In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle...

Well, our time in Oz grows short. We will leave Cairns today to fly to Darwin, our last stop before heading to Bali on Wednesday afternoon. We've had a great time Down Under full of surprises and chance meetings all of which has led to very long blogs. I'm sorry for the increasingly length but hey - you can't rush a good story! On that note, here's another long tale for ya...

Australia is a persistent place – the people, the land, the animals. They are all seemingly comfortable with overcoming horrendous hardships at every turn. This is a land where people mingle with ancient reptiles, where the world’s oldest rainforest (Daintree Rainforest) meets the world’s largest living organism (the Great Barrier Reef), where the cities sit peacefully next to an unforgiving sea. Yes, this is a land steeped in persistence and I love it for that.
This last weekend we took a trip through the very heart of persistence into a jungle that has continued to grow and prosper in a world that is increasingly hostile to pristine wildernesses. The Daintree rainforest sits north of Cairns about 2 hours. It reminds me of one of those pictures of a face that, upon closer inspection, is actually made up of hundreds of smaller pictures. Daintree is at first glance a living, breathing green mass of impenetrable trees but as you get closer this mass becomes manageable – or at least approachable. Vines as thick and as intricately woven as ropes hang from trees whose tops remain out of sight. It seems a violent place – full of trees and plants that will poke you and prod you and otherwise torture you if carelessly brushed against or unknowingly stumbled upon.
Take for example the aptly named “stinging tree” or the equally ambitious “wait-a-while.” The stinging tree has quite innocent, almost inviting heart-shaped leaves. But this little ‘bugger’ is a heartbreaker. Each leaf is covered in tiny hollow needles just dying to embed themselves in your flesh should you have the bad luck to come in contact with one. We were told that thus accosted the needle creates a ferocious burning that can last for several months – yes, months. A friend of our friends had the misfortune of getting too close for comfort and brushing a leaf with her exposed thigh. The pain was such that later that day she cut the same thigh with a knife (eventually requiring stitches) and didn’t even notice immediately because the stinging tree’s sting so significantly reduced all other afflictions.
The wait-a-while doesn’t have the nastiness of the aforementioned demon but causes irritation in the same degree. This wily little vine snakes away from a palm-like plant and hangs at shoulder or ankle length, just perfect to snag an unsuspecting hiker. And snag it does! This vine is armed with barbs facing upward so that once embedded in the skin, hair or clothes the victim must back up (or wait-a-while) as they remove the barbs and untangle themselves from the vine.
And these are just the plants! I won’t go into the spiders the size of your fist, the multiple deadly snakes, the crocs lurking in every creek or the cassowaries waiting to slash open your exposed skin with one death-like kick from their taloned feet. (And, no, I did not just make up a monster or quote some line from the Jabberwocky. A cassowary is an emu-like bird with dark black feathers and a blue neck and horned head. I promise – I can’t make this stuff up!) All of this violence and danger is covered nicely by the most brilliant and lively shades of green you could imagine. If ever you desire to get a true-to-life prospective of how small you are in the grand scheme of things, take a walk up Cooper’s Creek or stand beside a strangler fig the size of a small building. Perspective, I must say, comes in shades of green.
But don’t be alarmed by the flora and fauna I described above. Those are nature’s scary stories – much like the ghost stories about abandoned houses told to children at night so that they won’t go wondering into unsafe places. Nature doesn’t plot against our survival – it merely tries to survive. If anything, be encouraged that in this day and age of corporate ladders, insurance scams, mobility and mass media that there remains a place so uncontrollably and undeniably wild that our dominion and domain shrinks to insignificant and poorly paved roads cutting the tiniest of ribbons through a world we can’t fully understand, categorize or replicate. I dread the day when man decides he has learned all there is to learn. Thank God that I live in a time where knowledge is bountiful but forever lacking, where the root of a tree still captures my imagination and the deep blue-green of a creek still thrills and scares me. If ever you desire to get a true-to-life prospective of how small you are in the grand scheme of things, take a walk up Cooper’s Creek or stand beside a strangler fig the size of a small building. Perspective, I must say, comes in shades of green.
