My first 10 days travelling were fairly luxurious: I stayed in a hotel in Singapore and on Sarah’s sofa in Sydney. Now I was alone and on a budget; the youth hostel beckoned…
I arrived in Cairns airport at 6pm with nowhere to stay and a five-year-old copy of the Rough Guide to Australia taking up 1kg of my luggage allowance. After picking up the rucksack I am to become fairly attached to, I was relieved to see a huge accommodation board in the corner of the terminal with a free telephone to check availability. Two phone calls later and I am sorted.
There are no taxis and two huge red-necked middle-aged Australians at the taxi rank. To my surprise, when a taxi turns up after a few minutes, they invite me to share a cab with them into town. I probably only spoke to two Australians that I wasn’t buying something off in Sydney, so this was an opportunity to double my tally. Although I tried to act cool by dropping in lots of “mate” and “cheers”, they immediately label me a pom.
My two new friends have just flown in from Wongamolla or somewhere equally bizarre-sounding. They have very little luggage, but a large polystyrene box with some impressive yellow tape wrapped around it emblazoned with the words “PASSED QUARANTINE”.
“So mate, what’s in the box?” I ask hesitantly.
“Ahhh mate, it’s a turtle…”
Apparently, one can hunt them in the place they just got back from, and the two of them had made a boys’ week away out of it. Then again, perhaps I just didn’t get the Australian sense of humour.
I had a couple of days to kill before my liveaboard diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef left from Cairns. So encouraged by my roommates at the hostel, I arranged a two-day trip up to Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns. Cape Tribulation was so named by Captain Cook in 1770 when his boat hit the reef and he had to stay put for three months to make repairs. This mishap combined with searing tropical heat and unfriendly locals lead the captain to name the cape after the trials and tribulations he experienced when based here. Nowadays the cape is magnet for backbackers who want to experience the fun of the World Heritage listed Daintree tropical rainforest.
When booking my trip to tropical Queensland, I had not properly investigated the weather, and although the south of Australia is in summer (even given the rain in Sydney), the north of Australia is actually in “wet season”. Within two hours of leaving Cairns and in the middle of a boardwalk (a trek through forest on a walkway) our entire party gets completely drenched within a couple of minutes. The extreme humidity also means our clothes can’t get dry until we return to civilization in Cairns.
I check into the Cape Tribulation Beach Hut with Clio (UK) and Khanh (Canada). “Hut” in this respect means “close to nature” (we are eco-tourists after all) and so all huts in the complex appear to have been colonised by these huge golden silk orb weaver spiders. Fortunately the colonisation has been limited to the exterior of the buildings and the insides appear to be invertebrate-free.
Golden Silk Orb Weaver outside my hut in Cape Tribulation
First adventure activity of the trip is jungle-surfing! This involves being kitted out in hard hat and safety harness and zip-lining between trees within the forest canopy about twenty metres above ground. Great fun had by all.
Alex aka Crocodile Dundee kitted out for zip-lining in Cape Trib
Khanh prepares to take a leap
Clio in mid-surf
Next adventure activity: a night-time rainforest walk. All the best wildlife is meant to come out at night, however I was a bit disappointed and getting a bit bored towards the end of this excursion, particularly when our guide started explaining the “three stages of spider web evolution”. Next adventure activity: how to get back to your hostel two miles away in the pitch black with more tropical rain threatening to make an appearance. Khanh, Clio and I had came to into Cape Trib town to enjoy a few bevies with some of the other people on our tour bus including Helen (UK). Once the bar had shut we needed to get back to our beach hut which was further away than promised – Khanh and Clio had already made the journey one-way. The solution? Get two Aussies to give us a lift in the back of their pick-up truck (called a “Ute”)
Next day, and the adventure continues: how about some horse-riding through the rainforest and along the beach? When my horse had two hooves in the sea and two on the dry sand, I was in theory inside two different World Heritage sites at the same time (the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef). The group got up to a canter which was great fun considering some of us had little experience (my childhood memories of trotting in the New Forest now eclipsed).
Taking the horse for a little wander along the beach
For elevenses, we stopped off at a creek with a natural pool. I went for a swim and took along a biscuit to break up and feed to the fish. I misunderstood the advice from the guide however and didn’t realise I shouldn’t go swimming with the biscuit. Within seconds I’m surrounded by fish nibbling at my hand. Shocked by the creatures I can’t see, I let go of the biscuits sending mushy pieces all through the water. One obviously confused fish then mistakes my nipple for a tasty bit of cookie… my yelp was mistaken by some in our group as the start of a crocodile attack!
