FNQ (Far North Queensland)

You have to love a country where everyone you meet, from tour guides to baristas, scientists to bell hops, all kick off the conversation talking about how everything, be it insect, plant or animal, in Australia, and in FNQ in particular, will try to kill you. And they all say it so matter of factly, with the biggest grins on their faces, not trying to scare you, but simply stating the obvious. It’s truly wild. But the allure of the Great Barrier Reef far outweighed the danger, so northward we went to FNQ in all its stingey, bitey glory. We decided to base of out Port Douglas, a small tourist town that acts as a gateway to both the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest, giving us the opportunity to explore both the largest reef on the planet and the oldest living rainforest in one fell swoop. I’ve always dreamed of visiting the GBR, perhaps from some childhood thing of being named Coral or having a lifetime obsession with the ocean, but even still, I wasn’t quite prepared for how large, truly captivating or beautiful it would be. As our plane descended into Cairns, an expanse of turquoise waters stretched as far as the eye could see out the plane window, giving a glimpse into just how vast the reef really is. It turns out the GBR is made up of over 3,000 individual reefs and is over 1400 miles long, about equal in length to the entire Western coast of the United States. It is home to thousands of types of fish, turtles, dolphins, whales, sharks and, of course, coral.  I feel like these days the predominant narrative around the GBR is the degradation and bleaching happening there, so I honestly didn’t know what to expect in our visit. Would we see fish and corals, or would it feel like a ghost town reminding us just how much we, as humans, have royally f’ed it up. It ended up a perfect combination of both. The Great Barrier Reef we saw was absolute magic, with brilliant colors stretching for as far as we could swim and teeming with life and fish in every color of the rainbow. There were sea turtles and reef sharks, clown and parrot fish, and corals so beautiful it was hard to absorb it all. It felt like we were swimming through a David Attenborough movie. But at the same time, you could see chunks where bleaching had occurred, or sections that had been destroyed by the Crown of Thorns starfish, the current biggest threat to the GBR. The Crown of Thorns are these giant starfish that have started thriving due to an increase in a certain algae that respond to the warmer sea temperatures and agricultural run-off, making their way across the reef, essentially bulldozing it as they go. The scientists on our boat (it turned out, every single crew member was a marine biologist!) taught us all about why and how bleaching happens and showed us sections of the reef that had been completely decimated in the last decade, but that were now regrowing and flourishing. They showed us sections of reef where they are replanting coral polyps that have been broken off in storms or from human impact, and that they are now nursing back to health and replanting on the reef. They taught us how they inject the Crown of Thorns with vinegar to kill them and are starting to reduce their overpowering numbers.  In other words, hope it not lost.

One thing I hadn’t expected was the severity of the “stinger” situation up north.  Both the Box Jellyfish and Irukandji jellyfish apparently flood into the coastal waters each summer to breed. It turns out that all the beaches, yes that’s right, ALL the beaches, are closed from October to May to prevent innocent bystanders like us from being killed by the toxic sting of one of the jellies. A different kind of beach vacation to be sure!! They don’t tend to concentrate out on the reef so you’re still able to snorkel out there, but never-the-less, we all donned “sting suits”, essentially head-to-toe lycra suits with hoods and mittens, essentially covering every inch of your body other than your face. Somehow something stingy still managed to sneak through and get Holden’s cheek during our second snorkel, and we all did our best to stay calm while the scientists onboard neutralized it with vinegar (far more painful than the sting itself) and set a timer to make sure he didn’t have any reaction. Tough little dude wasn’t deterred and simply slathered the ouchy sting with Vaseline and jumped back in the water, not wanting to miss a thing!  

With the stingers and the crocs seeming to be the predominant threat that everyone talks about in FNQ, it seemed only appropriate to get up close and personal with both 🤣. We checked into our hotel in Port Douglas and the sweet woman at reception nonchalantly mentioned that we might want to keep an eye on the boys as they run around the property as several weeks ago a crocodile was found in one of the ponds near the swimming pool. No big deal 😳.  Luckily the only crocs we spotted during our trip were on a crocodile-focused river exploration aboard the Solar Whisper, an entirely solar powered boat that took us deep into the Daintree, snaking through mangroves, inlets and outlets in search of the ever-elusive croc. We found a rather large female soaking up some sun on the bank of the river and then a half-dozen baby crocs, no bigger than a foot, scattered among the mangrove roots feasting on tiny crabs. Apparently, a croc will increase 20,000% in size over the course of its life, so the babies were quite innocuous. Exploring the mangroves while going deep into the Daintree was amazingly beautiful and felt like stepping back in time to prehistoric ages - I kept half-expecting a dinosaur to fly across the sky or appear at the edge of the river.