A dose of wilderness to such a degree can leave one feeling shell-shocked and bland. You’ll stare at normal trees and flowers with a kind of disappointed air. You’ll dream about the sounds and smells of that magical place only to wake to ho-hum sunlight and the clinks and clanks of everyday life. But it’s worth this apathetic feeling because it serves as a reminder that something wild is always lying just beyond the horizon. That the mystery and the grandeur of raw earth and wind and rain is never truly out of reach. I read recently that to realize how small you are, you must realize how little you actually have. Case in point – what gifts could I bring to the rainforest? Nothing more than to leave it alone. To tread lightly and softly. But what gifts did that rainforest give to me? All the green in the trees, all the life in the earth, and all the air that I was breathing! And it gave it willingly. How’s that for a shade of perspective?
Basically, this two day reprieve into my own private Walden Pond left me thinking about all things great and small. It was a perfect place for thinking. Our temporary residence was the Crocodylus Lodge, a scattering of basic bungalows of unique construction cut into the dense forest with a conscious effort to disturb as little as possible. The frames of these bungalows were large, smooth logs over which green canvas tarps were stretched. The ‘roof’ was water-proofed tarp, the walls were of a more mesh-like material so that I awoke both days to filtered sunlight and the silhouettes of trees and vines crowding around the bungalow. Birds called out from the bush throughout the night and, though it was unnerving at times, it fit the natural ambiance of the area.
This place – and this weekend – was owed entirely to our generous hosts, Steven and Kelly Real, and their true-blue Australian buddy, Warren, and his fiancée, Hazel. Warren was a natural tour guide with a full arsenal of hair-raising and hilarious stories as well as tons of facts and information about the trees, fish and animals that call the rainforest home. I felt like a kid on a field trip and I must have been just as annoying with a constant stream of questions. Warren drove us patiently to every worthwhile lookout and beachside view. He let us take seemingly thousands of pictures from every angle possible.
Our first day took us almost all the way to Cooktown through Aboriginal villages full of vacant-looking locals sitting on porches and wandering the streets. We drove through rocky ‘streams’ (that looked much more like rivers to me), up steep inclines and across sand dunes in Warren’s 4 wheel drive Land Cruiser. All the while the forest stood calmly around us as if breathing in and out in the same way it has done for millions of years. That day was highlighted by exotic sampling of local cuisine – we ate the bright green butts of an ant called, you guessed it, the green ant which tasted strongly of lemon – and catching a glimpse (and plenty of pictures) of a 6 foot Amethyst Python crawling lazily up an embankment.
Day two was even more engaging. Warren took us on a 5 hour hike up Cooper’s Creek (and by up, I literally mean up. We walked through the creek which was ankle-deep to “We’re going to have to swim this part” in depth.) The way was rocky and slippery but we sloshed along under vines and fern trees and past pools which were a rich cobalt blue. Our reward was nothing short of magnificent. Alexander Falls, a plummeting masterpiece of white water and black rock, whose top looked impossibly high, the water gushing out of a tree-lined ridge. We stood beneath its crystal waters and smiled broadly. It was cold and fresh and all the things a waterfall is supposed to be at the end of a long hike. It was a truly spectacular weekend, a gift from people whose hospitality and generosity had already left me eternally grateful. North Queensland with her magnificent forest and much-needed relaxation turned out to be yet another crown jewel in our stay in Australia.

This will probably be my last blog from Oz. I'll do my best to keep the blog up in Southeast Asia but it might prove to be a little more difficult. Don't worry about us if I haven't posted in a while. Lisa has a new computer to add to our toys in tow - so hopefully I'll write plenty on that. Which means multiple posts when we finally do get a chance to use an internet connection.

I hope you are all enjoying spring weather and good health. Keep in touch. Miss and love you all.

Fairwell for now - We're back on the road...