Cairns

I had only three days to spend in Cairns, so as soon as I arrived I organized a guided tour to the Port Douglas area, which meant I’d get to check out the Daintree Rainforest and catch the scenic drive along the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately, tourism in Australia involves choking down the outrageous prices, which aren’t even on the same order of magnitude as Asia. Despite that, I surrendered my money under the premise that I wasn’t coming back to Australia anytime soon. (I can't prove it, but I believe the tourism costs are part of Australia’s strategy to push travelers into exploitative low-skill farm jobs).

Afterward I went to grab dinner and check out the rest of town. I hadn’t yet seen Cairns during the day, so my first impression consisted of a small, binge-drinking, kitschy tourist city. Two days later, when I would see it during the day, I realized I had pretty much nailed it. For now though, I made a loop around the city scouting out the restaurants. I finally settled on something familiar from Asia: A Chinese buffet market, all offering the same buffet selections for the same prices, and yet everyone was waiting in line at the shop in the southwest corner. Kafka would be proud.

I stood in the same line waiting for my turn, and reflected on the demographics of the people eating: Mostly older couples or families but some (much) younger travelers than me, mostly obese, and seemingly no solo travelers. I was still getting comfortable in my solo traveler skin, and I realized that the markets in Australia are not the hubs for social interaction that they are in Asia. I’d have to rethink my strategy in meeting people.

Fortunately, this issue was resolved in a “small world” way. I caught the profile of a familiar face from my days at Lafayette College (or rather, from my ex-girlfriend’s days), and I instinctively called out her name to see if I was mistaken.  Sure enough, in two years on the road, I had finally met a friend from my old life in the USA. (Since I didn’t ask her if I could use her name, I’ll refer to her as Lucy). We spent a few minutes to get through formalities and we decided to meet later after I finished dinner at Kafka’s Place.

When I met Lucy and her friend later that evening, we swapped travel stories and impressions on Australia, but the conversation tended to circle back to how freakin’ incredible it was to run into a friend so far from where we first met. I have to admit, it was a great way to settle into the last leg of my travels, and it also reminded me of how much I missed my friends and family from home.  And as nice as it all was, I called it any early night because I had an early pick-up for the tour of the Daintree National Park. It was too expensive not to be well rested.

The shuttle bus that picked me up at 7am was still half full and I chose the only seat that had any semblance of leg room. Seats during a tour tend to be de facto assigned seats, and I was happy with my luck. 15 minutes later, the rest of the bus filled up in one go and I was crammed shoulder-to-window as an overweight, emphysemic man huffed his way into the seat next to me. So much for good luck.

An estuary from the Daintree National Park flowing into the Great Barrier Reef. Our guide informed us that these are the only two UNESCOWorld Heritage sites that are immediately adjacent to each other. 

Over the next 8 hours, I learned that my travel companion was a simpleton, he talked in a lisp (the quantity of teeth in his mouth were a handful shy of enough), his inside voice was closer to a shout than a whisper, whenever possible he shouted bad and off-color jokes in relation to the tour guide’s monologue (bringing admonition from his wife), and his name was Michael. I learned his name from context since I figured asking might lead him to believe I wanted to continue the conversation. At the present moment, the air-conditioned bus hadn’t even started the journey north to Port Douglas and Michael was dripping sweat while struggling to get enough slack in his seatbelt to fit around his waist. Michael was special, maybe clinically.

The problem with guided tours in Australia, often guided tours in general, is that they tend to be over-hyped and gimmicky. The guided tour I was currently on advertised a chance to observe Australian wildlife including the colorful cassowary bird, a scenic view of the coast from the top of a mountain, a boat cruise down a crocodile infested estuary, and a hike through the rainforest. In reality: We visited a bird sanctuary with a petting area for kangaroos and wallabies, the bus driver drove up the mountain and we were given 5 minutes to take pictures from the lookout, we hopped on a rickety boat with a chatty tour guide who pointed out all the wildlife that I deduced is in the same place every day (if it hadn’t moved I would have assumed it was plastic), and we followed a wood-planked walking trail for a few kilometers through the jungle. I more or less expected all this, and took my disappointments in stride.

Look at how cute that eager wallaby is!! 

Someone clever altered the speed bump warning sign.

A young cassowary that snuck up on us during our hike in the woods. 

I’ve added a few pictures to Picasa, here, so you can get a sense of the tour, but my personal highlight was Michael. (I didn't take any pictures of him). When we stopped for lunch Michael was floored with the crocodiles we had seen on the riverbank. “That was probably the second favorite thing I've seen in Australia,” he told the air. And what was his first?! It was “eating lunch while feeding lions and tigers raw meat”. I was fascinated and appalled at the same time. Keep in mind that about an hour earlier, our guide explained that Australia’s rainforests are so old (~50 million years old) that they do not have any large predatory cats or primates. I thought about telling Michael that maybe only half that statement was true on this day, but that seemed mean. 

Talk about slightly optimistic signage when a crocodile "attack may cause injury or death". Only in Queensland. 

In the end, it was a nice tour for a person with a limited amount of time to spend, but I would have rather experienced it on my own at my own pace if I could have. For the next day, I had organized scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, and perhaps that would be better. Surely that wouldn't be over-hyped, would it?