16. Cairns

Friday-Saturday, 26-27 OCT 2012

We had two days in Cairns. Here is Paula relaxing on the veranda of their nice little historical museum. It's worth a visit because it is easily accessible from the port, and it focuses on World War 2 and its impact on this area of Australia.

Next we visited the Botanical Garden, which is excellent. Here is Tyler sitting in the garden cafe with his iPad.

While Paula was admiring the flora I enjoyed the fauna. The following little guys aren't particularly dangerous to humans but they are larger than any of their cousins in the US. I wouldn't want to walk through this web in the jungle and get him on my forehead!

 

 

Paula is photographing a beautiful Heliconia, which we have observed in botanical gardens elsewhere in Australia, New Zealand, and Hawai'i.

Another purty flahr. Paula didn't get the name of it at the time, but she has looked it up and says that it may be Heliconia psittacorum.

The second day we rode the Kuranda Railroad train up to the village of Kuranda in the rain forest on the plateau inland from Cairns. This village and railroad were vitally important in the history of Australia. It provided the only link between the agricultural area on the plateau and the population center on the coast. The alternative was a trek of several days by foot or, I suppose, mule. In the early years there was not even a wagon road.

Barron Falls from an overlook stop on the train ride:

From Kuranda we rode the Skyrail gondola system over the canopy of the tropical rain forest back down to Cairns. Gondola over waterfall:

The Skyrail consists of two separate gondola systems, one from Kuranda up to the high point in the hills, and another from there down to the coast. This is a nature walk from the intermediate station.

The rain forest canopy from the Skytrain gondola:

The view toward the coast:

 

Posted from Tyler's iPad

15. Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef

Thursday, 25 OCT 2012

We anchored in the bay just off Hamilton Island, one of the islands of the Whitsunday group. Hamilton Island has a settlement with an airport on it, and is the launching point for expeditions out to the Great Barrier Reef. The GBR is actually more than a thousand component reefs, sand islands, and cays that stretches more than 2000 km long from near Brisbane to well north of Torres Straits and the northern-most point of Australia, Cape York. From our anchorage we rode a catamaran out to the edge of the continental shelf, two and a half hours at 40 knots or more, to Knuckle Reef where a company has set up a floating platform as a base for snorkeling, scuba diving, a glass-bottom boat, and a semi-submerged viewing boat.

The MS Volendam anchored off Hamilton Island:

 

The Volendam with one of the catamarans pulling alongside:

Paula enjoying the ride out to Knuckle Reef:

The floating platform on the reef:

The platform has a submerged viewing area. They lower a container of fish food and the denizens flock to it for the amusement of the tourists:

People in the water swimming and snorkeling:

The semi-submersed glass-hulled viewing boat:

The glass-bottom boat:

Yes, we took lots of photos of the reef, but there's no point in showing them here. They are all a monotonous green color. You can find very good reef pictures by professionals who know how to capture the vivid colors that only show up in careful underwater photos using powerful lighting.

Here's another picture of the reef as it appears in colors of turquoise, green, and blue from the top of the platform:

 

Posted from Tyler's iPad

14. Brisbane

Tuesday, 23 OCT 2012

Brisbane is the third largest city in Australia. It has experienced dramatic growth over the past couple of decades as the mining industry has prospered and expanded. Brisbane is the headquarters city for several corporations and a major financial and shipping center. It's hot here (think Houston), although it has been very pleasant while we were here.

On the way into Brisbane harbor I spotted this ship, the Torm. This is the fifth ship of the same name in a series stretching back 137 years. The company is famous for its tradition of sponsoring individual Olympic athletes in a variety of sports. In fact, it is responsible for the expression, "Any sport in a Torm".

We took a guided tour of Brisbane which culminated in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.

Paula among her favorite plants, ferns.

On the tour we stopped close to the Mormon Temple on the top of a hill next to the Brisbane River. There are several of these in major cities around the world, always prominently situated, sparkling white, with the golden angel Moroni blowing his trumpet from the pinnacle.

Posted from Tyler's iPad

13. Sydney

Sunday, 21 OCT 2012

We entered Australia's premier city with just two objectives: reliable high-speed Internet and SIM chips for my iPad and our two mobile phones. We met our first objective at the Apple store, which had pretty good wifi service for free within their walls, and they were able to sell us a Telstra SIM chip for my iPad. There was a Telstra store right across the street, so we went there and bought two chips for our phones. However, the Telstra system that handles the chip activation process was down all day for maintenance, so we had to wait a couple of days until we reached Brisbane where we finally got them activated.

Here is the fabulous iconic Sydney Opera House.

This is the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

People climb it for fun, and for the view.

The Sydney Tower from the stern of the Volendam om the way out Sunday evening.

Paula working on some beautiful fabric she bought on one of the previous islands.

Paula enjoying another spectacular sunset.

 

 

Posted from Tyler's iPad

12. Melanesians and Polynesians

Saturday, 20 OCT 2012

Today we are at sea, destined to arrive in Sydney tomorrow morning. As we leave the domain of the South Pacific Islands I want to illustrate the characteristic appearance of the natives. The region is divided into three large groups of islands based on the ancestry of the people who first settled them.

Micronesia includes the Marshall Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and others approximately located in the northwest zone of Oceania between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer (the northern hemisphere tropic) and between longitude 130 East and 180. We are not visiting any of the Micronesian islands.

Melanesia includes Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia, as well as the Solomon Islands and others. They were settled by people like those of Borneo and Papua New Guinea. They are very dark-skinned and have facial features more similar to Africans and Australian Aborigines than to Asians.

Polynesia includes Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and Hawai'i, among others. Polynesians are lighter-skinned, though still quite brown, and have more asiatic facial features. Their ancestors began their long migration from Formosa or the east coast of China some 5000 years ago. Their Lapita pottery first appears on Fiji, but they were evidently displaced by Melanesians.

These origins and distinctions between the three groups of Oceanic peoples is supported by cultural archeology, linguistics, and DNA correlations both through the maternal line (mitochondrial DNA) and through the paternal line (Y-chromosome).

Here are some examples of Melanesians:

 

 

Here are some Polynesians from Hawai'i and American Samoa

 

Posted from Tyler's iPad

11. Noumea, New Caledonia

Thursday, 18 OCT 2012

Noumea is the capital and the largest city in the South Pacific islands. New Caledonia is still a French possession, and the currency is the French Pacific franc. The economy of modern colonialism is the reverse of traditional colonialism: the mother country pours far more revenue into the colony than the colony returns to the mother country. Even so, this island of Grand Terre has very important nickel deposits which form the base of the economy, the importance of tourism notwithstanding. English is common here but not apparently on such a co-equal footing as on Vanuatu. The state police force are gendarmes rotated through every few years directly from France.

 

This odd tower can be seen from the harbor and from many other vistas within Noumea. We weren't told what it is.

This is the ship terminal building with the welcoming committee:

The Yellow Tchou Tchou Train is a popular way to see the sights.

 

We visited the aquarium, which is excellent -- not the biggest we've ever seen, but very well managed with great exhibits. Here's a particularly attractive creature:

There's something fishy about this display.

 

Posted from Tyler's iPad