An interesting commission.

In Australia, every tour or trip or touristy thing that you could possibly book has a commission fee attached to it. If you book a tour of Uluru at the front desk of your hostel they will receive 5% of the cost of the trip, or so, depending on the deal the hostel and the tour company has made. Here, at the Bat House, we book tours and things for people. This means that the 5% that would normally go to a money-grabbing party hostel (one of the only other places in town to make a booking) actually goes to bat and rainforest research and restoration projects. In this country, one that runs on tourism, you can find many places such as this one that will also make bookings for you. From now on, I’m going to try to book events through organizations that actually really need my money. I’m going to take the trip, I might as well give a small percentage of my money to an organization that will put the funds back into the local community or the environment.

This is just an interesting observation I’ve made over the past few days since I’ve been running the Bat House. The commission I make from a simple phone call can actually double the income for the day. I don’t push the tours because that isn’t my job, but it’s great when people ask me to book for them and we have a selection of pamphlets and posters about local attractions. I’m going to keep looking for places like this as I make my way down the coast and hopefully my monies will go to some good cause as well as some great adventures!

The World Without Us.

It’s been a time here at Cape Trib. I’m not even sure how to explain the events of the past few days. Hans, the man who takes care of the bats and runs the educational centre didn’t show up for work on Tuesday morning. Hugh, the director, went out to his cabin to find him and found that he had died in his sleep. This was a person that I had lived with for only four days. His cabin was the next one past mine. This everchanging population dynamics of this place make this a very different sort of situation.

He was of Dutch decent, but was a permanent local to the Cape Tribulation area (one of about 50). He had been the Park Ranger for the region and knew absolutely everyone and everything that went on in this town. He also knew an awful lot about the local environment and was the one to go to if you had any questions about anything local; related to the social, economic, or environmental conditions.

Unfortunately, Hans had had a rough time over the past few years. His girlfriend had died, he had undergone triple bypass surgery, and he was plagued by skin cancer. It was all a lot for him to handle, so he left town for several months. He returned and decided to leave his house and live here at the research station and educational centre. He was always an avid volunteer at the Bat House and a champion of conservation and restoration, which the other people here are not always interested in because they just want to make money from tourism and the environment tends to be ignored.

Over the past few months he had finally started to seem like his old self. Hugh said he was very content here. He had even purchased all of the material to build his own house on the property. On Saturday, in fact, he had raised the first wall and was so proud to show us his two windows. On Monday, he had went into Port Douglas to see his doctor and have two spots removed from his leg, but he joined us for homemade pizza and cheerfully went off to bed.

Hans had a lot of family in the area. Even his mother is still here and he was 73, so she has to be even older than that. They have all been stopping by and sending notes. His nephews have been by to clean out his cabin. Hans really loved Reader’s Digest and had purchased everything they had published in recent years. The boys found four unopened mail packages from the past couple weeks. The library has literally doubled with cookbooks and nature books.

Next Wednesday, the community will have a wake and a celebration of Hans’ life on the Dujubi Boardwalk. It is a beautiful walk all down along the coast of the beach and it was one of the projects Hans built as an employee of the National Parks. I’ll help with the food and the cooking and I am glad that I can be here to help so that his family can spend the time remembering Hans and all of the good things he did for this region.

En Francqis.

Tonight I’m typing on the French intern’s computer . Some of the keys are in the same place, but many are not. The main problems are that the q and a are reversed, the period requires a shift key and the m is out in the middle of nowhere. I’ll try my best, but this is fairly slow going.
Monday at the research station is the day off.

Last night the girls’ friends came to visit from places including Brisbane and as far away as Melbourne . They camped on the beach and had a big bonfire. By the time I arrived there was only one marshmallow left, but I was fine with that. I rarely eat them in Canada and the Aussie mallows are nowhere near as good as the Canadian ones. They are tiny and faux fruit flavoured. It was very fun to sit around the campfire and help the French students with their English conversation. They are all here on five month training periods from an agricultural college called LaSalle. They are starting their third year and have to spend the semester in an English-speaking country taking part in some sort of research program. So, the girls chop coconuts by day (they are trying to determine if we can identify coconut varieties using some simple measurements of parts of the husk) and chat with all of us the rest of the time. Let me tell you, we have had some Funny conversations. They ask me all sorts of questions and I have to decipher what they are asking about. They have to take a difficult English test in Sydney before they return home.

Instead of camping with them I decided to come back to the station to sleep in my own bed. It had started to rain and I didn’t want to get soaked even though it hasn’t rained here with any intensity for three months. The wet season could arrive any day. This morning I slept in then went down to the beach to find the girls and their friends. They were snorkeling at the next beach over. I joined them and we swam out very far in the shallow, clear water. The salt water still drives me crazy though. After the swim we hiked up to a lookout over the beach and found a huge Lace Monitor Goanna (big reptile). On the walk I also saw a huge Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. Then we walked down to the fresh water creek with a really nice swimming hole to shower off and jump from the swinging rope.

I spent the afternoon napping and catching up in my journal. We had a selection of tropical fruits from the neighbours including bananas, mangos, starapple, and mangosteen. The mangosteen is my favourite fruit and you can only really eat it here because it will not keep to transport, so no mangosteens in Canada :(. Maybe I can preserve some in simple syrup if we have a lot and I can find a good jar. I will carry it for the rest or my trip. The mangosteen is called the queen of the fruit and it is beautiful and SO tasty. It is nothing like a mango though. I will definitely post a picture when I have a chance. Now I really want to go to the fruit tasting at the neighbour’s farm.