On the way back to Cairns, Helen, Clio, some more in our group and I swam in the famous Mossman Gorge. However, this was no creek, and anyone swimming in it has to make sure they aren’t swept down the river into the rapids!
All-in-all, Cape Tribulation was a little expensive (I suppose I did do a lot) but tremendously fun. I just had to make sure I got enough rest for the 6am start the next day to go diving; apologies to Helen for not making it out that evening
Singapore doesn’t fail to impress. Compared to some of the rundown terminals at Heathrow, Changi Airport is very well turned out without being too garish (like some Middle Eastern and Asian airports). But my lasting impression won’t be made by the architecture and interior design, but instead by immigration.
Those used to travelling to the United States will know how bad the immigration experience can be; fingerprints, photographs, plain rudeness. Not in Singapore; here you are greeted with beaming smiles and a professional manner. To top it off, after everything had been checked, stamped and found to be in order, I was offered a mint…!
“Welcome to Singapore”
Too tired to tackle the city on my first night, my first adventure was to find breakfast the next day. Guided by a Wikitravel page insisting that I eat a traditional Singaporean breakfast, I walked a few blocks from my hotel to Orchard Street, the main shopping street in the city, to find a place to eat. Breakfast typically revolves around “kaya”, a sort of coconutty butter spread on toast, accompanied by soft-boiled eggs with soy sauce and strong coffee with condensed milk. I had no idea what to do with the two eggs and bowl of soy sauce handed to me, but the cashier came over to my table to help explain everything. (“Break the eggs into the bowl of soy sauce and give it a good stir”)
Typical Singaporean breakfast
Food in Singapore is brilliant. Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and European food is readily available, and often brought together to create a Singapore fusion cuisine. I met a coursemate from Imperial College for lunch. Neil took me to a food court where around twenty different stalls were selling different foods, which all smelt fantastic. We ate on a roof terrace overlooking the city.
Old ISE coursemates: Alex and Neil overlooking Singapore
The majority of the city seems to be covered in distinctive high-rise office buildings, luxury appartments and shopping malls. However, each of the different communities in Singapore has a cultural heartland: Chinatown for the Chinese, Little India for the Indians, Arab Street for the Malays (and I suppose the old Colonial district represents the European heritage). They each show a quirky side to the city that once was before the massive development that has taken place over the past 40 years.
Arab St – the Malay quarter
Little India, Singapore
Chinatown, Singapore
Singapore Cricket Club with skyscrapers in the background
On my last day I visited the resort island of Sentosa. Connected to the Singapore mainland by cable car (and monorail), much of the island has been extensively developed into a pretty excrutiating family theme park with observation towers, beaches and cinemas connected by covered escalators piping out elevator music. Prices were also very high compared to the mainland, and my cash vanished far more quickly than I had expected. Nonetheless, there was a very good aquarium which made the journey worthwhile. My cable-car trip back to the mainland that evening also afforded some fantastic views.
For my last few hours in the city I walked along the riverfront and really experimented with all of the different settings on my camera to create some fantastic nighttime city images.
Singapore Harbourfront skyline
Last stop Raffles Hotel (apparently the place to be seen, but not to stay) then I was on my way to Sydney with another mint from immigration!
Notes and photos from my Kilimanjaro diaries written in 2007. Uploaded to my blog in 2009 but posted with a 2007 publish date.
Overnight flight from Heathrow to Nairobi. Cloudy cool day in Nairobi, doesn’t seem too different from London! Check in to Heron Court hotel.
Given “Sunny and sweet” breakfast – sausages, fried egg, maple syrup pancakes. Delicious.
Visit Lea Toto project in Nairobi slums to check the type of work VSO is doing supporting HIV+ families. Children gave a role-play about stealing and honesty, then sang several songs and read poems. Unfortunately we weren’t able to meet any VSO volunteers due to holidays.
We were taken off on a tour of a local slum by some of the centre workers (Gertrude, Leonida and Carolyne). We met one family (mother, child and niece) who were left by the father. The mother runs a market stall nearby but she has lost business as her main competitor spread rumours that her food was unsafe since she was HIV+. The mother then made a complaint to the local community leader, and the competitor fortunately made a public apology.
Back to hotel. Great buffet dinner. Trying hard to remember the names of the twenty-six other people in our group.
An Antipodean Adventure 