Melbourne to the Big Red and on to Cairns

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Trip Start Oct 21, 2006 Previous
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  Melbourne, Australia
Monday, January 8, 2007

MELBOURNE TO ULURU (AYRES ROCK)
Melbourne was a stark contrast to the brash and unashamedly tarty Sydney.  The two cities share a great rivalry and it reminds me a lot of the tension and difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow.  I loved Edinburgh so i felt a greater empathy toward Melbourne than i did Sydney.  Melbourne is laid back, bohemian in places and refined in others, exhibiting a very thoughtful balance between old colonial architecture and community spirit with a daring flash of modern architecture and technology.  I think i could grow to love this place.  I latterly found out form some locals that it is a bit pretentious and cliquey and can be a difficult place to meet people which semi shattered my illusions.
I am staying down in St Kilda on the beach front which provides endless comic moments and access to a great street bustling with cafe's and street side eating.  Two beach events that made me laugh;
1) 3 very buff and very self conscious surfers walking down the beach in a manner intended to accentuate their buffness (much like my waddle when i had that accident in Cape Town).  Two teenage girls walking the other way suddenly burst out into loud laughter on seeing them.  One of the girls then points at the massive bloke in the middle and shouts 'your wearing fake tan, i don't believe it - your wearing fake tan'.  They collapse into further fits of laughter and the entire beach turns round to stare (and it was busy).  Aforementioned buff guy visibly shrinks and two minutes later is nowhere to be seen.  Feeling refreshed by the incident i sported my natural paleness and lack of buff with new found pride.
2) Another 2 buff surfers having a shower after a surf session.  They were so worried about getting their hair and boardies wet (despite the fact they were dripping from the surf) they were delicately and balletically washing individual limbs with great care and making every effort not to bump into each other.  The whole thing had a balletic femininity totally at odds with their buff surfer image.  I laughed out loud and then beat a hasty retreat lest they recover a sense of machismo and decide to beat me with their handbags and hairbrushes.
Spent a delightful couple of days wandering around the city, eating out on the street with the masses and driving up the Great Ocean Road.  I had heard a lot of the Great Ocean Road and can testify it is a coast road, though great may be pushing it a bit.  It is nevertheless very pretty though i suspect 'very pretty coast road' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.  Stopped off at various beaches for a swim and a body surf, followed the whole time by half the global population of flies.  Spent a great half hour watching beginners try to get to grips with surfing as they banana flopped off their boards and crashed into the instructors - much like my efforts in South Africa.  I ate out on trendy Brunswick street at a very laid back cafe on my last night and was just relaxing to near horizontal when i was lept on by a neurotically thin and spiky old lady (sell, in her late 40's) two bottles of wine into her evening.  She had spotted the zebra's on my diary and thought this all the invitation she needed to unburden herself upon me.  The brief conversation raced from old diaries she had just thrown away to the plight of the various relationships she had with the people in the diary to the plight of Africa.  I sat in stunned silence for the entire gushing monologue before grunting and developing a myopic interest in my salad.  She was only momentarily put off and launched into a further incoherent babble.  I must attract nutters - sitting in bars on your own is a dangerous occupation over here. 
Still, it was better than my encounter earlier in the day on the promenade that runs past the casino along the river (which looks a lot like the boathouse strewn walkways in Cambridge in places).  I was happily wandering along when i spied a thin vicious looking Aussie guy, shirt off, swearing like a trooper to his mate, obviously cursing what had been a monumentally pants day.  I was just reflecting on what could have pissed him off so much when he launches at me with an elbow as i walk past.  I stopped and turned in stunned silence to be treated to a full on verbal assault and the kind offer of a fight.  If it had not been for the laughably poor insults (best he could do was 'you pink wanker' - i mean, i could do better than that standing in front of a mirror), i would have taken him more seriously.
After a couple of hugely enjoyable days i headed on to Uluru (Ayres rock) to have a wander.  It was 36 degrees and humid for some bizarre reason (they only get 300mm of rain a year) and i instantly melted.  Went on a couple of walking tours, the first of which was the Olgers for sunset (like ayres rock only more humps, which were higher and made of different rock.  Okay, so not that similar but they were red.  Gulped champagne and ate canapes as we watched the sunset.  Would have been very romantic had i not been sharing the company of a large older English lady wearing ill advised tight fitting terry towelling bube tube and matching skirt.  The next morning i walked round Ayres rock for 5 hours and enjoyed breakfast while watching sunrise over the big rock.  You see the pictures and from a distance it looks pretty incredible, but up close it has a spooky spiritual feel to the place.  The only other places i felt this were the Taj Mahal and the Himalaya's.