Okay, I can’t type anymore. This keyboard is crazy. The shift period is a real pain. O, and the entire internet is in French too. Luckily, I can get by :).

The Daintree.

Hello from the hot, humid, wonderful, beautiful northwest coast of Queensland. The rainforest meets the reef here at the salty, floaty Coral Sea.

I'm staying at a rainforest research station for the next couple weeks. The living is easy and the internet is dial-up. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post any photos until I head south. I'll have to do a major update once I find my way back to a high-speed internet area and I'm going to have some good pictures, so it'll be worth the wait :)

The station occupies an area of land in the Daintree Rainforest that was once completely deforested for cattle ranching. Cattle only lasted up here for about three years and then a lot of the land was abandoned. The people here have worked to reforest this area over the past twenty years and it is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, there isn't much community involvement in restoration or conservation of this lovely place because most of the 50 or-so other locals are only interested in building giant party hostels and making tons of money. Good thing the only way in is by a small ferry that carries about 30 cars and slowly makes its way back and forth over a river that is about 50 m wide. That sort of controls the amount of people who can actually come in and stay.

Currently, the station is mainly involved in education. There is a population of Spectacled Flying Foxes that live here, but they are all injured and cannot survive on their own in the wild. Any babies that are born are released into the wild and the local bat populations are monitored. There is a Bat House at the front that tourists can come and visit. It's a really well-maintained and interesting place and has a 1 km hiking trail through the regenerated rainforest area.

There is also a laboratory area with two lab buildings, a workshop, and the captive bat area. In behind that is the kitchen/office/library that is made of of three smaller buildings with a large open concept dining area/sitting area in the centre. This is where we make all of our meals and hang out. The food here is all made by us and we eat very, very well.

Off throughout the forest there are about 8 small cabins for visitors to live in. I have a really nice one with the big bed and a veranda. The windows are all open all the time and just have a screen over them. It's on stilts so I can just see out into the tops of the rainforest trees. I think I'm going to stay here for awhile, two weeks at least.

The other people who live here are Laure and Helena, two french interns both half way through a five month internship, Hugh, the station coordinator, and Hans, who runs the Bat House, takes care of the bats and does everything that needs to be done.

Last night we spent the evening catching fruit bats and today we've been walking the beaches (they do a lot of local restoration work) and seeing all of the projects people have been carrying out. I'm just finishing lunch and I have to head out. Mondays are days off to we will either be catching a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef, Visiting the neighbouring tropical fruit farm, or doing something called Jungle Surfing. Hopefully I have a chance to update later!

Where have all the good tunes gone?

I want Bruce Peninsula and Sun Parlour Players at the Albion tonight!

This is what people say about Canadian music: "O, I like Nickelback."

Are you kidding me?

I've read every single free indie music newspaper I could find (two to be exact) and nothing is appealing. I did, however, miss a festival in Townsville by one day. Apparently Townsville is also one of Xavier Rudd's favourite places to play. I think he was at that show and I now remember why I recognized the name of the town, I've seen it on his Myspace.

I'll keep trying. Hopefully I'll find something interesting down the coast. Aussies are really into DJs though, and I'm not totally. Someone was playing something cool called Girltalk the other day, but still I want a band with some substance.

O, and on the topic of missing things, I seem to only be able to arrive in a city a day after every event in the world. I've successfully missed the rugby finals in three states, I think. I'll keep trying in NZ too, though.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Where did September go??!

Shout out: I mean, Happy 26th Bronwen!!

Cans.

This morning I climbed an big hill then caught the bus up to Cairns.

The big hill was named Castle Hill. The town of Townsville sits at the base of the hill. The hill part of the name is accurate, but the castle part is not. Well, I suppose it looks a bit like some castles, maybe, but there aren't any castles in this part of the world.

Anyway, I really had to scamper up the hill and back down in order to make it to the hostel in time to check out. You should have seen me. I'm a much different hill climber than I was back in WA. No breaks till the lookouts in hot, humid morning weather. There were many other people doing the climb too because people in coastal cities love to stay in good shape.

I'm really glad the 6 hour ride to Cairns will be one of my last on a Greyhound for awhile. I'm just sort of tired of moving around and I'm really looking forward to staying in one place for a bit. I did see some interesting sites on the drive though. This is a banana and sugar cane growing region. All of the towns smell like corn on the cob. I think the busdriver said that's because the refineries use a lot of oil in the sugar extraction process. I wasn't really paying enough attention though because, man, the busdrivers down here chat a lot.

At one little town called Tully we pulled in right beside a giant gumboot! It also had a giant frog on its side. Here's a bad picture of it. I wasn't supposed to be off the bus, but I had to snap a quick photo.

Then, to my delight at the next little town near Mission Beach was parked beside a giant Cassowary. Here's its backside. I really hope I see a real Cassowary in the wild (twitch).

Other than that, Cairns isn't really my scene. It does seem beautiful, but it's just too busy and crazy with bright lights and crazy people at night. The hostel I'm staying in is huge and really impersonal. I have located a wool shop, however, (the last thing these people need) so I will be dropping in tomorrow before the person from the research station picks me up. I also need to find some shorts because I didn't pack mine. That was sort of silly. I will say that I did a pretty good job in the packing department (thanks everyone for all your advice). I've used everything and have had things to wear for every occaision (thank goodness I packed that fleece because I wore it every minute awake and asleep for the first month of my trip).