Cyclone Yasi

Well my blog has been pretty lacking lately, but I am now back on the road again after a 4 month hiatus in the Tablelands/Cairns area.

My 4 months involved a heap of diving on the Great Barrier Reef, working on the coral trout boat Irene, plenty of partying in Cairns, a few trips to the Tablelands, a few weeks at home for xmas, two weeks at home for RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards camp), 10 days in Sydney at New Year, and a 4,500 km road trip around the northern half of QLD. All of which was awesome fun!

Now I am back on the road. On the 3rd leg of my journey. I have done North, I have been East, now I am headed South!

I have been through the Tully/Innisfail/Mission Beach area a few times since I have been in Nth QLD, and it is a nice area of rainforest, sugarcane, bananas, and the occasional Cassowary. But after cyclone Yasi hit the area a month ago it is a different story. First things first, yes Yasi was a disaster, but thankfully there was no loss of life . For a massive Cat 5 cyclone that was meant to be the strongest in living memory the damage to the human environment is pretty tame a month on. Yes sheds are blown over there are big potholes in roads, the power infrastructure has taken some repairing, some building have had tin ripped off, and the occasional one no longer exist. This damage will be costly to repair, but is nothing like what has occurred as a result of the Christchurch or Japanese earthquakes. Clearly we have become pretty reasonable at dealing with cyclones.

Natures building code on the other hand is not so resilient. The place really does look like a disaster zone, in places apart from a few new shoots, vines clinging to trunks, and a bit of undergrowth the forest looks like it has been through a pyroclastic flow event. Every bit of forest in the winds path has a heap of trees down, more snapped off a fair way up the trunk, and lots consisting of a trunk and a few major branching arms snapped a couple of metres along. The universal theme is no leaves. There are a few starting to reshoot, and there are a heap on the ground, but not many that survived the wind! It will take it a while to get back to proper rainforest, and in the mean time hopefully the wildlife will mostly survive.

In terms of the agriculture yes there are plenty of bananas on the ground but cyclones don't actually kill the plants, the tallest suckers fall over and lose their fruit but the younger ones are protected and are bouncing away so the fruit will not be too far away, though there are heaps of mature suckers that need to be cut down. On the sugar front, all the cane was blown over at a fair angle, but it has bent itself back up. There will still be a fair bit of cane there - it may be a little more difficult to harvest though. The real impact on sugarcane farmers will probably be from the wet and lack of sunshine - plants need sun to grow and cane likes plenty of it, but instead it just keeps on raining and raining...

Bananas on the ground near Tully

A good example of the destruction of the forest near Innisfail

Cassowary and his chicks crossing the road from bananas back to the forest near Tully.

The foreshore at Cardwell

Tranquility at Cardwell. It hasn't seen much since the cyclone with continual rain since the cyclone.

Port Hinchinbrook - the site of that big boat pileup you saw on TV. All the boats have been stacked in a big yard nearby.

A feeding station for Cassowaries given their habitat has been practically wiped out. I can't imagine rotting apple is as tasty as the rainforest fruits they usually eat!

A (ex)timber planatation near Innisfail

Life in Cairns

Well it seems I have been in Cairns longer than I intended. I am not entirely sure how long I have been here, but I have been in Far North QLD, mainly the Tablelands and Cairns for exactly 2 months. It is an interesting life hanging out at a backpackers and spending days chatting to people from across Europe and North America, chilling out at the lagoon, and dancing the nights away after free dinner at the bar. It is amazing how easy it is to sit around and do nothing! There are plenty of people here who have fallen under the spell and have been here for way longer than intended and spent their time doing not much.