The final highlights of our time in Port Douglas were two Aboriginal culture tours we took, which couldn’t have been more different from each other. The first was a mud crabbing tour that took us through the mangroves and along the shallow coastal waters, armed with traditional aboriginal bamboo spears, to catch ourselves lunch in the form of mud and sand crabs. We showed up in the middle of nowhere and met our guide Brandon, muscled, tattooed, smoking a cigarette and surrounded by turtle shells, giant saws from the beaks of sword and sail fish, bones and skins from crocodiles, all from animals he’s hunted recently. We had about a 5-minute tutorial in which he handed us each a spear and had us toss them at coconuts on the ground, and then took off at a brisk pace into the mangroves. After about 2-minutes he hollers for the boys to stand back and we see his spear fly through the air then start whizzing along the shore. He pulls it up and attached is a well-sized sting ray, flopping around on the tip. Apparently sting ray tastes much like rabbit and was a favorite food of the aboriginal people. He taught us how to cut off the barb of the sting ray and clean the skin from the stinger, the part that causes infection. He showed us how you check the color of the liver to see if it’s toxic or healthy and suitable to eat.  We then squelched and squirched our way through knee deep mud for about 20 minutes, stopping to pluck periwinkles off tree roots to eat along with our crab, all the while convinced that a crocodile was going to jump out and eat us all. We shortly popped out into the ocean shallows and spent the next hour slowly winding our way back to the start, spearing crabs along the way. You would see a skuttle out of the corner of your eye, grab your spear and drive it downward, hoping to make contact. Holden, Huxley and Will all proved to be very adept at this task, catching a veritable feast, while I was far too focused on not stepping on a sting ray or stone fish or running into a sea snake, box jelly, cone shell (even the shells in Australia can be poisonous!) or croc. I think I would have been what the Aboriginals like to call a ‘vegetarian’ 🤣. We then took all the crabs, periwinkles, the sting ray and shark (yep, he caught a small shark too 😳) back to his parents’ house, where he cooked them all up with copious amounts of butter, garlic and chili and we dove into lunch. It was all very surreal, very wild, very intriguing and very delicious. It also inspired quite a few conversations with the boys afterward on why he could and would catch things like sharks and turtles that we are trying so hard to save and opened up a dialogue on respecting  and honoring the traditions of the aboriginal people and that their traditional impacts on ocean ecosystems were in harmony with the sea, unlike today’s commercial fishing fleets that strip the sea from top to bottom.  Our second tour was a Dreamtime walk through the Daintree Rainforest with a very sweet, very quiet, and very humble young man named Levi who had grown up in the Daintree with his grandmother and grandfather, neither of whom spoke English, and learned Kuku Yalani (the language/aboriginal tribe of the area) from a young age. In his own words, the rainforest was a “grocery store, hardware store and pharmacy” all. He taught us about all the plants that can sting and maim, like the wait-a-while vine that hides on the underside of palm leaves and has horrible barbs that hook into your skin and can rip it off to the bone, or the “Gympie Gympie” (which means Devil like in the native language) with leaves like stinging nettle times 1,000, covered in tiny stinging barbs that are insanely toxic and once in your skin can take about 3 months to get out. We were on the lookout for cassowaries, a giant emu-like bird that is almost extinct, except for this part of the rainforest.  They grow up to 2 meters tall and have razor-sharp claws with which they can disembowel you. No big deal.  He showed us how to find water in vines, make soap from Sarsaparilla and the fungi which his grandma and aunties used to nibble on when they were stressed out from the kids that would make their eyes turn red and lead them to giggle uncontrollably.  His quiet nature was a wonderful contrast to the bravado of Brandon and the boys loved hearing all his childhood stories and seeing the rainforest through his eyes. Somehow all of this happened in just 3 days, and somehow we managed to leave Port Douglas alive and in one piece!  

RANDOM RECS

We stayed at Niramaya Villa and Spa, home to the aforementioned crocodile in the pond, and it was great. Kind of half way between a house and a hotel with a full kitchen and great pool. About 5 minutes from downtown Port Douglas.

I oogled Silky Oaks lodge but they have a 10 year old age limit. Looks divine 🤩

We visited the Great Barrier Reef with Wavelength Reef Cruises. I couldn’t recommend them more! They are a small, family owned and operated company with an emphasis on conservation. All the deck hands were also Marine Biologists who give educational talks throughout the day.

Mud Crabbing adventure with Kuku Yalanji Cultural Habitat Tours

We loved the quietness of the solar powered boat for our crocodile tour.

A visit to Mossman Gorge is a MUST and we loved a peek into the Aboriginal relationship with the Daintree through our Dreamtime Walk.

We had two delicious dinners at Maman and Melaleuca and would recommend them both!