The New South Poettckers: Following the Grey Nomads

Grey nomads are Australia's version of Canada's snowbirds. Since everything is opposite in our two countries, the grey nomads head north for the winter which, in true opposite form, falls in July / August. If you think that we just happened to head north at the very best time of year to do so, think again. This may sound a little ridiculous to some, but it takes a fair amount of work and planning to travel and have adventures. Especially when you are on a budget and want to make the most of your planned time off, and especially when you have three kids in tow whose happiness is paramount to your own. For example, over the years we have done a lot of hiking, long distance road trips, and have even ventured out on a few multi-day cycling trips with our three kids, including when they were quite little. Don't think for a second that we are super laid-back and care-free parents (although I secretly wish we were super-hippies) who just go where the wind takes us, come what may. During those hikes, road trips, and cycling trips we very strategically packed loads of snacks and extra clothes (in case of various "accidents" that may have happened along the way), toys and books, planned nap times, played silly hiking and driving games, and had breaks when we didn't feel the need for breaks. We did all that was humanly possible to avoid meltdowns and scenarios that could create kids who hated the thought of going out on yet another hike. All of this was done for selfish reasons, of course. We thought that if our kids enjoyed hiking, cycling, road-tripping, camping, etc. when they were little, maybe, just maybe, we would be able to enjoy these things together when they grew a bit older. So far, this theory is holding true. Hallelujah!!! All the planning and work has been worth it so far. And it is absolutely getting easier and more enjoyable for us parents as well. So good! All this to say that we headed to far north tropical Queensland at just the right time of year. Apparently, if we headed to far north Queensland in oh, let's say, December, we would risk death by most painful box jellyfish sting and being stuck in crazy downpours creating flash flooding to rival that of our own experience in 2013. So, we happily followed the grey nomads north for the winter to enjoy a most fantastic holiday. Perhaps one of our most fantastic Poettcker family holidays to date.

One tiny detail that we were sort of dreading with this holiday was the 23+ hour drive ahead of us. One way. We thought we would get the longest most boring part of the drive over with the first day so that we could have two shorter and more exciting drives the following days. We left the house before 4:30 am with hearts aflutter with excitement and, after passing our umpteenth thousandth dead kangaroo and live emu, we finally stopped in a town called Emerald for the night. It turns out we were a bit wrong in thinking the most boring part of the drive would be finished the first day. The entire second day of driving was much the same as the first, minus the excitement of dead kangaroos and live emus. As we thought we would be driving through actual towns on our second day, we almost ran out of gas at one point, and had to double back (Kevin's worst nightmare) to find the one roadhouse that was along the way. Thankfully, and at $1.90 / litre of gas and $2 to use the toilets, we found our oasis. To be fair, the price of the toilets is justified, as they have to haul their own water and pay people to work there. Having said all of this, I do still firmly believe that every type of landscape has its own beauty, and the landscape we drove through those first two days were beautiful. Just monotonous after many hours of sitting in a vehicle. Just like beautiful eastern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

I love seeing the wild emus. This one was running and leaving a cloud of dust behind it.

Day two, we did run into some exciting traffic. I'm not sure if this is a common occurrence, or if this is due to the drought, but there were drovers running cattle along the road to find something to eat, and they had water and feed in semi trucks like this one. Some of the cattle looked pretty scrawny.

At the end of day 2 we found the Coral Sea! It is crazy how quickly we left the dry outback behind and entered into a tropical paradise.

We stayed in a little holiday suite for the night and had the friendliest of hosts who helped us to harvest our very first coconut. We had an interesting evening, as a police officer came to visit to ask us for some food for the people in the suite next door and asked us to let him know if there was any "funny business" going on. He showed the kids his handcuffs and bullets and joked around in true Aussie form. We didn't know what he meant by funny business, but he assured us that it was nothing to worry about, and Kevin and I made up our own theories to entertain us that evening.

Day 3 was much more interesting and exciting as we made our way through tropical bush, sugar cane fields (heaps and heaps of sugar cane fields), pineapple fields, mango groves, and drove along the gorgeous coast. We ended up at our little paradise that we would call home for the next six nights in time for a swim.

There were a lot of little crab spiders like this one and we loved watching them spin their webs.

Try as we may, we can't plan for everything. Before leaving on our big trip, one highlight we planned to see was the Great Barrier Reef. How could we make it all the way to Australia, and not see this amazing creation? As there are about a billion choices of ways to see this natural wonder, and as it does not come cheap, we spent a lot of time researching the different tours that are offered to figure out what might best suit our family and the ages of our kids. I do believe that we chose the right tour for us. The problem was the weather. I admit, I even tried to plan around that, checking the weather and tide forecast ahead of time, but alas, I ended up picking our only windy and rainy day! So, while our tour offered snorkelling on the GBR off of a small island, which would allow Kevin and I to take turns snorkelling in case one or more of our kids did not feel comfortable in the water (one of us could hang out on the beach with said kid(s) while the other snorkelled), it was the furthest thing from a sitting-on-the-beach kind of day. All in all, I think that Kevin, Rylan and Calla probably snorkelled as much as they would have if the weather would have been lovely (like the rest of our holiday happened to be), however, poor shivering Jo and I missed out for sure.

