And here sits Cairns, with its access to the world's largest coral reef system and the oldest rainforest on the planet... Striking sun and brooding skies, the muddy foreshore with squawking seabirds... I weather a storm, I amble tipsy an esplanade, I wait for my ride to its wilder nearby... Here glides the waterways where the saltwater crocodiles are... where a perfect apex predator waits, for everything, anything that moves, the flesh of fish, turtle, snake, bird, boar, human... We spot a few resting near the mangroves, where they've seen us before we've seen them... Here rambles the Daintree Rainforest... survivor of continental drift, older than the Amazon, a tropical bowl of biodiversity upon biodiversity... And Cape Tribulation, that remote splendid headland, where Cook ran aground and scribbled the words: "...here begun all our troubles". Green Island, surrounded by the great yet fragile coral reef and all its works... A short but nauseating ferry ride from Cairns... I snorkel among the marine life, I bask on the hot sands, I try to forget about my puking seasickness... But that was 2013 and now it's 2018 and I'm ready to brave the seas once more... I'm on a boat heading out to the Great Barrier Reef for three days and two nights of faraway scuba diving... I hope I'll see extraordinary, even fantastical things in its wondrous ocean.
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Van Diemen's Land. Battery point. Rising up on the same mattress in different years; cool and brisk and subdued as the haft-end of the earth ought to be. Here be gull, that be sea-star, this be fish conjoined to chip. Sun's been stretched, as is the blue, thin – dashed – thin – like fading boat trails in the upper atmosphere. A market. A Saturday Salamanca in the heady, overpriced overcast. Clatter, oyster shell. Tremble, tarpaulin. A perfect landing; cleaner than beach stone. Cleaner than every footnote this land ever uttered, ever rasped or guttered. Look forward, land, march and march from colonies of blood. (forget, forget) Mount Wellington. A day hike, an aural hike of scramble and scritch and swish and snap, up kunanyi, struggle and up: scrunch hunch and crunch! Crunch! to end in sublime laziness, or decadence,
with cheese atop the dolerite pipes, with Hobart – nipaluna – at my feet – crisp and wide and longing like the spade-end of the world. I like art. I like weird art. MONA has weird art. I like MONA. MONA is in Hobart. Hobart is in Tasmania. Tasmania is in Australia. They have gambling in Australia. Some people made lots of money by gambling. David Walsh made lots of money by gambling. David Walsh is from Hobart in Tasmania. David Walsh used his money to make MONA in Hobart in Tasmania. You can take a ferry to get to MONA. You can sit on sheep on the ferry. Sheep are called Ovis aries. There are lots of pretty views on the way there. You can have a wine on the ferry. I had an overpriced glass of wine. Wine comes from the flowering plant genus Vitis. I saw a travelling exhibition on my first visit. The travelling exhibit showcased outsider art. Outsider art is sometimes called art brut. It is made by outsider artists. Outsider artists are self-taught. They are outside the conventional art world. They just want to make art. Outsider art can sometimes be fantastic. There was aeroplane art. There was firearm art. There was taxidermy art. There was mystical art. There was undefinable art. There was everything art. They even had art by Henry Darger. Henry Darger was a hospital janitor. But Henry Darger was also an artist. Henry Darger wrote a 15,000+ page fantasy book with hundreds of drawings. Henry Darger's drawings are childish and violent and outlandish. Henry Darger's art was only discovered by his landlords after his death. Seriously. Look up Henry Darger. MONA proper has strong themes. MONA proper is all about sex and death. Sex is all about carnal knowledge. Death is all about the end of knowledge. I saw a machine make poop. That was funny. I also saw a man with a tattoo on his back. The man with a tattoo on his back is Tim Steiner. Tim Steiner is a human artwork. Tim Steiner spends his life sitting in galleries displaying the tattoo on his back. When Tim Steiner dies his skin will be framed. It was a privilege to have seen him while he is alive. I saw phallic stuff. And I saw yonic stuff. I saw metallic stuff. And I saw bread stuff. I saw Asian stuff. And I saw occidental stuff. I saw architectural stuff. And I saw dynamic stuff. There was loud stuff. And there was immature stuff. There was confronting stuff. And there was political stuff. Stuff is from the Old French estoffe. Estoffe means quilted material, provisions, stock. Estoffe is from the word estoffer. Estoffer means to equip, to stock. Estoffer is from the Old German stopfon. Stopfon means to plug, to stuff. Sometimes I feel sad. Sometimes I feel bored. Sometimes I feel tired. Sometimes when I feel sad and bored and tired I will also look at art. Sometimes this makes me feel better. Sometimes this happens even when the art is bizarre or sexual or disturbing or immature. Sometimes this makes me feel more alive. You should like art. You should like weird art. MONA has weird art. You should like MONA. This is Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park, a weather-gashed and heath-rugged gem in the northwestern highlands of Tasmania. I arrived here from Launceston and was quickly struck by the wildness, the richness, and the diversity of its flora and fauna. By the chilly, primeval rainforests