Jason Wells

So we got back to Caravellas in good order. I developed some film, and then I hooked up with a few people last night: Lisa, and a few friends of hers, a couple – Stuart and Sally, all from Birmingham, UK. The four of us went to the Underdog for the free dinner and for a few drinks. Which later became more than a few. Which led to Sally and I taking part in a bar game, one a dance stage in front of the Underdog ‘audience.’ The game is called Knights & Cavaliers. There is a leader and all participants are broken into guy/girl pairs. The idea is that when the leader shouts “knights,” the guys kneel on one knee and the girls sit on the other. If he calls “mount,” the guy goes on all fours and the girl sits on his back. If he calls “cavalier,” the guy picks up the girl in his arms. The pair who reacts the fastest wins. I wondered if I could really pick up Sally so rapidly if “cavalier” was called; she’s in good shape but she’s tall, maybe 5’8″. So like a moron I told her “I hope I don’t have to pick you up too much. I’m not a weightlifter you know” or something like that. Which was just brilliant. She was shocked for a split second, then said “Why you crass bastard!” It was hilarious. Actually I had no trouble picking her up and holding her for as long as I pleased; she was light as a feather. She must have recognized that herself, because afterwards she was looking at me in an entirely new way. Too bad her boyfriend was right there. (All kidding aside, he’s a pretty cool guy.)

It was pouring non-stop that night. We ran in the rain to an Irish pub, PJ’s. Had a few “pints” served in glasses the size of tumblers. Around one or so we headed back to the hostel, very sloshed. And in a few hours I realized my mistake.

The bus leaving for the skydiving over Dunk Island was departing at 8 AM the following morning (today). I had, and still have, a wicked hangover. I’ve been drinking water all day long and I’m still thirsty. When I opened my day backpack (which I took with me all last night, through the rain), I discovered my travel journal had water damage and the Lonely Planet guide was totally soaked; it looked like it had been dropped in a swimming pool. “Thus Spake Zarathustra” also was damaged, but not catastrophically. Anyway, getting up at 7 AM was total agony – I spent half an hour in the shower. I managed to eat something not long before the bus arrived. I slept through most of the two-hour trip from Cairns south to Mission Beach. I thought I’d be nervous this whole time, anticipating the skydive, but it hasn’t been like that. We arrived early and I’m waiting for my chance to skydive.

So later last night, around 7:30, we departed for the rainforest nightwalk. About a dozen of us walked through the rainforest well after dark with a guide who led us all. We were each given flashlights, though the guide’s was much nicer, bright as a headlight. We were told to wear closed shoes, but all I had was the sandals and there was no way that was going to stop me. Meaghan began to show here fear not long before we were to leave, but she did stick with it.

The nightwalk was fantastic! the rainforest jungle is entirely different at night. For one thing, most rainforest animals are nocturnal so the whole place comes to life only after dark. It’s also much spookier and the noises and smells and tactile sensations become much more evocative. The air is hot and humid owing to a “greenouse effect” microclimate beneath the canopy, and it is also heavily oxygenated. We found many things: the strangler fig, a tree which envelopes and kills another tree, to steal its resources; the cane toad, introduced to Oz in the 30s and poisonous to native wildlife, their skin secretes a narcotic substance, and their Australian population is over 50 billion; two species of lizard in the ‘dragon’ family, one of which was a gravid female; a stinger plant, with heart shaped leaves and equipped with poison spikes evolved to target mammalian nervous systems, it is intensely painful and can cause tingling that lasts up to six months after initial contact; large fruit-eating bats the size of eagles; and the best of all, we saw the beady eyes of the estuarine crocodile, a man-eater, on the opposite shore of a creek. Just knowing it was there was electrifying. There were a few other special moments on the walk that come to mind as well. One was the sight from a beach of the nearly full moon bathing the ocean in a liquid stream of light. This was so beautiful I could hardly tear my eyes away from it. Another was when we assembled as a group and the guide had us put out all the lights. The insects were loud and the leaves rustled gently. The night sky was softly lit by moonlight and I could just make out the silhouettes of our little group and surrounding trees. It was utterly relaxing. Near the end of the trail we found evidence that a tree kangaroo had been around not long before. The guide helps to catch rats in the rainforest in support of a scientific study, so we checked the cages with him and found two white tailed rats, which the guide seemed to think quite unusual.

