Magical Elixir.

There are a couple of elixirs that we've found in Melbourne that are pure magic.

Melbourne has fantastic coffee.  And, we are lucky to be just down the street from one of the top voted coffee shops in Melbourne.  They also have great food - the best chicken salad that I've had since we've been here.  Weekends start with a great coffee from one of our local cafes.

Third Wave Cafe.  We'll take you there
when you come to visit us.

As you may recall, I had a bad reaction to something in the Daintree Rainforest.

Weird, red, swollen reaction to something in the rainforest.

Once we got back to the hotel, I put some of Lucas' PaPaw Ointment on it, and have everyday since then, and I think my legs and feet are starting to get back to normal.  I had heard that this stuff was magic, but now I'm convinced, too!  It claims to be a "local topical application for boils, burns, chafing, cuts, cracked skin, gravel rash, splinters, open wounds, insect bites, and nappy rash."  Covers quite a bit, huh!  The only ingredient listed is:  Potassium Sorbate, which is listed as a preservative.  No other ingredients listed.  I don't care what it contains, it works magic.

Magic Ointment for my Daintree Forest allergy.

If you come and visit us, we'll give you some as a departing gift :).

A Walk on the Wild Side.

Melbourne is known for it laneways.  Back in the early 1800's, the city was designed with wide streets that would accommodate hauling big cartloads of goods.  As the big business happened on the main streets, smaller streets and laneways offered eclectic and diverse options from the ordinary.

We decided to take a self-guided laneways tour, and scoured the world wide web for a suggestion of streets.  We had seen and heard about the great cafes, restaurants, and graffiti that line the laneways, but the tour gave us some additional background.  What we found was awesome graffiti, beautiful architecture, odd artwork, and a nice little cafe for a snack and a great cup of coffee.

1.  DeGraves Street

Home to Degraves Espresso, named one of
the top ten coffee houses in the city.

Majorca House, a 1920's Art Deco residential building.

2.  Centre Place

The most photographed laneway.

Fortunately, all of the shops were closed so we got a good
view of the graffiti.

3.  Block Arcade

Named after "doing the block", where fashionable Melbournians
promenaded to see and be seen.

Covered arcade with mosaic tile floors.

4.  Block Place

These gold discs create a trail around Melbourne, where
the gold rush impacted the city. 

Lots of small cafes and shops line this alley.

5.  McKillop Street

McKillop Street - home to "The Haunted Bookstore".

Victorian lampposts.

6.  Hardware Lane

There's a McDonald's (Maccer's) immediately
to my right in this picture.  Jeff wanted a double
cheese burger.

7.  Niagara Lane (probably my favorite).

Once this laneway housed restaurants, merchants,
plumbers, and sweet shops...now, apartments.

The ironwork and pulley's are original.
The pulley's were for hoisting barrels for Niagara Hotel.

Barrel pulley's and apartment numbers.

Street Art.

Street Art.

8.  Union Lane

Apparently, graffiti isn't illegal in Australia.

You may notice that there aren't many people in these pictures...we went out on New Year's Day, and pretty much everything was closed and Melbourne was a ghost town.  Worked perfectly well for us :)

Thar She Blows...

The North winds, that is.

It is January 2nd, and it is 40 degrees here.  Celsius.  That means it's about 100 degrees fahrenheit.  It's HOT.  And there is this lovely wind that blows hot air.  On the bright side, it is a dry heat...not so much humidity.  But still, it's like a walking into a furnace.  (Keep in mind that we were "lucky" to find an apartment with air conditioning...most don't have central air or heat...)

Here in the Southern Hemisphere, northerly winds blow hot air straight off the desert, and southerly winds blow air straight off of Antarctica.  Some of those southerly winds might be a nice relief today.

Enjoying the hot Melbourne summer.

It's supposed to be about 100 degrees until Wednesday, when it's supposed drop to 60.

Cane Toad Racing?

Yes, it's true.  We attended another sporting event.  Cane Toad Racing.

It is everything that you can imagine and more.  As an earlier post states, Cane Toads were introduced here to rid the sugar cane of grubs that were destroying the crops...102 were introduced from Puerto Rico, and within 12 months or so, they had increased in number to well over 100,000.  That's a lot of toads.

One of the benefits of this abundant population is Cane Toad Racing.

At the Iron Bar in Port Douglas 

Every evening at 8pm.

Our lucky numbers of 24 and 25 were not chosen.

You pay $5 to see six Cane Toads sit in the middle of a table and have people blow horns at them to get them to move...then, they auction off the privilege of blowing a horn at the same Cane Toads for the main event.  The goal is to blow the horn at your Cane Toad to get them to hop to the end of the table.  It's a complete racket (obviously).  We witnessed one family blow about $200 on buying horn-blowing rights for their 4 kids.  RACKET.

"Jockey's" gathered around blowing horns at their Cane Toad.

What Do You Do If A Leech Attaches Itself to Your Eyeball?

The answer to that question is required knowledge if you are to bushwalk unguided in the forest and rainforests of far north Queensland.  Fortunately Laura and I had a seasoned vet in Pete to show us around the Daintree Rainforest.  The Daintree Rainforest is listed as a World Heritage site as it is recognized as the world’s oldest rainforest.  Pete also referred to it as the world’s safest  rainforest.  Other than a ton of bugs, animals which can be found in this rainforest include two species of python, wallabies (midget kangaroos), cassowary, and a venomous snake … but as Pete pointed out, the venom might be enough to kill a child but is only enough to make an adult nauseous (making it hardly worth mentioning by Aussie snake standards).  It should be noted that the cassowary, an endangered large emu/ostrich-like bird, can kill a man by disemboweling them with their center claw.  Having said that, they have poor eyesight and the recommended defense is to hide behind a tree.  A pretty easy maneuver to pull off in a rainforest.

