Batty Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef

On my way back from Cape Tribulation I stopped in Port Douglas, a pretty little town with yet another great beach. It did have one problem, it absolutely stunk of bats. The bats flew around all of the time, even in broad daylight - it was actually quite cool to see them close up!

I did a 2-tank dive from Port Douglas out to the Reef, it was great to be back underwater again. The reef was of course amazing, but also it is very interactive, its fun to poke at the coral and tease the fish (harmlessly of course). Our diver-guide showed me a clam, around 6 inches long, whose wavy arms clamped shut if you prodded them, like a venus fly trap. I was impressed. Then he showed me another one, about 8 inches long. Then (I figured out he was teasing me now), he showed me a Giant Clam. Woah these beasts are big, around 4 ft long. I guess that's why they are called Giants.

I also got to cuddle a very cute Puffer Fish, it obviously wasn't scared as it hadn't blown up. I put my fingers near the Christmas Tree Fish, which would disappear as quick as a flash inside their homes if you got too close, and then peer back out again. I hand fed a 3ft long and just as wide Potato Cod (don't know why it's called this, maybe it tastes good as fish n' chips?) and generally had a great time.

Cape Tribulation

I've not been having too much luck recently, over the last few days I've been sunburnt (again). I'm covered from head to toe in mossie bites, so much so I'd make a good dot-to-dot picture. I had to pay twice for a bus ticket, and I managed to lose my wallet (I did get it back after 24 hours). I'm not going to make like a whinging pom and complain though, I'll tell you about the good bits...

Cape Tribulation is simply gorgeous. Acres and acres of virgin rainforest and golden sandy beaches. That's it, there's nothing else there, except of course amazing wildlife and a few houses. The hostel I stayed at was right in the middle of the rainforest, it was really nice.

I went on a guided night walk through the rainforest - we saw loads of stuff, including extremely cute lizards. Their natural defence when being stalked by predators (i.e. us) is to freeze and pretend they are part of the tree. They don't look anything like the tree though, so we could see them clearly and got some great close-up photos. There were also some cool insects, e.g. a caterpillar with legs longer than its body width. Also several spiders and stick insects, which for some reason were attracted to me and no-one else. Luckily I like stuff like that, because as each one fell in my hair / climbed up my leg, no one tried to help me get rid of the things, they were too busy taking photos of me with massive bugs crawling on me. The group did think I was a bit strange as I said I really like spiders. We also saw a snake, my third one in Australia now!

Up in Cape Trib I met a local guy, and he took us out for the day. It was much better than having to pay for a tour, as not only did he know tons about the area, he took us to lots of places that tour groups are banned from as the locals want to keep them for themselves. We swam in a lovely blue water hole in the river, and some beautiful deserted beaches. I saw a Goanna, a big lizard, I'm doing well on the wildlife spotting front. We stopped by another river and fed some cute turtles my lunch (I was the only one with food). We had to keep really quiet here, as the turtles are even more out of bounds to 'outsiders' than the watering hole, and they are guarded by a woman called 'mad Kate'. It was a great day.

A Town Like Alice - Uluru - Dinky the singing Dingo

Alice Springs has been on my 'list of places to see' since I read the book a long time ago. The main thing I remember reading is a description of an ice-cream parlour, so obviously the first thing I did was to go and buy one - delicious, Kahlua ice cream (like Bailey's but much much better).

The best thing about Alice is the river, as it is upside down. The water flows underground, and there is sand on top. Trees grow in the middle, and you can just walk across without getting your feet wet. In fact you'd be hard pressed to tell it was a river, if there weren't bridges crossing it. I made Alice my base as I went on a tour to Uluru (Ayers Rock).

Uluru is strange, as before I actually went there I had seen it a thousand times. It is an ubiquitous image on postcards and Australian books. In the pictures, it just looks like a big rock in the middle of the desert.

When I arrived, that's exactly what I thought - that it is just a big rock in the middle of the desert. It's a long way to travel just to see a lump of sandstone. However, after about 1/2 hour of staring at it, I suddenly got a weird feeling. I can't describe it, except that it was overwhelming. I suddenly understood what all the fuss is about. After that, I could hardly take my eyes off the thing. Everyone on the tour felt the same way, and its not something you can experience from looking at a thousand pictures.