I have spent 9 days worth of my time, and most of my money here diving. I did a couple of introductory scuba dives, a 4 day open water course, a 3 day live aboard advanced course, and have volunteered for a day. All of which were awesome. The diving here is pretty good, with turtles, sharks, and interesting corals, plants, fish, nudibranches in abundance. Although signs of stress are evident on the reef with large patches of dead or bleached coral, and signs of human impact mostly broken coral etc at the dive sites. I haven't had the chance, but the ribbon reefs north of Cairns are meant to be the best spots, and where all the Great Barrier Reef documentaries are filmed.

That said I have seen more of the barrier reef than most people would ever dream of seeing - just not under water, only from the surface. I spent 10 days working on the F.V. Irene, a coral trout fishing boat. During our trip we travelled from Cairns north up the reefs to within a 100 nm of Cape York, and back south to the tiny community of Portland Roads where I caught the truck back to Cairns. More on the Irene in another post.

I have been on a couple of return trips to the Tablelands, catching up with Ian (the horse breaker) and seeing the sights, plus enjoying the cooler weather! But one of the most exciting activities in Cairns itself was a flying trapeze lesson that four of us did. We did a knee hang with a catch and backflip off the release and it took only 5 swings and an hour or two of practise, but is a fantastic feeling. Not quite flying, but great fun!

I have had plenty of great nights out with great people, but I am heading home today for Xmas, then Sydney for New Year, and back to Cairns to grab my car and start driving south!

Sunset from Grassy Hill Lookout - Cooktown. Capt. Cook climbed the hill to try and chart a course out of the Endeaour river and through the reef.

Cattle crossing a tributary of the Daintree River.

Sunrise at Mission Beach. The boat is the set of Sea Patrol, they were filming a new season.

Aerial spraying in the Tablelands near Millaa Millaa.

Coral Trout on the Irene.

Cairns Esplanade.

Lunch time on the live aboard OceanQuest.

Norman Reef - Troppo's dive site. Awesome visibility and perfect weather make for kick-ass diving.

The day boat, Sea Quest, coming alongside Ocean Quest to transfer passengers.

The East Coast!

Finally! One year and 6 months after I attempted to leave home the first time, and 8 months after I left the south-west last time, I have arrived on the East Coast! I have driven over 25,000 km during the 8 months in trusty old Sarah. My destination is not one of the usual ones - Bondi Beach, Bells Beach, Cape Byron, or Cairns, but Archer Point. Archer point is home to a small modern lighthouse and a half washed away dock used to supply the old lighthouse - that’s it. Though there are a few resident cattle, and the locals obviously camp here, although I am the only one here now.
Sarah made it to the east with no flat tyres and only 2 services

Archer Point. The small groyne has a rusty wharf that supplied the old lighthouse and an outpost in WW2

My camp fire is fuelled by driftwood and coconuts, and I have eaten the meat of some old ones, and tried a bit roasted, though I prefer uncooked. My swag is at the top of the beach, so hopefully I don't get munched by a croc, and the rain seems to be holding off - I only get a spot or two which is probably the result of the mountains a few k's down the coast. Despite countless nights camping and having fires this is a very new, and pretty exciting experience for this trip. Tomorrow I roll into that famous little dot put on the map hundreds of years ago by a floundering ship - Cooktown!

The view from my tent

Trying the local produce - not bad actually. I thought roasting it might be a novel idea but it was not as good. The coconuts make for reasonable fire wood once you get the fire hot enough

Mareeba Cattle Sale

I went to my first ever livestock sale a few days ago. It was the weekly cattle sale at the Mareeba saleyards. It was an interesting experience to say the least. When they first started auctioning I didn't understand a word they were saying - it was just a cacophony of noise created by only one man! Gradually the noise became numbers, though I was still baffled by who was making the bids, none of the guys leaning on the rails seemed to move. I moved around to the side and managed to make out their gestures, a slight raise of one finger, a small sideways nod of the head, or something equally as non-descript.



