Cairns, Australia

Sunday, March 10, 2019

I’m now in the FNQ! That’s how the locals tell you that you are in Far North Queensland.

Where am I?

So, what’s been happening?

Like many of the places that we’ve visited, Cairns is a quiet place to be on a Sunday morning. I did arrange for a Segway tour this morning, so the lack of people out and about was probably a plus for me.

My first challenge was to get to the meeting place for my tour. The ship and the meeting place were about two miles apart and I was determined to walk there. My walk was actually quite enjoyable. I started out going down Abbot St. which is in the downtown area and is a center for touristy shopping. Unfortunately (or, perhaps fortunately) the stores were all closed on Sunday morning. About halfway to the meeting point (about 1 mile) I left the city streets and continued walking along the esplanade.

The esplanade is a narrow park that runs alongside the coast and fronts almost the entire downtown area of Cairns. It is well maintained and offers a nice meandering path through trees and well manicured lawns. I saw people jogging, biking, and just walking hand-in-hand. Eventually, I could see Craig Chalmers waiting for me at a park picnic table.

Craig Chalmers is a co-owner and full operator of Cairns Ninebot Tours. Although he is a native of New Zealand he has lived in Cairns for more than ten years and knows his tour territory well. When I write “tour territory” I mean the places where Segways (or Ninebots) are allowed to be used. Unlike in the US, the Ninebots are not allowed in many places, one of them being the esplanade (and many other places, too!)

As is common, many of the cruise ship passengers elected to take in some of the attractions outside of town. Today, though, I decided to get to know the town of Cairns a bit more intimately. Craig took the lead and we “glided” over to the Cairns Botanical Gardens.

If you’re into plants, especially tropical plants, this place is nothing short of amazing. Growing up in San Diego, I use to love to go to Balboa Park. In that park there is a botanical garden that has many tropical and sub-tropical plants. It was free to visit and I use to love to go there on a Sunday afternoon and see what was new or what was blooming. (It also made a nice place to take a date in middle and high school!)

The gardens here in Cairns are configured to resemble a rain forest. Today was also a rainy day so my tropical experience was complete. Now, allow me to show you some of the plants that simply took my breath away.

• The “lipstick” palm: I love palms and this is, for me, one of the prettiest palms in the world. I first saw a small grove of these in Panama in front of one of the government buildings. This palm looks almost like bamboo and the red stalks make it very eye-catching. These plants remind me of when I lived in San Diego a few years. There, I had a small cluster of Baby Queen palms that looked very similar but did not exhibit the bright red color of these beauties. I would love to grow these a home, but they wouldn’t last through the first winter there. They need heat and humidity. Too bad.

• Heliconia Rostrata, or Lobster Claw: This plant produces some of the most spectacular blooms, and in super bright colors. Furthermore, the blooms look like long strings of lobster claws. It has no real scent, but with a face this pretty, who needs perfume?

• Pitcher plant: This cool looking flower hangs down from a leaf from the main plant. The stem grows down, then curves up forming the bell of the flower, kinda like a saxophone. Now here’s what makes this flower so special: in the bottom of the bell is a sweet nectar. Insects can smell it and are drawn inside the bell. Once inside, the insect finds that there are fibers (“hairs”) growing in there and they point down. This means that the insect can only go deeper into the bell and cannot crawl out! Ultimately, the insect tires from trying to escape and falls to the bottom of the bell where it is decomposed and absorbed into the main plant. In other words, this plant eats meat!

The lushness of the plants in the botanical garden must be seen to be believed. And the variety! There must be over a thousand different kinds of plants, each one special in its own way. Cruising through here in a light rain on a Ninebot with butterflies and dragon flies all around made me think of Jurasic Park. When the ride was over and we had to return to our starting point, I truly just wanted to stay and explore more of this amazing place.

Craig dropped me off back at the ship so I didn’t have to walk the two miles back. He also put me on to the fact that there was a brewery in the building right next to the cruise ship terminal back at the dock. I stopped in and found a couple of tasty beers while I watched a heavy shower come down. It was a sure sign that (after our visits to Picton and Sydney,) we’re definitely back in the tropics again.

Too soon, the hour for our departure of this port of call came and went. As we pulled away from Cairns, I felt like I would love to come back here and spend a couple of weeks. The people I met were very friendly, the town is laid out in an attractive fashion, and the tropical climate supports the kinds of plants that you or I would never see back home in Phoenix.

Anything else interesting?

Why, yes! Thanks for asking.

On the ride back to the ship, we drove down Abbott St. once again. I don’t know how I missed this sight on my walk from the ship earlier that day, but when Craig pointed them out, I could see them everywhere.

Those are fruit bats, also known as flying foxes. There’s hundreds of them and they’re all hanging from the trees that line the commercial district. This would be one block away from the esplanade. Craig tells me that the city of Cairns has been trying to find a way to get the colony to relocate but their efforts, so far, have failed. This year they’re relaxing their efforts because of some environmental issues that have occurred in the last twelve months. First there was a very extreme heat wave last summer. It was so hot for so long that fruit bats began falling out of the trees, dead. There were dead fruit bats lying all over the commercial area and people were using wheelbarrows to haul the bodies away. There was also an impact on the source of the fruit bats’ food, so they have been doubly strained this year.

Some people don’t want them around the city area, but I think all of those flying foxes look pretty exciting as they hang from trees directly above high-end department stores! What do you think?

So, what’s coming up?

We’re headed next to Darwin, which is a very small, very hot, and very humid place. Perhaps I can grow some gills to help me to breathe in all of the moist air that waits for me just four days from now.