Kuranda Rain Forest, the "Tropical North" of Queensland, March 29

Golden Orb spider

The tropical rainforests of Far Northern Queensland are among the oldest on earth. They are home to an incredible array of plants and animals. Twelve hundred species of flowering plants, eight hundred different rainforest trees,spectacular orchids, Strangler figs, exotic palms and hundreds of unique creatures inhabit this lush green world. This is the largest remaining wet rain forest on the planet. The Kuranda rainforest is the only surviving wet rain forest in Australia and is dated at 120 million years of age. This panorama is similar to what our planet looked like long before the forerunners of man crept out the sea and while prehistoric creatures still roamed the earth.

We opted for a ride on the world’s longest tram, known as the “Skycar”, 4.7 miles in length and travelling high above the jungle floor below. The tram travels uphill to the village of Kuranda. The cars suspended by cable high above the rain forest and the rivers that we crossed below teemed with “Freshy” crocodile”. “Freshies”, as their name implies, inhabit fresh water and brackish rivers as opposed to “Salties” in the ocean. The town of Kuranda was replete with countless souvenir shops and small restaurants but there was nothing much else to see or do.  

The return trip offered a second option, a journey aboard a 100-year-old train. The trip took us down the mountain alongside the sheer rim of steep gorges that dropped away into thin air just three or four feet from the side of the train. The ride took us past steeply plunging waterfalls and through sections of the steamy rain forest filled with colorful tropical birds and giant blue butterflies.

Barron Falls

Completion of the railroad in 1886 required fifteen hundred workers, laboring daily throughout long hot, steamy days using only picks, shovels and dynamite as methods to break through the rocky surface.  The narrow gauge railroad travelled through fifteen hand-hewn tunnels, 58 bridges and 98 curves, some suspended high in the air. Gold had been discovered in the area in 1883, that was the impetus for the arduous three-year construction.  Numerous lives were lost due to dangerous work conditions and it is suspected that far more died as a result of snakebites and encounters with other predator species that continue to inhabit the region. 

At dusk in downtown Cairns we were surprised to find thousands of Lorikeets flocking to a single tree chirping loudly and continuously.  The picture is underexposed since this photo was taken at dusk but you can still see the beautiful bright colors of the birds.  It was a truly impressive display of nature. 

Just a small number of Lorikeets hanging out for happy hour

The Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, Queensland, March 28

We’re enjoying our visit to Cairns but this is certainly the hottest and most humid location we’ve visited. The temperature is hovering in the low to mid-nineties with a humidity rate of near 100%. This is northern Australia’s tropical zone and we have arrived at the tail end of their summer, the wettest season of the year. It’s drizzled lightly on a few occasions but for the most part the moisture simply hangs heavily in the air. Cairns is located at the northeast corner of Australia, near the top of the country bordering on the Coral Sea. We’re near the equator and it is lush and tropical.

Early on our first full day in Cairns we boarded a catamaran that ferried us to Green Island, fifteen nautical miles offshore.  Green Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef rising above the sea.  

Green Island on the Inner Reef

The Great Barrier Reef extends more than fifteen hundred miles down the eastern coast of Australia.  Green Island was selected for reef viewing because it is considered relatively safe from predators. The “Salty” crocodiles do occupy the water, as do the deadly “Box jelly fish” and people are warned to remain alert. The water is safer on the island reef than on the shore of the mainland where signs are posted that warn of crocodile attacks and against venturing into the water. We donned snorkel gear provided after assurances that the danger level was low, and swam off the beach and out into deeper water to observe the world’s most famous coral reef up close. The Great Barrier Reef and the Great Wall of China are the only two objects on earth that can be viewed unaided from the moon. As we approached slightly deeper water we found ourselves swimming across beds of live coral as the white sandy ocean bottom dropped slowly away beneath us. Brian quickly spotted a large turtle just a few feet away and later was surprised to see a stingray appear just six feet away.  (That sucker was big too.)

Creatures identified as sea cucumbers were seen lying among the numerous colorful beds of coral. As we swam further from shore enormous rust colored brain coral slipped by only feet beneath the surface. Far spreading beds of long golden fern-like coral gently swayed back and forth with the ocean current. The coral is alive and touching it not only kills it but can result in serious skin abrasions, in places it is razor sharp.  Snorkelers were advised to enjoy it from a safe distance to protect themselves and the coral.