Auctioners in action

Occasionally there would be some intelligible words said, usually when there was confusion over which cattle were being auctioned. And it is easy to see why there is confusion - rarely are all the cattle in one pen sold in one auction. Some are painted on various parts of the body with blue paint to differentiate them although the paint job is so shoddy in most instances it is unclear weather the paint is on the shoulder, the rump, or in a line down the back. Other intelligible words were used when a buyer suggested the cattle should all be auctioned together, or wanted a particular beast left out of the auction.

The crowd - mostly watching the spectacle and catching up rather than buying cattle

A sale was followed by a jumble of numbers and letters that must be some sort of reference number but also included the price, the number of cattle, and the buyers name. For some reason unknown to me the price is then reduced by 0.8c/kg on every sale (you bid on cents/kg). Most of the cattle at this sale were heavy steers, cows or bulls that are bought by meatworks in the area to cut up. There are only a few 'store' cattle, which usually means small steers you can buy to fatten up. I think the confusing nature of this sale is partly due to the fact that there are only 4 or 5 buyers, and they are there to buy most of the 1000 odd cattle offered, so they have adapted ways to make it quick and simple. I imagine at store cattle sales where many more people who don't go to the same sale every week are buying might be a little easier to comprehend.

Once the sale had moved to another row of pens the yard staff moved individual pens down to the scales where the cattle are weighed as a group and placed in bigger yards - one allotted to each meatworks presumably. All in all it was very interesting, and man there were some big cattle there. There were a couple of horny caught bulls from the Cape that must have been as tall as me, and a couple of pens of Brahman steers who had withers almost as tall as me and must have weighed over 800 kg. At $1.60/kg that makes each beast worth about $1300!

Some of the steers on offer

Timor Leste - Alieu

We packed up our tent, had a muesli bar for breakfast and walked out to the main road to start our first full day exploring outside of Dili. We walked up the hill, and quickly came upon a shop, where we stocked up on water (the cheapest we ever bought in Timor), bought some coconut biscuits that were awesome, and sat at the bus stop opposite contemplating how to use public transport. We soon got chatting to a young bloke wearing a Barack Obama belt buckle who spoke good english, worked for the national electricity company connecting houses to the power (ie. Stringing lines from tree to tree), and whose family owned the shop opposite. He told us a bus to Aileu would be coming soon, and he hailed us the bus thankfully as it fairly sped up the hill, and we had no idea which one to catch, although there is really only one road. This one went to Suai on the far south coast. One of the guys I spoke to was going home for the first time since leaving for university. He is now a qualified engineer. Two hours of honking, twists and turns, big potholes, a guy throwing up out the window, and holding on so as not to be thrown out or push the two others I was sharing the door well with out, we arrived at Aileu.

We got off a few k's early to look at a demonstration farm I had read about on the net, and we saw the sign to on the bus. There was not much exciting to see except a rice dehulling machine, and their was no one around to talk to. So we walked into town, waving and chatting to people as we went (as with anywhere in Timor). When we arrived in the town centre it was market day, and we were the star attraction! We took a bit of a look around then attempted to buy some sweet looking bread balls/ We offered up a dollar and got given at least 20 of the things. Luckily they were good. We sat down and ditched the packs, and started giving away our bread balls, and talking to a stream of young Timorese keen to practice their english and talk to foreigners, even if it took some of them a long time to gather the courage.

We headed to lunch at a café kept afloat by UN traffic through the town, and featuring in the lonely planet. Little did we know this was the last proper meal we would have for a good little while. After lunch we walked on out of town, checking out what was around and waiting for transport to pass us by. We walked past the middle school at school finishing time, which made for a lot of 'good afternoons' in Tetum (Boa tarde) and giggling school girls. We headed back towards town to wait for a bus at the stop, when a lady we had spoken to on our way out invited us in for tea. A bit more chatting, plus awkward silences, a cup of tea, and no sooner had we finished than a yell from the other lady outside indicated transport was here. We hurried out, and jumped on the back of an Anguna. An anguna is just a small truck with an open back, a bench seat down either side, and a bit of a cage to hang onto. We had our feet up on the closer tail gate, hanging onto the steel bar. There was Roland and I with our packs on, and three other guys on the tail gate, so you can imagine how many were sitting down. When in Timor, if you are not in a hurry (and its not raining) these things are the way to travel. You get fresh air, an awesome view of the country side, it is really easy to met people from all demographics, and you see Timorese life in action.