I slept soundly but with one or two interruptions last night. The cabin had three German girls; they came in pretty late last night. One brought home a guy to keep her bed warm. The other two woke up in the same bed for reasons I could only speculate. One of them brought food back to the cabin, which is a no-no out here, so I suggested she get rid of it. Meaghan and Neil and I had planned to wake up early this morning to see the sun rise over the beach. But Neil didn’t wake me up, and he wouldn’t say why. Meg suspected that he was afraid to. Oddness! Well, I have another theory.

Around mid-morning after breakfast we rented the mountain bikes. The bikes were in terrible condition. The front tire on mine was almost flat and the gears were all jammed. Out of the original 18, only three gears worked. The chain was rusted out and the brakes were a joke. But after some trial and error I managed to get it working reasonably well. The three of us went out and rode down a rough gravel road for about an hour. It was very humid and the heat was stifling, and we didn’t see much of interest down the road, so Meg suggested we turn back. Neil wanted to keep going, so we left him and went back to the hostel for a refreshing swim in the pool. After eating lunch we went back to the beach to lay out. It was about as sunny as this place gets, I suppose.

Of all the beaches in Australia I’ve been to, this one stands alone in one respect: because the sunlight is at best muted out here, the beach is never broiling with radiant heat like the ones to the south. It was warm and windy but also cloudy. Pleasant, actually. Meg tells me she seeks blue oceans; none around here. I advised her to head south to Airlie or Maggie. After a while Neil rejoined us. He told us about a few places he had discovered — a swimming hole, a tidal pool with access to the far south end of the beach.

The weather began to go a little sour, so Meg and I decided to leave. Just then, we bumped into Brian, some guy she knows. The four of us went to find a few of the places Neil discovered. So the four of us took off.

First stop was the swimming hole. It was in the middle of the jungle and only accesible via a narrow trail. A rainforest is a plant riot. When the jungle broke you saw an isolated creek leading to a natural pond. There was a weather-beaten rope swing. Small fish schooled through the placid water. It reminds me of a creek in Missouri that I used to go to when I was a kid. None of us wanted to go swimming in this stagnant little pond, but Neil & Brian discovered that if you dropped small pebbles into the water, the fish would go after them like food. It was thin entertainment, but kind of sadistic too. Meg stayed well away from the water; I begin to recognize in her certain prissy, neat-freakish qualities.

After that we picked up dinner/breakfast at the general store and headed to the tidal pool. This was actually scenic because it was framed by a rocky promontory in the distance. It also led back to the beach proper after an interval. We followed it through. Brian found a coconut lying in the sand that he wanted to crack open, to drink the milk. Seemed like a bad idea to eat sometime you found on the ground… He felt pressured to put it back, but later on I found someone else at the hostel trying to crack open the same coconut. Oh well. Probably won’t cause an epidemic.

After we got back we took another swim at the hostel’s pool, though this time Meg wouldn’t get in until Neil and I did first. She was suddenly shy about peeling down to her bikini. She can be very proper and modest. There’s a certain hesitant tension in her body language, and she’s paranoid that someone will steal her stuff if she leaves it in the cabin, exactly like I was my first day out here. But she never got over it, and in my eyes it now seems ludicrous. Her modesty is especially quirky since she has an excellent body. But she’s only 19, educated and bright, but not immersed in the grubby informality of backpacker culture. But I do think she’s having fun in her tightly controlled way.

After a few hours we made it to PK’s, the backpacker hostel of choice for Cape Trib. Rikke has become a cold fish on this trip; not sure if she’s just tired or bored, but she’s harder and harder to engage in conversation. Having brought her along is starting to look like a bad idea. After she went off for a swim I was just thinking, ‘time for siesta?’ when a girl named Meghan asks me if I’d like to talk to the beach with her and her friend Neil. They are American and 19 and 20 respectively. Again it’s odd to be the old guy here, but I’m not finding it hard to relate at all. They are from New York, out here for college on an exchange program. So off I went to Cape Tribulation Beach with them.

Meghan on the cliffs of Cape Tribulation.

The beach is dark and brooding. Behind you is the lush, wet tropical forest, the heart of darkness, Australian style. (Minus all that the profound Conradian metaphysical terror.) Large dead coral formations, coated in slimy mud, are embedded all along the beach in the smooth tan sand.

