Trails and Tribulation

Noah Beach

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but the sea is way louder at night. And that’s not just in the city either, when the daytime cacophony of the concrete jungle has quietened down, the humans are asleep, and the sound of the surf comes into its own. It’s the same in the bush. The sea is roaring now, it’s only a few metres away from my tent, it’s like a living breathing beast, it’s everywhere, pounding on the sand, the roar then bouncing off the thickly rainforested hills that rear up on my other side. The wind is making whishes, in harmony with the ocean, rushing through the trees that I’m nestled within. Insects, frogs and unknown critters complete the score by playing weird horn lines and percussion.

The strange thing is, Noah Beach isn’t even a surf beach. A few kilometres offshore, the northern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef bear the brunt of the ocean swell, and, while the waves are constant here, it’s definitely not Hawai’i. But in this little sweatbox of a tent it certainly feels and sounds like it.

As soon as I got here late today I headed straight to the sand, and was dumbstruck by the vastness of its wild beauty.

I’m not far from Kulki (Cape Tribulation), Eastern Kuku Yalanji country, way up in far north Queensland, about as far north as you can get in eastern Australia in a little 2WD hatchback like mine, which btw wasn’t designed for long trips like this, but rather for carrying suburbanites from home to shopping centre, school, pharmacy and psychologist. But it’s done a dang good job getting me here I must say, although it must be developing an inferiority complex lately, with all the company it’s been keeping.

It’s 4WD mecca up here. And not just your run-of-the-mill shiny chromed-up snorkelly massive SUV animals that growl and hop as they tower over you in the next lane, champing-at-the-bit at the traffic lights, making your little hatchback cower and shake on its flimsy axles. No siree, off-road beastial idolatry has reached new, frightening heights these days, and places like this are a perfect catwalk. Huge armoured vehicles, tank-like 8WDs, plough through the backroads, covered in mud and dust, looking like they’ve just fallen off the back of a Hercules returning from Afghanistan. By the look of them they could probably actually fall out of one of those helicopters from a great height and remain totally unscathed. These monsters are either heading to, or coming from, Cape York, Australia’s most northeasterly point, at the very tip of Queensland, a trip that involves a lot of corrugated bumpy roads, and some major river crossings. The trip is fairly straightforward to complete in a strong but modest 4WD. But that ain’t the point mate. Avva look at me truck! Maaate!

Kulki (Cape Tribulation)

I must say I don’t care about all that stuff really, I’m just so easily distracted. The fact is that this part of the country is so stunning that it’s almost impossible for any judgmental thoughts to even form, or if they do, they don’t hang around for too long.

To get up here, you need to cross the Daintree River on a ferry, and as soon as you get to the northern side of the river you’re in an amazing tropical wonderland. Tall thick World Heritage jungle surrounds the road, massive trees tower over you as you negotiate the narrow winding road, as you pass rushing waterfalls and croc-infested creeks and rivers. Trails lead into the thick forest, the mangroves, and to the ocean, and they pass through some the most beautiful wet tropical rainforest I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a fair bit).

This jungle hosts plants from almost every single evolutionary stage of plant life, dating back over 400 million years. The forest itself is 180 million years old, 10 million years older than the Amazon. How seriously special it is to be here, me, a mere grain of sand, on the seriously long coastline of the history of life on earth.

Fan palms tower overhead, rubbing shoulders with the tallest cycads on the planet, along with myriad species of other palms, vines, epiphytes and mangroves. And of course there’s those rainforest giants, the ancient trees that create their very own ecosystems, hosting their own unique ecological menageries within the realms of their enormous trunks and branches.

The forest exudes every shade of green under the sun, although the sun is hard-pushed to even get through. 80-90% of all light is blocked by the forest canopy, which explains why my iPhone 8 takes such crap photos of it. Any good shots are flukes. Life is just so turbocharged in this place, every hectare of this wonderland deposits 10 tonnes of leaf/fruit litter per annum, which is gobbled up by fungi, birds, insects, animals and microorganisms, and reprocessed into food and nutrients to keep the whole machine purring along at a rate of knots. Rather incredible, don’t you think?

On a longer hike today I met Michelle, who’s from Tathra on the south coast of NSW, and her mum Katherine, who lives in Sydney. I really like them both. Michelle’s a GP, and is starting a 3 week locum in a couple of days in a tiny community called Coen, about 400km up the road, on Cape York Peninsula. She’s been everywhere man, and had lots of interesting stories to tell me about living in indigenous communities in Nhulunbuy, Elcho Island, and other places. She told me there are so many health issues in those places, the patriarchal top-down colonial approach still prevails, service providers often treat their patients as if they have no intelligence, as if they don’t know what’s best for themselves, and so of course the locals there have little trust in non indigenous services.

