The Word of the Day is WET

Sunday, April 4--It’s Easter Sunday and our final day in Australia for this trip. There is only one word for this day and that word is WET. We awoke to the sound of hard rain falling and it has not stopped raining for any length of time all day long.

Today’s plan was to eat an early breakfast on Dunk Island before departing by catamaran back to Mission Beach on the mainland. We were encouraged to “eat hearty” because our trip would not allow for lunch until 2PM. Mike and I were the first people into the breakfast area and found enough to eat to carry us through. It’s been a bit of a challenge on the island because certain dishes weren’t always ready when needed. But we survived.

There was some challenge in getting to the reception building to settle our bills because water was coursing along the walkways too deeply to pass in some places. When we left to be bussed back to the jetty, we all cut through the gift shop, umbrellas dripping and making a mess.

Packed with dripping umbrellas into the resort’s little bus, we paused carefully at the airfield to make sure the plane sitting there wasn’t about to take off. Why anyone would have wanted to take off into the cloudy mess around us is beyond me and, in fact, we passed unscathed.

We waited a few minutes under cover by the jetty for our boat, then watched as they loaded our luggage into the boat when it arrived. They had no cover for the bags, so I was glad that I wasn’t relying on having dry clothes in that bag for later. (As it turned out, when we unpacked the bag later, it was quite wet. Oh, well.)

We had a full complement in the boat and wallowed our way through the water the few miles to Mission Beach. Because of the rain, there was little ventilation and the smell of diesel was pretty stinky at first. Again, we survived, though wet and steamy. We kept a running conversation with our friends that kept us from dwelling on the less-than-ideal conditions.

Arriving in Mission Beach, we were met by our coach driver and, like the wet rats we appeared to be, we boarded the bus and left for the drive to our next and final adventure, the Skyrail to Kuranda. We actually retraced our path back through Cairns to get to Kuranda because it is north of the city and Dunk Island is to the south.

Pat and Mike and I caught shared a gondola car and began looping up over the rainforest. What a spectacular sight it is as a myriad of greens unfolds below and above us. There are two stops along the Skyrail’s route, including one to see Barron Falls. Because of the deluge of rain that’s been happening here, the Falls were roaring below us, tearing down the mountainside with fury. Our guide told us that since the river was dammed above here to generate electricity for the area, the falls mostly appear as “a trickle.” That wasn’t the case today.

Each rainforest experience we’ve had has been special. These areas are incredibly lush and literally dripping with life. It’s truly amazing to see how the trees fight for the light amid such dense foliage. Most of the really tall Kauri pines have no branches on their large trunks until the very top where they’ve risen above other trees. The palm trees support ferns, growing out like big nodes, all the way up their trunks, as we saw on Dunk Island.

At the top of the gondola ride, we were met again by the coach and deposited nearby in the village of Kuranda. We were told it started as a “hippie outpost.” Today it has a market and some tourist attractions (Butterfly House, etc.) and a market full of shops and restaurants.

We had our late lunch with the obligatory Australian meat pies. Pat had bratwurst from a little German restaurant. Desert included an Anzac biscuit (what we call a cookie), a mixture of rolled oats, flour sugar, coconut and golden syrup that mothers baked and sent to the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand when they were fighting in World War I. The biscuits are tasty, but rather hard. We decided that the soldiers could have either eaten them or used them to hurl at the enemy like Chinese throwing stars. I wouldn’t want to be hit by one.

A few souvenirs later, we were back on the bus and briefly toured through Cairns. It is an attractive city with a park along Trinity Bay which comes off the Coral Sea. It also has an enormous public swimming lagoon, created for the city’s citizens because they can’t swim in the ocean because of stinging jellyfish and can’t swim in the rivers because of crocodiles. Like much of Australia, the beauty often masks real danger.

We’re getting ready for our farewell dinner tonight and must be up before 3:00AM for an early flight. Everyone seems to agree that we’re glad we came and glad to be headed home. It will take time to process all we’ve seen and done, even to just figure out how many miles we’ve covered. There’s no question, however that the experience here will remain with us forever, its pleasures echoing through our lives. The “land down under” has left its mark on us and maybe, someday, we’ll come again to see, as they say often here, “how it goes.”