A Day in the Life of Cairns
We awoke early Monday morning to catch our flight to Cairns, which is in Northern Queensland. After checking in, we proceeded to pass thru security, and there I was getting ready to take off my shoes, remove my coat and sweatshirt, empty my pockets, and show the security guard my boarding pass. Then Andrew laughed at me. “We’re not in America anymore, dear.” Right. While we wait in long lines to get thru security in American airports, the rest of the world is still living like its September 10, 2001. Ahhh, those were the days…
We landed in Cairns three hours later and as soon as we disembarked, the heat and humidity hit us like a ton of bricks. While we left Melbourne at a cool 16 degrees Celsius, Cairns greeted us at 35 degrees Celsius. For those who forget the conversion formula, it comes out to around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. We were going to be in for quite a shvitzy few days.
Our first, and only scheduled stop for the day, was the Tjabukai Aboriginal Culture Park. In just a couple of hours, we learned about the native tribe that lived in the area of Cairns before settlers from the English kingdom arrived. We learned how they lived, using the surrounding rainforest and rivers in all aspects of their lives, and how their world was turned upside-down upon the arrival of English settlers. It’s an old and unfortunately not unique story with which we are quite familiar—Native Americans, Africans, Yemenites in Israel, etc., etc. Specifically in Australia, I get the feeling that it’s a story I’m not quite sure the country has truly and come to terms with yet.
The park was pretty hands-on: we heard stories of Tjabukai culture and heritage, saw a dance performance, learned which plants they used for medicinal purposes, and learned how to throw boomerangs and spears. All in all, it was quite informative, but, at least from my perspective, I felt a bit uncomfortable taking pictures, especially of the dances, feeling that perhaps I was intruding or somehow mocking their culture.
We got back to the car at 3:30pm. We had nothing else scheduled for the day except to drive up to Port Douglas and check-in to our room. So, in following tradition, instead of taking the main highway to Port Douglas, we took a different route. The map showed a coffee farm just 20-30 km to the west, so why not check it out?
Well, we tried to check it out, but we got there and the sign simply said “Not Open Today,” so we continued driving. Good thing they weren’t open, because as we learned just 15 minutes later, a real coffee plantation was just around the bend waiting to be explored.
Our tour of the Jaques (pronounced Jakes) Coffee Plantation was so interesting and unique, it deserves its own post.
We landed in Cairns three hours later and as soon as we disembarked, the heat and humidity hit us like a ton of bricks. While we left Melbourne at a cool 16 degrees Celsius, Cairns greeted us at 35 degrees Celsius. For those who forget the conversion formula, it comes out to around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. We were going to be in for quite a shvitzy few days.
Our first, and only scheduled stop for the day, was the Tjabukai Aboriginal Culture Park. In just a couple of hours, we learned about the native tribe that lived in the area of Cairns before settlers from the English kingdom arrived. We learned how they lived, using the surrounding rainforest and rivers in all aspects of their lives, and how their world was turned upside-down upon the arrival of English settlers. It’s an old and unfortunately not unique story with which we are quite familiar—Native Americans, Africans, Yemenites in Israel, etc., etc. Specifically in Australia, I get the feeling that it’s a story I’m not quite sure the country has truly and come to terms with yet.
The park was pretty hands-on: we heard stories of Tjabukai culture and heritage, saw a dance performance, learned which plants they used for medicinal purposes, and learned how to throw boomerangs and spears. All in all, it was quite informative, but, at least from my perspective, I felt a bit uncomfortable taking pictures, especially of the dances, feeling that perhaps I was intruding or somehow mocking their culture.
We got back to the car at 3:30pm. We had nothing else scheduled for the day except to drive up to Port Douglas and check-in to our room. So, in following tradition, instead of taking the main highway to Port Douglas, we took a different route. The map showed a coffee farm just 20-30 km to the west, so why not check it out?
Well, we tried to check it out, but we got there and the sign simply said “Not Open Today,” so we continued driving. Good thing they weren’t open, because as we learned just 15 minutes later, a real coffee plantation was just around the bend waiting to be explored.
Our tour of the Jaques (pronounced Jakes) Coffee Plantation was so interesting and unique, it deserves its own post.
posted by elanit | 12:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home