and grasslands. The slippery and saw-toothed rocks. The glacial pools and icy outpourings. And the intricately twisted pine trees and bumbling wombats. If the island of Tasmania could be seen as a frozen teardrop located below the main Australian body, then Cradle Mountain and its environs is a harsh and complex ice crystal nestled deep within that drop. Where I lodged, close to the titular mountain itself, is the trailhead of the world-famous Overland Track. However, tackling this particular challenge was not the reason I came here. No, instead, my goal was to climb Cradle Mountain alone for my 28th birthday. Here's the briefest of accounts of how I fared during my stay… The imposing and misty mountain itself is named after its supposed resemblance to a gold miner's cradle (a wooden box that was used to separate precious minerals from washdirt and water). It stands a touch over 1,500 metres above sea level and looms over the picturesque Dove Lake, with its odd boathouse and uncharacteristically tame-looking beaches. Close to the mountain is the fantastic "The Devils @ Cradle" sanctuary, which is a breeding and conservation facility for three highly threatened Tasmanian marsupials: the Tasmanian devil, the Spotted-tailed quoll, and the Eastern quoll. All of them are carnivorous, with the Tasmanian devil being the largest of the bunch. It is a stocky creature, with a ferocious bite, a ghastly cry (that sounds like, well, very devilish) and, tragically, is in dire danger as a species due to a grotesque facial tumour disease. Tasmanian Aboriginal people lived in these parts for over 30,000 years, possibly even much longer. These lands were also explored by immigrant prospectors, hunters, grazers, woodcutters, fur trappers, and plain-old adventurers until 1922 when it was declared a scenic reserve. It is, in my informed opinion, as utterly scenic and pristine as it is utterly unpredictable weather-wise. No one can predict the chaotic alpine weather here. Cradle Mountain receives regular doses of rain and snow, even sometimes in the summer months. And that's part of its charm, I suppose. So how did I go with conquering the mountain? It was a failure! I attempted to hit the summit of Cradle Mountain and I reached about nine-tenths of the way to the top before the weather took a turn for the worse. Thus, I was forced to turn back before the boulders became too slippery and treacherous to climb down. To compound my failed attempt, I ended up with a mild cold from the wintry wet weather exposure. Happy birthday, indeed! Oh well. Technically I’ve still “climbed Cradle Mountain” on my 28th birthday, no? Beyond mountains and nature, I should also mention I spent a short time exploring Launceston, a small riverside city of 110,000-ish people in northern Tasmania. I'd describe it as a cosy town, though it was regrettably more of a ghost village in the final leg of my stay due to a public holiday. Can't blame many of the locals for wanting to clear out and visit the natural treasures in their own backyard. Early in the morning, prior to my flight back home, I jogged from the city centre to Cataract Gorge Reserve on the South Esk River and witnessed the glorious sunrise. This is a must-see natural formation should you ever find yourself in Launceston. Peacocks were pecking sedately in the gardens. I saw a wallaby on the trail too, I think. And, on my way back to pack my bags, I spotted a cage with some monkeys in one of the local parks. Weird. Alright. I think it's time to head back to Melbourne and recover from the rest of my damn birthday cold.
Seven True Facts About Darwin Fact #1: Contrary to popular belief, the famous British naturalist Charles Darwin never visited the city. Instead, Darwin was founded in 1869 by his cousin, Gary Darwin, a beagle breeder who discovered the harbour after making a 2,100 nautical mile wrong turn at the Strait of Malacca. Fact #2: For a brief period, between 1990-1994, the Northern Territory legislature was suspended and replaced by a large boab tree (Adansonia gregorii), making the Territory the first-ever dendrocracy in recorded history. Fact #3: You may be familiar with Darwin's notorious 'The NT News' headlines (e.g. "Horny roo stalks NT women"). But did you know that no human actually writes them? The headlines are, in fact, the product of a malfunctioning mechanical haiku generator: "Basho Gone Troppo" as it's affectionately called by locals. Fact #4: If you squint really hard, you can see Indonesia on the horizon. Fact #5: When walking through the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens, you may notice signs warning you not to pick up chunks of asbestos on the ground. This is because asbestos is used as a nesting material by the rare and endangered Australian white ibis (Threskiornis molucca), which requires it for successful egg incubation. Fact #6: In July of 2017, in an innovative attempt to stimulate the slumping Darwin property market, the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory offered free Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) F/A-18 Hornets for first-time homebuyers. Fact #7: Common wifi passwords in Darwin hotels: box_jellies, buffal0, crocodil3, salt!water, kAkadu
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AuthorMing is an economist, traveller, and creative writer from Melbourne, Australia. He’s a nebulous collection of particles on the lookout for a good corner to sit with a book and a cup of coffee. Archives
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