Covid vaccinations were a case in point. Many indigenous people were mistrustful of the whole vaccination regime, as they’d had dodgy experiences with vaccination programmes in the past, but rather than recognising the reasons for the mistrust and trying to rebuild it, they were treated like naughty children by health professionals. For so many years indigenous people have been making the point that they need to be listened to, so they can explain what it is they actually need. But it seems we can’t even hear that basic point.

Michelle also expressed her frustration at the fact that whenever she does a locum in another state the bureaucracy and forms involved drive her crazy. She told me she told her co-worker that she believes the states should be abolished and everything should be run federally, to which her co-worker replied “but what about State of Origin then?” Bloody good point mate.

Anyway Michelle’s in her late 50s I guess, and like me she brought up 3 kids, we chatted for hours, in fact we ended up doing the whole walk together, exchanged numbers, and hopefully will meet again one random day.

Tully Gorge

As seems to have happened to me quite a lot lately, the Covidian Era again scuppered my travel plans on the way here. The night before I was planning to stay with my niece Jacqui in Trinity Beach, north of Cairns, she called me to let me know that her partner had just tested positive for the spiky cough, and that she had symptoms too, and they needed to isolate. Bummer. We were both sad about it, as were the 3 kids, she said they love having visitors, and I was looking forward to getting to know the little grommets, as well as spending some decent time with Jacqui for the first time in a generation.

But of course, one closed door means another open tent flap, and so I happily set off to visit Tully Gorge instead, about 45kms inland from Tully, the wettest place in Australia. Tully gets over 4m of rain a year, 427cm, which averages out at over 1cm of rain every single day of the year. That’s a lot. Mullumbimby gets 130cm. And, well, Adelaide gets 52cm. So to keep up with its hard-to-maintain BOM average, it rained in Tully while I was there, thanks a lot BOM.

The Tully River is a rushing blue white water river, I can’t make up my mind which, as it’s white when it rushes over rocks and falls, and a brilliant blue everywhere else.

The whole area is national park, except right at the end of the road, where there’s a hydro station, of all things. But downstream, all along the road, and at the campsite, it’s beautiful thick rainforest, jam packed with butterflies, insects, birds, crocodiles and cassowaries.

People go on about crocodiles when they come up here, those amazing living creatures that are absolutely fascinating, and worthy of infinite attention. They have, after all, been around since before the dinosaurs, and they’ve survived both the breakup of the earth’s continents, and all the Ice Ages. Not bad really, considering their brains are smaller than golf balls, too small to host anything decently evolved, like emotions. Besides fear and aggression, that is. Speaking of emotionless brains, it reminds me of some presidents and billionaires, who hoard the world’s wealth and gobble up our resources in an incredibly short-sighted reptilian feeding frenzy, whilst crying crocodile tears for the working classes and the poor. With apparent impunity. Hmmm.

Anyway, poor old cassowaries are just as amazing as emotionless crocs, and no one seems to really give much of a rat’s arse about them. They’re not as cool, sexy and dangerous as crocs, that’s a given. But it’s not fair. It’s not just about being cool, sexy and dangerous. I need to right a few wrongs here, give cassowaries their due, give them a bit of bit-time. Cassowaries, I’ll have you know, are actually quite dangerous, if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, ie, if they think you’re a threat to their chicks. In those circumstances they won’t hesitate to attack you with a fury, they’ll rip you into thin shreds of Blutwurst, using the claws on their toes, and a 15cm long sharpened Opinel dagger-claw on the inside of their foot. Sexy?

As a result of all this the Qld national parks service, in its infinite marketing genius, heavily advertises its “casso-wary” message, which is designed to 1. stop people getting ripped to shreds by the large birds, and 2. stop cassowaries from being ripped to shreds by speeding armoured vehicles from Afghanistan.

I didn’t actually see any cassowaries in the forest, they’re timid beasts, so I’ve posted a brochure pic, in case you’re not from Australia and don’t know what the hell I’m even talking about. However, we did come across a large cassowary scat on our walk today, a fairly recent one, which in the pic is that weird looking grey thing on the ground full of palm seeds and other assorted seed saver action. Cassowaries play a vital role in distributing seeds around the rainforest, particularly palm seeds. After both Michelle and I studied the scat for awhile she broke off a bit of it, smelt it, and said it smelt quite sweet. Who would’ve thought? I suggested to her, with a super serious voice, that she should taste it, as that’s a really good way of identifying it. And you know what? She nearly did. I couldn’t believe it. She put it up to her mouth, opened her mouth, and then right at the last second said “no way, I’m not eating this!” Damn!