The beauty of the rock, its magical quality, is that it changes like it has a personality of its own. Everytime you look at it, it looks different. It changes not only colour, but as the sun sets or rises, it appears to change physically as new cracks and crevices are highlighted and shadows move across the surface. My favourite colour was pitch black with a dark blue sky, it looked like this early in the morning before the sunrise. Beautiful.

It looks very different close up than from a distance. I didn't climb the rock, as the aboriginal people who own the land hold it sacred like a temple and ask people not to climb. I believe that when you are visiting someone else's home or country, you should respect their wishes. So instead I walked around the base.

That night we 'swagged under the stars'. A swag is a canvas bag that you put a sleeping bag inside. It is brilliant, what else do you need? Why stay in a 5 star hotel when you can have 5 million stars? I wouldn't recommend laying your swag on an ants nest though. My friend Matt did this and woke in the middle of the night with hundreds of ants crawling over his head and in his hair. Not good.

The second evening we went to see the sunset again. On the way we passed posh tour groups who had the champagne and caviar out, and made an effort to walk up the hill. Watching sunset over Uluru wasn't so good this night, there were too many clouds, but from where we were we could also see the Kata Tjuta mountains and the sunset there was absolutely spectacular. We felt quite smug tramping back down the hill to see the disappointed posh people who hadn't been able to see the mountains. Anyway, because we had all missed out on champagne, Glen, our lovely tour guide, bought us some the following evening. Is there anything better than drinking champagne out of plastic mugs whilst toasting marshmallows on an open fire?

On the third day we tramped round the King's Canyon, an amazing place but it was somewhat spoilt by the the intense heat and millions of flies. We got to watch a great sunset from the top of the hill though, coming back down in the dark.

Another day, another 5am start to watch another sunrise. I have seen some beautiful sunrises out here in the Outback, it is amazing to watch the birth of a new day. They even make someone like me (who hates mornings) want to get up early.

The last day was the best in some ways, as everyone was in a great mood. Matt took control of the music on the bus and by 7am we were all partying hard! In fact, the party lasted all throughout the day and til 4am the following morning, I had been up for 23 hours before I fell into bed!

For lunch and a swim in the pool, we stooped off at a remote pub. We had to stay here, if only to see 'Dinky the singing Dingo'. A Dingo is a wild dog, with a fearsome reputation for stealing people's food, bags and even babies. Jim, the pub owner, had trained one to prove they weren't so bad. I don't think I need any more evidence for my theory that everyone in the outback is plain crazy.

I was picked out of the small audience to play the piano. Of course I went bright red, and my protests that I couldn't play went unheard. I bashed away tunelessly and Dinky jumped up onto the keys and started to sing. Well it sounded more like howling, but I wasn't going to argue with Jim. Dinky was about 2 inches away from my face, it was my first (and hopefully last) close encounter with a Dingo.

The Outback - Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy is cool. Or more accurately hot. Or even more accurately, extremely weird.

It is a small town slap bang in the middle of the Outback. There is no grass anywhere; the streets are lined either side with dusty sand. Almost every building - the cafe, shops, the hostel I stayed in and people's houses - is underground. This is understandable, it's partly to avoid searing temperatures (apparently it was 60 degrees celcius in January), but also because it doesn't cost them anything; the cost of digging out the houses is off-set by the amount of Opal they find underground. Houses literally pay for themselves.

Everyone who lives in the town is slightly odd. I think it is either the heat or the recognised affliction 'Opal fever' that makes them this way. For example there is a bloke in the supermarket with a glass eye, that looks like he just picked up an opal off hte ground and shoved it in his eye. It wouldn't surprise me if he had done. There's also a woman who works in the pub, and keeps a pet lizard who lives behind the bar. It's a very cute lizard it has to be said, a bearded dragon, she let me stroke it and pick it up. In between serving us drinks (there was only me and a fellow traveller as customers) she kept running outside to catch moths and other insects for the lizard to eat! How about Crocodile Harry, a croc hunter who inspired the film Crocodile Dundee. I could go on.

There is a massive spaceship in the middle of town. Seriously. A lady in the shop opposite told me it was left behind by a film crew, but the way everyone is round here I'm starting to think its real...