Roper River

My night on Pandora was not quite what I expected. Two big thunderstorms full of lightening coalesced over Elsey Creek at about 10 pm. I had been watching them approach, blinded by the long forks that penetrated the sheet lightening, and deafened by the sound, so I was prepared. I had everything except the tent and my mattress packed up in case it got too wet and I had to leave - the road in to my campsite was black clay soil, and if it rained too much I was worried about getting out again. I jumped in the car in case one of the many tall palms came down on me in the strong winds, and hoped there was no rain in the storm. Turns out there was a lot of rain in it, and it didn't look like it was going to stop quickly so I packed up in the pouring rain, and slipped and slid my way down the track back to the road. I slept in the car for 2 hours until I was certain the rain had stopped, then set up my other tent in a truck rest area and got in a few hours good sleep!

Today I have driven down onto the gulf lowlands, and along the side of the Roper River. It is a strange ecosystem with a mix of sea birds and riverine ones, including Sea Eagles and Terns flying down the river. But I am quite close to the coast now, only 40 or 50 km away. The floodplain has lots of billabongs along it, though not much bird life when I went past. I am camped further around the gulf next to the Limmen Bight River in sandstone country, remants of a range that once ran north through into Arnhem land.

Tomorrow I will visit the my first 'Lost City' and the most spectacular of the publicly accessible ones apparently.

Wild Buffalo near Roper Bar

A thunderstorm approaching my camp at the Limmen Bight River - I could hear the thunder while I took the picture.

Timor Leste - Dare

Our packs full of gear, food, water, and still feeling pretty light we headed to the hills. 15 minutes later we were walking along a road at the base of the hill looking for what could be a track up the mountain. We could see a set of stairs headed up the hill, and assumed that they must be the start, so we headed down an alley that looked like it would get us to the base. It didn't - but undeterred we climbed over some old razor wire atop a small stone fence after sneaking through someones backyard and started scrambling up the steep loose hillside. It didn't take us long to reach a road, where we met a girl our age, Tina, who was studying at the Institute of Business, and spoke very good english, and showed us a walking trail up the hill past her home, that she said would get us on the trail to Dare. And it did, but it also took us along the side of another Timorese house from the rear, and much to my surprise the entire family was sitting on the verandah at the other end of the house, sheltering from the rain that had just started.

The invited us to join them, and we had a good old chat (as much as was possible with our limited Tetum, and the kids much better English). Starting on our way again we made it to the concrete steps, and further up the trail before it started to rain heavily again and we took refuge under a roof covering two tombstones with a view of Dili. Once the rain stop we continued up the path, which was pretty straight forward mostly, apart from one place where it didn't look to be going in the direction we wanted, so we back tracked a little and took a small side path that looked substantial initially, but soon became just a farm access track. After a bit of bush bashing we saw what looked like a constructed road down the hill, so we bush bashed down to it and slid down a 4m cliff to join it. Soon we re-entered populated territory, and the people told us that this was Dare, though it was just a collection of 3 houses. We continued a little further, and joined a bitumen road. As fortune had it we turned left, down hill, and the right way. Soon we came upon the Australian war memorial, and were elated to see the excellent views over Dili, and that we had ended up where we had wanted to. Finding some where to camp proved a little more difficult, though eventually we settled on an abandoned hut up a quiet road. We were unsure why it was unoccupied as it was quite sound and water proof if a little outdated (being built of bamboo and palm fronds for the roof), so we kept a low profile, turning off our torches whenever we heard traffic on the road.

The next day - Alieu and Maubisse