Surfers, crocs and more

Heya!

Let's try something new: we'll put the video here in the beginning.

Darwin is a special place, and it takes almost a week of driving to get to from anywhere. In fact, it's closer to Bali, Indonesia than to any Australian city. It has people from 50 different ethnicities (even not counting the Aborigines from dozens of different communities), it's surrounded by wild, beautiful natural parks and it posseses a wondeful, relaxed atmosphere that our awesome hosts Golden and Chris really helped us to get into. The amazing thing is that this city's people enjoy it so much despite the feeling that it's always trying to push them out, exhaust them or kill them.

it's up there, near Scotland.

A few examples: You can't grow rosemary in your yard because the termites would eat it; you can't go into the beautiful ocean most of the year because it's full of jellyfish that can give you a heart attack in a few seconds; if you want to go into the river instead, you'll have to face the 100,000 lethal crocodiles (one for every two people in the Northern Territory, or one for every 100 meters of river) that love to feast on humans*; there are huge tropical insects everywhere, and it seems like if all humans disappeared for two weeks, the jungle will take over everything; and if all that isn't enough, the weather is so hot and humid that a pool isn't a status symbol but a crucial point at the entrance to every home - a useful appliance that you have to jump into when you come home from work, even before the cold shower.

no joke. 

- "Hey, there are lots of wild crocodiles here, in the river next to the city. What do you think we should do?"
- "Ooh, I know! Let's take tourists out in little boats to look at them, taunt them with pieces of meat and teach them to associate humans with food!"

Speaking of the weather, it's a very powerful force in the tropical north of Australia. There aren't seasons like we know of them, just two periods of the year - "the wet" and "the dry". In the dry, the weather is wonderful and refreshing, there are festivals and everyone's happy. The wet is very hot, humid, monsoon rains flood the area every few days, and there are occasional cyclones. "Cyclone" sounds much less scary than "typhoon" or "hurricane", but that's exactly what they are - fierce tropical storms that bring about lots of rain and winds of up to 300 kph. The city of Darwin was completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy on chrismtas eve 1974 (71 killed, 80% of houses demolished) and it's as ingrained in the local memory as Yom Kippur is in Israel. Every local is a weather expert, can explain the difference between easterlies and westerlies, what happens when a cold front meets hot air and what happens in the jetstream when there's low pressure near the ground. The excellent Bureau of Meteorology website (with live rain radars and stuff) is one of the most-viewed pages on the web. When the wet season starts, people compare cyclone shelters and chat about window thickness just like Israelis talk about the location of our secure rooms. We encountered some of this fierce weather when we were woken up one night by lightning so strong it blinded us through thick black curtains(!) while we were sleeping(!!!). But the really bad thing is the buildup - the period before the rains start, when the heat and humidity become unbearable. The air stands for weeks and there's not a drop of rain to bring relief. That's the time of year with the most violent crimes, and it's known as "mango madness" because that's also when the many mango trees in the region ripen. A particularly hard buildup can break someone and make them run back to the east coast, and they say if you've survived one and you still like Darwin, you can call yourself a local.

one day, on the way to Darwin, a storm came out of nowhere. We were driving behind a huge truck with two yellow lights on top. The rain was so strong we couldn't even see the truck (despite the fact that we were 10 meters behind it) and we could just barely follow the lights. We'd pull over, but there was no shoulder. The reaction of the local truckers, beer in hand, after we finally managed to pull into a gas station: "You call that rain? The rain hasn't even started yet!"

"why did you bring me here?!"

The result of all this: the people who choose to live in Darwin are probably even more positive and carefree than the average Australia, which is saying a lot. The city is calm, clean and modern, the food is good, the beer is cold, the mining and gas industries offer abundant employment, the real estate market is blooming, and the traditions of sailing, rugby and fishing are kept religiously. By the way, what's the deal with fishing? It's a pretty weird thing. We've never tried to fish before we got here, and we never really understood the point. Well, thanks to Golden and Chris we've tried it now (with no success), and we have to say - it's exactly the same as doing nothing. You sit or stand there, holding a line, and wait for time to pass. Maybe have a beer or chat with your mates. So all in all, a wonderful activity. Oh, and you sometimes get fish out of it, apparently.

fishing! Also known as "standing around".

***

To get from Darwin to the east coast and finally enjoy a beach you can not only look at but actually swim in**, you have to go through the outback for another four or five days. You pass through semi-abandoned diners, huge mines, a town known for being a dinosaur center, and some other picturesque spots. On the last night we stopped in a rest area by the side of the road, 350 kilometers from one town and 550 kilometers from the next. We made a tasty dinner, we enjoyed the sunset, and afterwards we were dazzled by a night sky almost as starry as in Nepal. It was so dark and desolate that we could see the headlights of a car from kilometers away. Of course, that's the exact moment when a huge dog came out of nowhere and started charging towards us. We were preparing to fight him to the death, but apparently the dogs in Australia are as nice as the people. He jumped on us, licked us and played with us.

pictured: Momo admiring the sunset. Not pictured: Giant, scary dog.

***

The next day we arrived in Cairns, known for being Australia's diving capital due to its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, which is - at 2,300 kilomoeters - thought to be the largest object in the world built by living things. It's a nice, quiet place, but after getting used to one-pub towns and to empty streets, we felt a little shocked to be in a touristic place. "Look how many people are in the street!"; "Wow, there are three restaurants right next to each other!"; "I can't believe it, it's already 19:00 and everything is still open!".