An option was available to go beneath the sea in a submersible craft that featured large windows completely surrounding the hull under the water line. That was too much for me to pass up so I enjoyed a thirty-minute breathtaking journey while Brian elected to continue snorkeling. From beneath the water the teeming sea life was right there in front of me, sometimes brushing against the window. 

The semi-submersible submarine

View from the semi-sub

Melbourne, March 25-26

View from the balcony

What a wonderful and vibrant city!  Four and a half million people call this sparkling and charming city home. We arrived to discover a sizeable modern city with a spectacular downtown skyline featuring a large number of very tall, gleaming, glass and steel skyscrapers. We took a taxi from the airport to our lodgings on the 13^th floor of the Plum Service Apartments in the Southbank area of downtown. We were pleasantly surprised to find an ultra modern furnished apartment featuring a balcony offering a postcard like view from high above downtown.

Same view from balcony, morning and night

Melbourne reminds us in many ways of a smaller Chicago. The Yarra river divides the south side of the city from the other sections and as one stands on the bridge looking up and down the river and past the multiple bridges it gave me a feeling of déjà vu as if we were standing on the Michigan Avenue bridge and looking north up the Chicago river. 

Melbourne’s downtown skyline is filled with a vast array of gleaming glass and steel skyscrapers soaring high into the air. There are multiple construction cranes sprinkled across the skyline indicating the construction of many more ultra modern buildings soon to come. This is a growing, alive and very modern thriving major city.

Flinders Train Station

The transit system in the city is superb. Melbourne has collected many vintage streetcars from various places around the world and has incorporated them into a “free loop” around the center section of the city to allow residents and visitors to travel easily and at no expense. The cars are of different ages and various colors. The insides are all wood, reminiscent of the streetcars of my early childhood in Chicago.  Many of the cars are close to a hundred years old, some older still and they add a colorful image as they clang their bells while moving throughout the city. The tracks are shared with an ultra modern metro car system that charges a nominal amount for their fare. It’s never necessary to wait for more than a few minutes to catch a ride on the next car.

We chose to take an inexpensive “around the city” tour bus that allowed us to get on and off of the busses as we chose. The tour busses stopped at sixteen different locations and ran every thirty minutes. It provided and excellent method of viewing many of the different attractions. There is so very much to see, all of it interesting.  The pictures attached will provide an overview of what we enjoyed.

The Old Melbourne Gaol (Gaol = Jail).

St. James Cathedral

The Shrine of Remembrance that honors the memory of Australian lives lost in the Great War (World War I)

View of Melbourne from The Shrine

Victorian architecture next to the Australian stock exchange

Chloe

As mid-afternoon arrived we found we were both tiring and stopped for a late lunch at the oldest pub in Melbourne, Young's and Jackson’s, in business continuously since 1861. A floor to ceiling size oil painting entitled “Chloe”, has hung on the walls of this famous establishment for more than a century. It was painted in 1875 and features a beautiful and wistful young woman gazing off into the distance as if waiting for her lover. The subject of the painting was only eighteen years old when the work was done. She suffered from unrequited love and the painting portrays that eloquently.  We were informed that in real life the young woman’s lover never returned and that she had tragically decided to end her life on her twenty first birthday by ingesting the ground up sulfur from a large quantity of match heads, a rather sad, unusual and somewhat bizarre method it would seem.

Christchurch, New Zealand, March 23

We started the day by taking a gondola to a point high above Christchurch atop a dormant (we hoped) volcano. On one side we viewed the city and on the other the town of Lyttleton.  Unfortunately we did not have the time to explore the beautiful Lyttleton side so we settled for a bird's eye view from the top. It was quite lovely!

We have visited many wonderful and strikingly beautiful locations in New Zealand, the city of Christchurch being our southernmost and final destination in the country. 