Before moving onto the rainforest tour, a brief word about Pete.  He’s a tough old bloke.  He grew up in tribal areas around the border region of Kenya and Tanzania affectionately referring to his time there as “when I was a black kid”.  He was there for civil war and then departed for Papua New Guinea to start tea plantations.  Papua New Guinea is where tribal people eat people of rival tribes that wander into their territory to this day.  He left for Australia when civil unrest arose and has some stories to tell.  He has guided forest tours in all three places and knows a thing or two about plants and bugs.

So Pete picked us up around 8:00am and we were immediately got a taste, literally, of what lie ahead.  He knew of an area with green ant nests about 2 minutes from the resort.  We stopped and licked green ant butts.  Green ant butts give you a shock like licking a battery and taste very sour.  We also squished 7 of them, the proper dosage according to the native Bama (an apparently respectful name for the local Aboriginal people), and sniffed them to clear any nasal issues we may have had.  Then we proceeded into the rainforest where we learned more about every type of plant in that place than you have the patience to read about.  How they survive, how they’ve adapted, what the barks and saps can be used for, which ones to look for in survival situations, which ones will kill you … etc.  We also ate a bunch of fruits and berries ranging from pretty tasty to downright repulsive.  We planted mangroves.  I swam in a rainforest pool Pete guaranteed was croc-free.  For the record, I didn’t stay in long as I kept a wary eye out with that being hunted feeling despite being able to see clearly to the depth of the pool.  Laura had an adverse reaction to either bug spray or some of the grasses.  Pete was more concerned than he let on, but she’ll live despite some minor bumps.  We did not get leeches.  We did get rained on.  And we did get to see one of the 1,500 cassowaries on the side of the road (in an area of 1,200 square kilometers).  He was followed by a baby cassowary.  And for some reason we learned a vehicle keyless entry remote trick.  Apparently you can significantly increase the range of your remote by depressing the transmitting end of the remote to your chin, opening your mouth in the direction of the vehicle, and operating the remote.  It worked, no lie.

By the way, the answer to the question is leave it until it falls off of it’s own accord.  Disgusting, but there’s a good chance of vision impairment in the concerned eye otherwise.

Pete offering Laura a lick of green ant butt

A prominent plant in this rainforest, it accordions out to a full circle to absorb sunlight and retracts to survive in high winds.

One of apparently numerous types of ginger plant species.

Termite mound on a tree.  When a mound becomes full, the termites grow wings and fly out of the mound like a geyser to form a new mound.  Pete used to put his mouth over the hole during such an event for "a good meal" in Africa.

Vine swing.

Due to the shallowness of the soil in this rainforest, many trees root structures resemble this one.  The Bama cut chunks out of the roots of this particular tree to make hunting boomerangs.

Hanging out inside a fig tree.  The tree grows around a host tree eventually consuming it.

View up the "trunk" of a fig tree which has consumed it's host.

No monkeys in this rainforest, or all of Australia for that matter, but a Tarzan vine inspired my inner monkey.

Cassowary poo.  There is a plum they consume 3 to 5 times before being done with it.  Yeah, that means they eat portions of their own poo.

Lace mushroom.  This thing stinks!

A cane toad.  With only 102 introduced in 1930s to eradicate a grub, it became a pest as the population exploded with no predators.  A 60 toad night wasn't out of the norm on the way home from a night out.  After 70 years, crows have developed methods of consuming them without ingesting the toxin they excrete and populations are declining rapidly.

A dip in a rainforest pool.

Mangroves

Rainforest coast.

The cassowary we caught a glimpse of.  They can move pretty fast, even the little dude.

Laura opening the Land Rover outside the remotes normal range.

Good (g)Reef.

On Tuesday, we had a trip planned to the Great Barrier Reef.  We chose a smaller company, where they would take up to 30 of us out...there are several companies that will take between 300 - 400 people out to snorkel and tie up to a permanent structure out on the reef, complete with a restaurant, cafe, bathrooms, and a bar.  Considering that we had to pay an "environmental" fee to help pay to repair/continue growing the reef, a permanent structure had us feeling a little weird...so small boat it was!

Our boat and Skipper John

Out on the open ocean.

There were 29 snorkelers, a marine biologist, a deck hand, and the skipper and we set out on an all day cruise.  We would stop at three different places on the reef - Turtle Bay, Seagull and SNO (not sure what that stands for), and they were all on the outer reef.

Because it was stinger season, we had to wear full-on lycra suits, from head to toe.  It was...something.

Rockin' our lycra suits.

My best ninja pose.

"What Up, Fishes."

Outside of the lycra suits, it was so cool.  Our favorite spot was SNO, which was somewhat unfortunate, as our camera battery died, and we had to leave sooner than we had planned because there was a huge storm between us and shore...but, it was awesome.

We saw lots of fish, a couple of sharks (though Jeff didn't realize they were sharks), and all kinds of weird and interesting hard and soft coral.  We were pretty bummed that we didn't get to see any turtles, but we now have a reason to come back!

Giant Clam.

Turtle Bay. 

Bowl in SNO.

Bowl in SNO.

White Tipped Reef Shark. 

There was a point on the trip out to the reef that I got a little nervous - the captain went down to the engine room, then came up with noise-cancelling headphones on, asking the deck hand to do different things with the throttle, including completely turning the boat off...but we made it out and back safe and sound.

Tomorrow we head out on a Daintree Rainforest tour with Pete.  Pete is so Australian that I only understand every third word or so...stay tuned!