CAIRNS - LOST TRACK OF HOW FAR IN THIS IS
I flew out to Cairns later that day to explore Cape Tribulation and go diving off the barrier reef.  The diving was bloody incredible.  We were on the outer reef, which was as pristine as any in the ecosystem, and got to dive with a shoal of sharks on my second time in.  They were only a metre and a half long but it did not detract from the fascination.  The coral was not as colourful or abundant as in Mozambique, nor were the fish as plentiful, but the underwater topography was amazing.  I swam along sheer coral walls and through canyons in the coral.  Felt great to be under the water again - it really is like a different world under there.
Cape Tribulation was equally as impressive.  We walked through the 100 million year old rain forest (though it did not look like first growth) and the mangrove swamps, took a boat up the Daintree River and saw Crocs and a Python hanging from a tree (only the Python was hanging from the tree - lest anyone get confused by my poor grammar), walked along the beach at the Cape and swam in a beautiful spot by some rapids on the river.  All in all a fabulous day made all the more interesting by the Croc guide - a died in the wall, nicotine stained, ginger curly mustached Aussie guy with a thick accent and plenty of tales and even more knowledge.  I could bore you for ages with the 'did you know' facts i picked up on Crocodiles.  I met an 'Abo' at the rapids we swam at who sounded like a cross between Kermit and Louis Armstrong on Helium.  Had no idea what he was saying but he found it hilarious and after 10 minutes so did i.
Cairns itself is a great place, though mostly focused around the Esplanade which faces on to the fake beach.  They have a great open air pool, complete with undulating levels and sand which sprawls over a huge area sandwiched between the sea and the Esplanade.  In the evenings everyone piles down and goes for a swim under the floodlights and peers out to watch the stars.  they even have open air communal cooking areas in the adjacent park which all kinds of people were using.  All in all the place had a great feel to it.  Cruised the night market for food, ate out on the Esplanade, drank beer and generally chilled out as i watched the world's great and good roll by.
Met the world's second unluckiest traveler on the day i went diving (behind that woman in Africa who broke her neck and was mugged).  He is a tall skinny guy with an overgrown beard, long hair and clothes that haven't been washed in years.  Wonderfully naive (the ones who have the shittiest time often are) guy, he was busking his way round Australia.  Here is just a sample of his bad luck in Cairns alone:
1) Bought a car with a mate, who turned out to be a shit head.  Guy buggers off leaving the car but it is registered in his name so the poor traveler (Greg) cannot sell it.  Greg has run out of money and needs to flog the car - hence i found him sleeping on the street while he tried to find someone to flog it to.
2) Greg does not drink so the two shots of brandy he had at New Year went straight to his head.  Happy and slightly drunk he wanders onto the Esplanade and tries to say Happy New Year to a whole bunch of kids.  He is incoherent at this point and so scares the kids.  He tries to make amends by doing some juggling tricks with his 'magic balls' only to freak them out further.  Someone calls the police and they grab him.  They find a small swiss army pen knife on him and arrest him for breach of police and carrying a deadly weapon.  He is bailed after a large fine he cannot pay and a court date is set for a time when he will have left the country.  The police won't change the date so if he leaves (which he has to cos he has run out of money) he will be immediately re-arrested, fined $3000 and deported.
3) I meet Greg just after all this, the night after he discovers his bag and clothes infected with lice.  This is not the luckiest of places for the poor bloke.  I offered him some money to help but he wouldn't take any.
Hooked up with a couple of other 'mature' English travelers on my last night and live it up with late night milkshakes following our pizza.  Break out the zimmer frames, we are coming to party !
On to the Whitsundays and sailing round the islands .......................
An aside .............. the International Journal of Ageing and Human Development describes the malaise i slipped into over the last 4 years as 'an over-adaptation to our own routines and expectations, producing 'hyper habituation', mental stagnation and neophobic response orientations'.  Hot damn that sounds impressive (and curiously like intellectual masturbation).  I prefer to call it 'beige' - a series of compromises so insidious in their individual impact you don't realise that, in accumulation, you have given your life away and are no longer doing the things that make you feel alive.  Much like the analogy of the frog in boiling water.   

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