The moody tropical foliage grips the beach.

As you face the iron-grey ocean, you are flanked on your left by the rocky point which gives this area its name. Ominous clouds threatening heavy rain roil through the mountains behind you. And oddly enough, though it was cloudy and very windy, people sunbathed, including the staple topless women. Meghan found this shocking. I smiled on the inside, and told her of Balding Bay.

The moody tropical foliage grips the beach.

We walked to the north end of the beach to the cape. We climbed up the rocks but the buckle on one of Meg’s sandals broke so the rest of her climb was barefoot. It was steep and basically a single piece of rock. Seemed easy to fall off. But we got to the top fine. The wind was really gusting and you could see for miles from up there. We looked around up there for a bit before heading back to the beach and to the hostel.

We hiked over to the general store to buy dinner and breakfast for tomorrow. The general store was just someone’s house with a single room with shelves of food and a cash register. We bought all the food we needed for A$10. This was six meals. A single meal at the hostel restaurant was A$9. A$10 vs. A$54… well, it’s not a tough call. We went back to the kitchen building and made dinner. While we ate, a high school friend of Neil’s showed up, a girl from New Jersey he hadn’t seen in years. The fact that they managed to meet in a rainforest on the other side of the planet…

After we ate dinner we went to get ice cream from a place across the road. We linked up with Rikke, who had taken a nap the whole time we had been gone. She had no dinner, so she got real food while we ate ‘Vanilla Heaven.’ We got back to the hostel reception desk just in time to book for a nightwalk through the rainforest tomorrow night. We’re also thinking of renting some mountain bikes for the day tomorrow to do more extensive exploring of the area.

After it got dark Neil wanted to go swimming so we went to the pool. Meghan and I merely dangled our feet into the water from the edge. While we talked, a drunken Kiwi joined us and told us how he and his three mates rented a 4WD and drove north to Cooktown, crossing streams and plenty of mud. Meghan was cold and had something like three layers of clothes on (aside from her bare feet), but she suddenly stripped down to her bikini and jumped into the water. That lasted about 15 seconds before she climbed back out. I don’t entirely get her.

The big question now is, how long can I stay awake? I’m incredibly exhausted but the gods revile backpackers who crash before 9:30. One last note: Two beautiful Australian place names: Botany Bay and Undara. Add these to the group that includes Shenandoah, Kilimanjaro, and Indus Valley.

Late last night while I was at the hostel (Caravella’s 149) I met a few girls and we all went to a bar/restaurant called the Underdog. This place gives free (or discounted) dinners to people from Caravella’s. Over dinner I got to know one of the girls, Rikke (pronounced something like ‘reeg-ay’) from Denmark. Over drinks we made plans to go to up north to Cape Tribulation together. Back at the hostel we booked the trip: 3 days, 2 nights in the tropical north Queensland rainforest. She’s low on cash so I’m paying her way. The bus was to leave at 7:40 the next morning so we tried to crash early, though not before 1 AM as it turned out. Our last minute preparations were hectic.

The bus showed up late the next morning — it’s happened to me before out here, and I’m told this is common in Australia, sort of an Aussie version of manana. The trip has been interesting. The bus took us first to the Daintree river. We boarded a boat to look for estuarine crocs and instead found a green snake, a python, and a tree with large green ant’s nests.

The Daintree River estuary.

Apparently the green ants make for a nutritious treat, packed with protein and Vitamin C-laden citric acids. We didn’t find any ants so I couldn’t try for myself. It rained pretty heavily while we were out on the river. We saw no crocs though, because the Daintree is tidal and the tide was too high. After we got off the boat we got a bite to eat. I ordered a croc dog, a sausage made of crocodile meat served in a bun like a hot dog. Rikke didn’t like it but I thought it was fine. It didn’t taste like chicken. But it probably tasted better than green ants do.

I savagely tear into a croc dog.

The tropical forests envelop everything out here. Many of the plant species here managed to survive the original Cretaceous cometary impact that killed the dinosaurs, and are in a sense living fossils. In fact a biologist who had been studying a plant long thought to be extinct (and available in fossil form only) discovered living examples of it in this rainforest. It was a scientific breakthrough. An Australian farmer had been killing them as weeds because they were poisoning his livestock.