Christchurch is a large and lovely city with many spacious parks and interesting neighborhoods. In September 2010 a major earthquake struck the city. The massive earthquake destroyed many buildings and damaged considerably more but because it occurred at 4:30 AM the loss of life was minimal. A second significant earthquake struck five months later in February 2011. Many of the buildings that had been damaged during the first earthquake but had been deemed safe subsequently collapsed. Because the quake occurred in mid-day the loss of life on this occasion was very high.

It has been more than three years since the last earthquake but the downtown district still looks as if it had been recently bombed, much like Berlin must have appeared a few years after the end of the second world war. Most of the buildings in the downtown district and nearby areas completely collapsed, trapping those inside. Most of the remaining structures were subsequently determined to be uninhabitable and had to be razed. A significant number of empty and partially destroyed buildings still dot the city, all surrounded by high chain link fencing.  Fenced open lots, some still strewn with broken rubble and the sites of large buildings, are now mostly cleared away and empty. The fenced off open spaces stretch on and on for block after block. The primary focus remains to continue to clear away the debris. Just finding a location out of the city to dump the rubble and moving it must have been a monumental task.  Here and there, every few blocks, new buildings are slowly beginning to rise. Manpower is short but the efforts are herculean.

We stayed in a small B & B in a quaint “Victorian era” neighborhood near downtown. It too had suffered damage but had been repaired and was now ascertained to be tenable. Six buildings on the same side of the street however had suffered much more severe damage and had consequently been razed and removed. On the other side of the street every single lot was empty from one end of the block to the next.

The city is continuing the struggle to clear the fallen debris but still have more than fifty major buildings that require demolition. The work goes on but it's going to be a long tough haul for the citizens of Christchurch to rebuild this once beautiful city.

We strolled through downtown late yesterday afternoon. What must have once been a strikingly attractive and modern area was now mostly empty and replete with fenced off open cleared lots. We found it sad and very depressing to witness their loss and consequently, out of respect for all those who have died and suffered,  have decided to honor them by taking no personal pictures of the devastation. Christchurch will surely require decades to rebuild. We decided to add a link to the photos that were published worldwide shortly after the earthquake. If you would care to view those photos from the second earthquake, click on or copy and paste the link below into your browser. It will speak to you more eloquently than we could  ever begin to describe:

https://www.google.com/search?q=christchurch+earthquake+2011&espv=210&es_sm=91&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=AxsxU82tDeaQiAev74DIAg&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=679

Rubicon Valley and Christchurch, March 22

We drove south along the coast to Greymouth and then turned inland to cross the Southern Alps at “Arthur’s Pass”, the low point and below the snow line.  It was a long twisty road; lots of up and down grades and the road only wide enough for one vehicle on either side except for rather infrequent passing lanes. It was an interesting but rather uneventful drive. We were above the tree line, not much to see except low growing scrub. 

Arthur's Pass

We eventually arrived in The Rubicon valley and located the horse ranch to begin our rides. It was Brian’s first time on a horse and he did very well. I hadn’t ridden in forty years so he and I were about on par.  Let’s just say that neither of us fell off the horses. It was a walk, not a run, though they did give us the option to do that if we chose, which we both declined. A husband and wife guide team led us along high trails in the Tortesse Basin and through the valley to a lookout point high up in the Waimakarri Gorge. The scenery along the trail was breathtaking. We stopped for pre-arranged tea and scones at the midway point. The hosts had packed everything along in saddlebags.

Tom making a new friend

Tom and his new friend

Brian, Mr. Bo Jangles, Tom and Big Red above the scenic Waimakarri Gorge

Tom giving Big Red, a former race horse, a snack

Tom and Big Red 

Brian and Mr. Bo Jangles

New Zealand echoes a pronounced British influence and it’s evident in their speech and customs. They use the word “Lovely” frequently and we have found ourselves falling into the pattern.  When someone asks a question such as, “Did you enjoy your dinner?” the correct answer is “it was lovely.” (with the  emphasis on the first part of the word LOVEly.) It may require a day or two for us to drop the habit when we get back home. We continued on to Christchurch where we located our next lodgings, went out for dinner and then settled in for the night.