Anyway, our next stop was a diving safari in said reef, including two days of classes on land for Neriya and three days of living on a boat for both of us. Diving is a really special expereience. The reef is colorful and beautiful, there's strange fish everywhere, sharks, turtles, squids and rays. You go down to visit them three or four times a day and you spend the rest of your time having fun on the boat. But what diving is really about is not what you see or where you og, but how you experience it. when you get used to the water, the suit and the gear, learn to move only with your legs and go up and down just with your breathing, you can forget for a few minutes that you're underwater. Time stops, the outside world vanishes, and you just fly. Soar. Glide without effort and without thought through a magical world of blue light, moving rays of sunshine on the bottom, strange creatues and slow heartbeats.

it's called a moray, apparently. Thanks, Karelle!

That's Eli's experience, at least. For Neriya it was more seasickness, discomfort with the fact that if something goes wrong you have to rise slowly and calmly(?!), and generally wondering why the hell you need to go to all this trouble to get to a depth where you see much less than you do at the surface. She decided to snorkel instead, and she saw a lot more, a lot easily. Anyway, we both equally enjoyed the feeling of home that was created on the boat after three days, as well as the nightly games of Jungle Speed and the on-deck saxophone solo (see video).

birthday cake!

After the diving we had two weeks to experience the east coast of Australia. It has everything you imagine about it, including waterfalls, dunes and tropical fruit. In addition, all the animals are weird, even the regular ones. The parrots are extra-colorful, the lizards are huge, and even the pigeons walk around with a ridiculous mohawk. Anyway, this is the quintessential Australia for most people who visit it, and they're used to thinking of the country as a never-ending collection of resort towns, beaches, toned surfers, palm trees and koalas. We, on the other hand, felt like cranky old people. What is this place?! This isn't the real Australia! Where are the dirt roads and the abandoned petrol stations?! And how can you even drive here - there are so many cars, and *two* lanes in each directions! This is crazy!

heya, east coast!

heya, dolphin!

heya, parrots!

Speaking of surfing, do you want an example of how much the Aussies are crazy about it? We went to sleep one night on a little town near a beach, on Saturday night, in a completely abandoned parking lot which we heard was legal to camp in. There were no signs, so we weren't 100% sure. At 5:00 in the morning we started to hear voices, opened one eye and waited for a cop or a ranger to knock on our tent and give us a report or something. We eventually climbed out and couldn't believe what we saw. Six in the morning, Sunday. The carpark is completely pakced with cars of all sizes, and dozens of people are walking toward the beach with surfboards under their arms, from little kids to 80-year olds. Because who can keep on sleeping on a Sunday when there's good surf?

surfing!

also surfing?

*** 

One of the coolest places we visited on the east coast is Fraser Island. It's a big island made completely of sand (in fact, the biggest sand island in the world), the only one of its kind with a tropical rainforest growing on it. It's only accessible via four-wheel-drive, it has "highways" on the sand, cool trees and amazing freshwater lakes. But the thing that surprise us most was how strange it felt to be part of a large group all of a sudden. We were part of a semi-guided three-day tour of three cars driving around together and coming back to a campground every night, and it felt a little like going on a school trip or mini-summer camp, only we joined as a couple. You go through an accelerated introduction-hanging out-saying goodbye cycle with a small group of cool people, and it made us miss our friends back hoem. And also realize how odd our social situation has been during most of our trip, when we usually meet one or two people for a few hours and then never see them again, but spend 24 hours with each other. We're not complaining - the fact we're traveling together has been the best part of this trip - but there's a chance that six month of backpacking together are like three or four years of "regular" marriage. 

Fraser Island ferry terminal.

Fraser Island highway.

Fraser Island gourmet dinner.

Fraser Island freshwater lake, which won't be there in a few centuries because the dune it's near is advancing to your left.

***

We spent a few days in the end of December in the wonderul surfing town of Byron Bay, surrounded by, well, surfers. Also, lots of barbecues. And Europeans loudly complaining that all the sun, beaches and tanned people in bathing suits are ruining their Christmas atmosphere. From the moment we left Melbourne six or seven weeks earlier, and ever since then, we'd been on a race to manage to get through thousands of kilometers and get from place to place on a predetermined schedule. Make it in time to Darwin, make it in time for the diving, make it in time to Sydney to meet Eli's parents (see next post). We've seen a lot of things, we met lots of people, we made memories and had experiences, but every day we knew what we were doing the next day. On the second day in Byron Bay, after the surfing lessos, we walked pack to the caravan park where we were staying. We suddenly realized we had no plans for tomorrow, or the day after that. We simply had no idea what we'll do. So far we've been traveling - and it's been awesome. But suddenly a new feeling crept up, one that takes a long time to soak in but that it's impossible to shake once it's there. An unmistakeable feeling.

Freedom.

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* Something intersting about crocodiles: White people aren't allowed to hunt and kill them, only Aborigines (if that seems unfair, read up a little on what the whites have done to Aborigines only in the last few generations). It is legal to catch them and put them on croc farms if they're deemed dangerous, but the omst popular way to fill these farms (used to make boots and wallets) is to gets eggs from nature. This is completely legal. You want to work in Australia for a few months but manning reception at a hostel or picking mango is too tame for you? You can be helicoptered into a swamp or rofest in the middle of nowhere and try to sneak in to crocs' nests and steal their eggs, while two guys with guns are on guard. You know, because there's nothing more reasonable than willingly entering the territory of predators so good that they haven't needed to evolve since the age of the dinosaurs, and try to take the only thing they want to keep safe at all costs.

** So we thought. Apparently, there are lethal jellyfish there too.