However, later on I did manage to convince her that the large purple egg-shaped rainforest fruit that I found was actually a cassowary egg! Haha. She only realised what it was when I passed it over to her. That’s not my hand in the shot, it’s hers. My fingers aren’t that short. Btw I tasted that purple fruit, it was disgusting, it tasted worse than an unripe banana, like drinking Stop’n’Grow anti-nail-biting fluid mixed with diesel. Later Michelle and Katherine told me the ranger told them the purple fruit I ate was extremely poisonous, and that you shouldn’t even touch it. Well, it’s a few hours later and I’m fine, awww shit ooh fuck ….I’ve suddenly got this huge ….. aahhhh ….stomach … ahhh fuckkk…. cramp, OMG! Fuck!

Nah, only joking.

There’s a Gulf between us

So it’s Saturday night, and rather than partying in some pub in Byron, or even partying at a party somewhere, anywhere!, I’m sitting alone in the Albion Hotel, Normanton, way up on the edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which, in case you don’t know, is that massive body of water that stretches for over a thousand kilometres between Cape York and Arnhem Land, in the middle of serious nowhere in northern Australia. The fairy lights are flashing here in the beergarden, mozzies are biting me on my fingers, I don’t know why there in particular, given that my ankles and feet are exposed, repellant free, and totally up for being bitten. Mental As Anything are playing through the slightly distorted speakers, singing “hey there you with the sad face, come up to my place and live it up.” Are they talking about me? Can people tell? “You beside the dance floor, what do you cry for, let’s live it up.” Nah, through my tears I can see there’s no dance floor near me.

It was a long day of driving today, but it was really stunning. And I feel like I’m now on a completely different planet. Last night, deep in the rainforest, it poured and poured, everything was wet, I woke up early this morning, watched the sunrise over the ocean (shock horror), said my grateful goodbyes to the Pacific Ocean, headed back over the Daintree River on the ferry, and then rose up west into the Tablelands. Then I crossed the Great Divide, and headed into the savannah, that long long expanse of forested flat earth that stretches out as far as the eye can see, and then when you drive all the way to that spot, it’s the same again. All day. It’s really amazing.

Btw things are looking up in the pub here. Jeff Buckley just made it onto the playlist, which is a definite step up. It’s actually quite a cool pub, and is getting cooler and cooler the more beers I drink. The front bar has that classic outback pub vibe - complete with pictures on the walls of croc hunters, rodeo cowpoke hot-diggity-dog cowboys, and other assorted outback paraphernalia. Locals with big bellies and mullets are starting to rock up.

I’m camping at Leichhardt Lagoon, on a private property about 25km from here. When I arrived not so long ago the caretaker, a friendly red-faced middle aged man with a sizeable pot belly, showed me a few camping spots to choose from. I asked him where the best place to eat in town was. He said The Albion, (that’s why I’m here), and he also told me that pretty much all of the other places in town (there are other places??) aren’t doing food anymore because they can’t find staff. He then said if I want a job I could pick one up straight away, if I could cook. I said I way prefer eating, not cooking. He looked me up and down and said, “oh really, you don’t look like you eat much at all.” Ha-bloody-ha. You see? Fair suck of the sav Anna. That’s exactly the sort of thing you have to put up with, every single day, as a skinny vegetarian, people just don’t realise what it’s like. It’s really hard. I’m getting teary again.

I’ve always wanted to see the Gulf with my very own two-eyes-with-double-vision, and now I’ve finally done it, and I can die happy! No more regrets or unfulfilled dreams on my deathbed. The Gulf of Carpentaria really is a massive expanse of water I must say, it stretches right from the flat-rocked coastline all the way to the end of the flat earth. After that, I’m not sure. Maybe there’s some sort of waterfall action at the end of the flat bit? Is it, like, just a vertical wall of water that goes down, like, kilometres deep? Does it just sit there in space at the end, suspended, while unsuspecting dugongs, sharks and the occasional croc accidentally plop out, and free fall at a rate of cosmo-knots until they end up splattering down onto flat Mars? Is that why Mars is red? I’m really not that well-versed on the “science” of that particular theory. Anyway, not only did I see the Gulf, but despite the croc danger I couldn’t resist putting my feet in its water as well, just so my body could feel that it’s actually finally been to the end of that part of the land earth. It felt so good, it was also quite warm. But I didn’t linger. I’d be so embarrassed to die that way.

Next Up

So … the road for me now continues to lead westward, through the vast expanses of (more) savannah, at the end of which I’ll be forced to soak my bones (and skin) in soothing healing hot springs, and to lie on my back and ponder at the clear blue sky, in the deep cool gorges of the vast Northern Territory. It’s so excrutiatingly hard, but I’ll just have to grit my teeth and take this one for the team.❤️