The highlights of our GBR tour:

In spite of our very rough catamaran ride out to the reef, and several passengers getting seasick, Gravol came in with another win for the Poettckers, and we got to enjoy a very fun roller-coaster-like ride out to sea and back again.
Due to crappy weather, there were only about 30 of us on our tour - pretty great to avoid the crowds.
We all got to see reef sharks! This was the absolute highlight for all of us.
We also saw sea turtles (not all of us, though).
The snorkelers got to see lots of very cool fish and coral.
Jo, Calla, and I got to have a tour of the tropical little island and learned a bit about the interesting history of the lighthouse and its keepers (the only human inhabitants). One story included a cyclone wiping out all of nearby Port Douglas (on the mainland) and all of the life on the little island, while the lighthouse stood strong with the three families of lighthouse keepers sheltering in the top and watching 4 metre high waves crash into the lighthouse below them. Yikes! Another story included one poor lighthouse keeper and his two eldest children setting out to sea in a rowboat at 11:30 one night in search of a good time in Port Douglas (a 15 km row away) in their Sunday best, never to be seen alive again. After reading his daily reports and discovering that he was exhibiting other strange behaviours before his tragic fate, it was thought that he suffered from mercury poisoning as they used mercury to help the lighthouse light turn. For this reason, and due to the effects of isolation, lighthouse keepers are only given two year terms on secluded islands.
Jo, Calla, and I also got to have a glass bottom boat tour where we saw a couple of sea turtles hiding in the reef and lots of really cool coral formations.

One of the crew members sang us all the way back to the mainland, and Jo promptly fell asleep. What a sweetheart.

After listening to torrential downpours of rain on our tin roof throughout the night (and this is the dry season), we spent the next day hiking around Mossman Gorge, the gateway to Daintree National Park. It was a busy day there, but once we made it past the first short hike, we had a lot more space to ourselves. Swimming was not recommended due to the recent rain.

Colourful wild turkeys.

Buttress roots.

So many thorny and sharp leaved plants. I kept imagining being an explorer and trying to bushwhack my way through this nightmare. Then we learned about the evils of stinging trees, thankfully not first hand. Stinging trees have normal looking leaves with dense hairs on them that look like a soft downy fur. If you happen to touch these leaves, a bulb on the end of each hair breaks off and injects a toxin into your skin, inflicting the worst possible pain you can imagine. The hairs can remain in your skin for up to 6 months, with stings recurring every time hot or cold water or pressure is put on the skin. The kids were clearly instructed to stay on the trail!

After a great time in the gorge, we headed to a nearby ocean beach to have an afternoon picnic. The beaches here are picturesque, however, none of us was getting near the water with signs like these peppering the coast. We wondered why the second largest warning was in german, and we were told that it always seems to be German tourists who get attacked by crocodiles. We did notice, however, that besides Aussie tourists, it seemed that European tourists (especially german-speaking) were the most common that we encountered during our trip to the north.

If the above warning isn't enough, maybe this is enough to deter people from entering the ocean, at least during the summer months. From the months of November to May, it is stinger season. Not just regular stingers that can cause a lot of pain, but the kind that can be deadly such as the box jellyfish. This is another reason that we followed the grey nomads. As we headed out of range of the salt water crocodiles during our second week of our holiday, we were able to enjoy the ocean and the beaches as it is not stinger season in the winter months.

Since we didn't dare set a toe in the ocean, a big highlight of our trip was spending time at the pool, which we had mostly to ourselves. I guess 25+ degrees is a bit chilly to go swimming for non-Canadians.

The next day we hung out at the pool and did a little bit of exploring. The cane farmers have their own mini railroad tracks running all over the place to transport their sugar cane to be processed.

We picked up some locally made chocolate - so good!

One of the biggest highlights of our trip was taking a cruise down the Daintree River to see salties (salt water crocodiles) in their natural habitat. We ended up spotting six of these beasts along the shore, which was super exciting for all of us. We also got to see some cool birds and enjoyed a lovely cruise, however eery it was, along the beautiful river on another sunny day.

Egret

The Daintree River cable ferry, which we took across the next day to go as far north as we could on sealed roads, to beautiful Cape Tribulation.

Sacred Kingfisher

The next day, and another big highlight, we headed further into the Daintree Rainforest, the oldest rainforest in the world. I was so excited to be where the Daintree Rainforest met the Great Barrier Reef.

We did not spot any cassowaries. They are pretty elusive, and can be dangerous. A gruesome fact: they have been known to disembowel people with their claws when feeling threatened.

We appreciated the beauty created by some of God's tiniest sand artists.

Cape Tribulation, where we didn't dare enter the picturesque ocean waters.

The only wildlife we spotted. An eel.

We knew our other exchange partner friends from Ontario were going to be in the Daintree the same day as us, but since we didn't have cell service there we didn't have much hope of meeting up with them. As we were exploring the above beach, they just happened to emerge from the trail right in front of us. We had a great time exploring the Daintree Discovery Centre with them for the rest of the afternoon. Hopefully, we will meet again, as they are living about a 6.5 hour drive from us.

There are two ice-cream stops in the Daintree, and we decided to try them both. The first stop sold locally produced gelato from tropical fruit grown onsite. They sell only one option each day, including samples of four different flavours. The flavours of the day were mango, banana, chocolate pudding fruit (black sapote), and some other flavour we can't remember, but tasted like hazelnuts.

The next stop had yummy exotic flavoured ice-cream.

On our last day of our first half of our trip, we picked up some cheap exotic fruit and browsed the local farmer's market.

We also visited the site of the only civilian casualty in the area during World War II. Apparently, a Japanese plane was on its way to drop bombs on Townsville (further south) but experienced engine trouble and decided to drop its bombs in a farmer's field. Some shrapnel ended up flying through the walls of the farmer's house and grazed the skull of a sleeping two year old girl. She survived, and later attended the unveiling of this monument as an adult.