Eungella to Cairns: the Coral Sea

We rented an apartment in Yorkeys Knob, a small community on the beach about 20 km north of Cairns. It was named for George “Yorkey” Lawson, a fisherman from Yorkshire, England who homesteaded there. We looked in Cairns, a city of 150,000 on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula, but chose a more relaxed town on the beach north of the city. Cairns spreads out along a mud flat south of the Barron River. The downtown was crowded with traffic and tourists, and we had to pay to park everywhere. In the morning, a constant stream of buses dropped off hundreds of tourists at the marina where they boarded day-boats going to the Great Barrier Reef. Tourists that didn’t go to the reef wandered the Esplanade eating in the restaurants and visiting gift shops and boutiques. I stopped at three dive shops for information on trips to the Great Barrier Reef, and two underwater camera shops to get parts for my camera. Unlike Airlie Beach, dive shops and dive-boat operators are thriving in Cairns. I made a reservation for a day trip on the Tusa 6, which was recommended by one of the dive shops.

Coral bommie (pinnacle) at Hastings Reef

Eungella to Cairns: the Eastern Highlands

Consider the platypus. It has a duck-like bill covered with specialized receptors for finding its prey; a beaver-like tail covered with fur that is not used for swimming; and otter-like webbed feet for swimming (front) and steering (rear) armed with straight claws for digging (front) and curved claws for grooming (rear). Females lay eggs and nurse their young, but lack nipples. If you didn’t already know that it exists, you’d be hard pressed to believe that it does. Platypus were “discovered” near Sydney by European settlers in 1797 (of course, Aboriginal Australians knew about them for millennia). Bewildered, the local governor sent skins and drawings to Great Britain. British zoologists who examined the specimens in 1798 thought they were a hoax perpetrated by Chinese taxidermists, who were selling mummified monkeys with fish tails as mermaids at the time (link).

Platypus in Broken River, Eungella National Park

Yeppoon to Airlie: the Highs and Lows

In Yeppoon, we stayed at a bed-and-breakfast owned by an Aussie (Lois) and a Kiwi (Richard). At breakfast we talked about living in Australia, politics (mostly Donald Trump) and travel. One of our maps showed a colony of flying foxes near Yeppoon. Richard said that they roost in trees along Figtree Creek and we went to look for them late in the afternoon. The tide was ebbing and boats along the tidal creek were resting on their keels in the mud. An old guy in faded shorts and worn tee shirt introduced himself as Dave; he was tall and slim, and as weathered as his clothes. He said he’s lived in a steel-hulled boat tied to a jetty for two decades, one of the 40 or so boats I could see. The Jetty Club was sponsoring a photo contest with a $500 first prize and he said I could take pictures from his jetty.

Boats in Figtree Creek at low tide

Dive Heron - Part 2

Cristian Poulson created the first resort on Heron Island in the 1930s. Poulson was a fisherman and ran a turtle soup cannery on the island in the 1920s. Turtle harvesting and processing was seasonal work and, as the turtle population declined, Poulson made more money taking tourists to the island in the off season. In 1930, he took over a failed effort to establish a resort on Heron Island. In 1932 he opened his resort in the converted turtle factory. It took visitors 6-8 hours to reach the island in sail-powered motor launches; there was no harbor and passengers were ferried ashore across the reef flat in small boats. Researchers and educators used the resort in the 1930s and the island was declared a national park in 1943. In the 1940s, glass-bottom boats towed by motor boats allowed visitors to view the coral reef. Passengers huddled under a blanket to view the reef through a glass panel.

Catch of the day from the 1960s (link)