The Tropics

Thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes and Mothers Day wishes....... my family is the best.... you make me feel loved and connected which to me is so important while wandering so far from home.

We finally made it out onto the Great Barrier Reef. All somewhat surreal to say the least..... us at a World Heritage site that stretches 2300km and is so big it can be seen from the moon. On my birthday we were at the southern end of it and because we weren't able to go out from there. We started checking out every access point while heading north up the coast......there are 2900 separate reefs we of course would only be visiting 2 at the most. In Townsville we visited Reef Central Headquarters which is an amazing aquarium where they have brought together absolutely everything that can be seen from one end of the reef to the other including a sea turtle rescue centre. And they have constructed it so that you walk through plexiglass tunnels through the reef. What a wonderful way of making the reef accessible to the masses. Despite this incredible exhibit we were still set on getting out to the Great Barrier Reef. It became a bit of a dilema. Every tour company of course claimed they had the best access. In the end it didn't really matter ...... to be able to swim in an underwater landscape that is so vibrant and full of life. .... how lucky we are to be able to experience this at all. We wore lycra bodysuits to protect ourselves against the toxic box jellyfish but we didn't see any. And they are becoming less frequent as the water temperature cools off. I don't think anywhere else you would see so many people happily put on lycra bodysuits.... they are not very flattering. On every beach they have signs posted warning swimmers about jellyfish and on the more popular beaches they have designated enclosed swimming areas so you don't see to many lycra bodysuits on the beaches. As we've moved further into the tropics the signs also warn of the presence of crocodiles and how to avoid crocodile encounters...... river mangrove esturaries are they're favourite lounging spots. Although we've spent sometime croc watching we haven't encountered one yet..... and we're not so sure we want to encounter one in the wild. They conduct an annual count in Australia between the crocs and the sharks.. last year the sharks won 5 – 3........we're talking fatalities.

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The rainforest is really incredible how everything grows on top of one another. The fig trees are particularly impressive. There are at least 37 varieties of tropical fig trees. The strangler fig or the curtain fig take over other trees and grow incredibly big. We've seen the devastation of the recent cyclone (February) that devastated the coastline just south of Cairns. The rainforest looks like a giant comb has been pulled through it and of course the coastline has been dramatically altered. Where there were once lawns and oceanside promenade there are tree roots and rubble. Despite the devastation people are carrying on and rebuilding and we are told the rainforest regenerates quickly.

Our turn around point was Cape Tribulation where Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef two hundred and forty years ago........ but the monument is in Agnes Water, 1400 km to the south.....confusing. What a beautiful place to get stranded where the rainforest meets the reef. Another 200km and we would have run out of pavement so this was as good a place as any to spend a few nights and turn around.

Tourism is big business here with both the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. The dry season has just begun so tourism will pick up in the months to come. Unbelievable how many tour companies operate here offering everything from surfing the rainforest canopy, crocodile cruises to sleeping out on the reef. It is hard to believe they are all able to survive but it is evident this is a tourist destination year round. We stayed in the spa capital of Australia (Palm Cove) and didn't even go to one spa. There are so many ways you can drain the wallet. We've decided its time to head into the outback, taking the Savannah Hwy to to Darwin to see what we can find in the more remote corners of the country.