Lake Brunner, March 21

What a delightful spot! Our hosts, William and Johann, have made us feel extremely welcome in their lovely lakeside home in an extraordinarily beautiful location. The movie "The world that time forgot" adapted from the novel of the same name written by Edgar Rice Burrough was filmed right here on the lakefront, the setting being the producers choice as to what the world must have looked like in prehistoric times when the dinosaurs walked the earth. The pictures attached will offer a glimpse of what we see from the living room and the front porch of their home.

View of Cashmere Bay on Lake Brunner from the deck of the Bed and Breakfast we so much enjoyed 

Sunset from the shore.  No Photoshop needed for these pictures!

We kayaked on the bay and the lake this afternoon. The bay was placid and the lake virtually deserted. We would stop rowing every once in a while to listen and hear absolutely nothing but the wildlife, the silence was complete and restive, a wonderful spot to quiet ones thoughts. The full-time population of the community is only thirteen people. There is a small village nearby, simply a cluster of a few homes and a small friendly restaurant bar, also facing onto the lake. This is a place we would recommend to anyone and one that we hope to return to some day. It is truly an idyllic location and one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen anywhere in the world.

The night skies here are filled with countless stars and a view of the Milky Way and the Southern Cross. There are almost no lights in the surrounding area to dim the view so the night skies are utterly black and filled with stars, a treat to us because it is almost unachievable in the USA where lights seem to be almost everywhere unless you are able to trek many miles back into a remote wilderness area. 

The Milky Way.  Yes, Brian took these pictures. this is what the sky truly looked like, they have not been re-touched. The Southern Cross is in the top middle left of the picture.

Unfortunately we need to leave this "small slice of Paradise" in the morning to reach Christchurch tomorrow evening where we have reservations at another B & B owned by friends of our current hosts. If it’s as nice an experience as where we currently are located, it will be another treat to enjoy. En route we have a scheduled stop to enjoy horseback riding for a few hours as we traverse "Arthurs Pass" the lowest point through the Southern Alps.  The horseback riding is an experience we’re both looking forward to. Christchurch is about two and a half hours southeast of here, an easy drive through scenic country and it will be our final destination here in New Zealand; we’ll be there for two days and then catch our flight north to Melbourne, Australia and begin the second half of our vacation.

Westport to Moana on Lake Brunner, March 20

We departed Westport and proceeded south along the coast making periodic stops at various viewpoints along the way. Cape Foulwind, directly west of Westport, was so named by Captain Cook because of the atrocious weather he encountered when he approached the coast on his voyage of discovery to New Zealand. The location is adjacent to a large seal colony on Tauranga Bay. The ocean waves roared into the land amongst gigantic offshore boulders smashing into rocks and sending spray high into the air. The seals seemed at ease with the thunderous waves while they lolled comfortably perched safely and securely above the water napping. 

Cape Foulwind

The flightless Weka bird; most notably known for its begging skills.

We stopped again at Mitchells Gully Gold Mine; a holdover from the 1860’s when gold was discovered in the area. We toured what was left of the mine, mostly a set of rusted rails running through the undergrowth and into and out of tunnels burrowed throughout the hillsides. There were a few rusted relics of ore rail cars, mining tools, an old forge and a very large paddle wheel device that allowed the water to be propelled through sluice boxes that ran throughout the site. It gave a good impression as to how much work mining was 150 years ago when all the labor was done by hand.

The next stop was Punakaiki at Paparoa National Park where we viewed an interesting and very unusual natural phenomenon called “The Pancake Rocks and Blowholes”. The site featured numerous stacks of sandstone and other minerals that had been formed by nature over millions of years into stratified layers and stood in towering stacks. The rocks themselves have become somewhat of a mystery to geologists; they seem uncertain as to how they developed, they truly are unique.

View along highway near Pancake Rocks National Park

Just offshore from Pancake Rocks National Park

The Pancake Rocks formations

Tom descending stairs at Pancake Rocks National Park

As the ocean roared into the rocks around the bases and through caves below us the water would erupt in powerful geysers through blowholes throwing enormous volumes of water high into the air with a thunderous roar.

The Cavern

The Putai Blowhole

Our journey for the day ended at Aldamere Lodge, a lovely bed and breakfast located on the shore of Iveagh Bay on Lake Kotuko Whakaoho, the original Maori name but renamed in the recent past to become Lake Brunner.