7/23
CAIRNS
We land at 2 pm not at 2 am, and the airport arrivals section is absolutely empty, no open kiosks where we can buy something to eat, no bus that brings us to town at a decent price (the Lonely Planet failed here). If you have booked in advance there are the hostel’s minibus waiting, otherwise you have to manage and take a taxi. 14 Aud.
We refresh in a food court in the main shopping center near the train station. I take this opportunity to buy the Queensland Lonely Planet. Once in the library, I notice that global LP Australia guide, the one with Uluru on the cover, which in Italy costs 35 Eu here it is sold at 40 Aud. On internet it would cost 16 British pounds, or 23 Euro … ..
My gaze crosses the one of an Aborigine, the first one of the travel, a guy who collects the dirty trays from the tables. I think to the pictures on books which portray groups of men ready for the hunt, with their half-naked bodies painted with the natural colors of the earth, and I imagine he must hate the uniform he is obliged to wear now, so my eyes smile at him, while he lower his immediately. I remember having read somewhere that they, in relations with other human beings, are used often to touch each other, but never look straight in the eye, because for them it is a form of non-respect. I absent myself for a moment to think about the vicissitudes of these hunter-gatherers, who till two centuries ago did not know the stone processing, so stopped at the Paleolithic, who have always captured my imagination. I am intrigued with their beliefs, their customs, their ancestral cults, their male and female initiation rites, herb for contraception and abortion, myths and legends, the dream era, etc. They have no sense of ownership, since they belong to the Earth, which is their mother. Their organization, in most tribes, is egalitarian, no boss, they have no laws, but rather a series of codes of conduct related mostly to the common sense, men and women have very distinct tasks. They do not build huts or tents, but just shelter in occasional refuges. From what we can learn from their oral tradition, they never made wars. The do not know how to store food, they live in total harmony with the nature around them. The ceremony which interests me most is the walk about, an erratic ritual that forces the Aborigine to leave for a long time, months and years, just to meet other people who often do not even know. During these meetings, they exchange a lot of common use or personal objects, sometimes the umbilical cord (as told by Chatwin).
Nobody knows exactly how many Aborigines lived in Australia when the white man arrived, the fact is that today there are about 160 thousand, and a few decades ago it was even thought that they could extinct.
Currently, they are mostly unemployed, alcoholics and totally marginalized by modern Western civilization, with little hope of integration, since their ideals have no point in common with those of the culture that has occupied their territories. I hear they often refuse to live in the houses that the government has given them, as the only way of life they recognize is in the open air, and their conception of the body and the space around it makes so that they cannot stand the compulsion to live enclosed within four walls. For the same reason, most of those who end up in prison, mostly for minor offenses, such as resistance to a public officer or troublesome drunkenness, go mad or commit suicide. In the 80s, even Amnesty International denounced to the world the high number of suicides of black people in Australian prisons. They are 1% of the total population, but account for more than 10% of the prison population. They tend not to respect the white man’s laws, laws that do not recognize.
I come back to conscious life, and start to worry about where to go to sleep.
Many hostels are full, but not the Floriana Guesthouse, north of the Esplanade, with a beautiful view of the sea, but far from the center. The sea is just as I remembered it, four years ago. Only difference, they have built an artificial lagoon, complete with lifeguards and white sand; in Cairns, in fact, there is no beach.
We have dinner at the night market, 12 Aud for a huge pyramid of fried rice, rolls, noodles, chicken, pork, omelette, broccoli and cabbage, plus a heaping plate of fruit.
7/24
CAIRNS – KURANDA – CAIRNS
The owner of the guesthouse reveals a monstrous rudeness when I ask if and from where buses go to the center (You just have to use your eyes, she tells me). Probably she belongs to that class of hoteliers who are kind only if you book with them their excursions.
However, we can make good use of our eyes and the 1X bus, which passes 2 blocks behind the Esplanade, brings us close to the station, where we buy the train tickets to Kuranda.
Prices: one way 32 Aud per person, roundtrip 48. The funicular is even more.
By bus, however, it costs 1 Aud.
In my opinion, on the way back is better to take the bus !!!! Starting from Kuranda, there is a path you can follow, which reaches the same areas where the railway passes.
The market of Kuranda is quite a disappointment, same stuff as n Cairns shops and higher prices.
There is a mini-zoo with koalas and butterflies, but the entrance is quite expensive.
The walks through the surrounding rainforest are free. We pass close to a center which hosts huge bats and we stop curious. Only volunteers work here, as I understand; the girl who entertains us with a flying fox hanging on her arm give us a lot of information, and very interesting! Well, that these animals are smarter than dogs leaves me a bit skeptical … but they deserve a small donation!!
We take the bus back at 14.
We take time to go to our room to take the swimming suites, our intention would be in fact to spend a bit of time relaxing in the lagoon, and the sky, which until then had been sunny, suddenly becomes cloudy. What a bad luck. Well, it will be the leitmotif of our stay in the far north.