After the program ended, Steve, Eva, Kelly, Lauren, and I planned to complete a road trip in a camper van from Cairns to Sydney. We planned to pick our Camperman camper up on the 14th (after saying good-bye to the five people who left on the group flight, and others who were leaving on their own travels), and head out that day. We went to pick it up at noon ($20 taxi ride) but it wasn’t yet ready. Kelly and Eva went back at 3:30 to pick it up, only to find that the van was a manual…which none of us knew how to drive. This was frustrating to us because the man who booked it for us, Andy, had promised us an automatic vehicle. It turns out they don’t even manufacture these campers as automatics. (That guy clearly knew what he was doing.) Kelly tried learning to drive it in the parking lot, but decided she was way too uncomfortable to be driving a huge van on the other side of the road in a foreign country in manual.
SO, Plan B. We booked another night at the Greenhouse in Cairns, (which was actually nice, because we got to spend a little bit more time with the people still there: Anders, Avery, Sam, and Geneveve). We booked a station wagon with camping gear to pick up the next day. Lauren decided to back out and get a bus ticket down the coast instead, because the station wagon would be extremely cramped and she has a bad back and didn’t want to camp the entire trip.
On the fifteenth, we went to pick up our vehicle. Now, Andy had told us that this car would NOT have a tape deck, only a CD player. So, we went to the trouble of buying a radio adaptor for our i-pods, even though we already had a tape-deck adaptor. Of course, we get the car and find out that it does indeed have a tape deck, and no CD player to be found. We also went through a lot of trouble filling out the paperwork to rent the car. They would ONLY accept a credit card for some insurance thing, and none of us had one. They wouldn’t take debit, cash, check, anything. So Kelly had to call her parents (even though it was after midnight at home), and they had to scan their passports, driver’s licenses, and credit card number, just so that we could get the car. Kelly was the first to drive on the left side of the road, and we drove our new pal, a red Ford Falcon, back to the hostel to pack it up. The station wagon was COMPLETELY packed. We couldn’t have fit anything else if we tried. At some points in the trip, when we packed it extremely well, we had about three inches to look out the back windshield. Eva went to return the i-pod radio adaptor, we did some food shopping, packed the car, said goodbyes, and left Cairns around 4:00 in the afternoon.
Kelly drove out of the city and we headed south on Route 1, the Bruce Highway. It was a beautiful day, and we drove past the rainforest-covered mountains of the area and the sun-lit sugar cane fields. Our first stop was at Babinda Boulders, a place Tony had recommended. (Babinda competes with Tully for the “wettest” place in Australia… the two cities have the highest rainfall each year.) We walked along a path through the rainforest at dusk. The path ran alongside a heavy-flowing creek, where huge granite boulders caused the water to churn and froth. The boulders formed really pretty rock pools in some places. We were going to camp at the boulders, because it was free, but all of the free campsites were taken and we didn’t want to risk getting caught, so we kept driving south to Eddy Bay.
It was a good thing, too! The caravan park we camped at was right on the beach. We could hear the waves from our tent. We set up camp in the dark, then went down to some picnic tables by the beach to cook our first dinner on our propane stove. It was late, so we didn’t want to get too extravagant; we just made cous-cous with some spices and things, then tea. We went to bed soon after. We woke up in the morning and began to pack away our campsite. It was about 8 o’clock, and we had about a two-hour drive to get to Tully, where we were going to go sky-diving. We had to be there by 11 o’clock. So we’re packing up our tents when out of the bushes pop…
TWO CASSOWARIES! Eva heard a rustling in the grasses, and we all looked up to see a large, brownish bird step out of the bushes. I wasn’t sure what it was at first—it resembled some combination of goose or stork—but then its father stepped out of the grasses behind it: a full grown male cassowary. They approached us slowly. “Keep something between you and the cassowary,” Steve calmly reminded us, and we got behind the car or inside of it to take photos. Now, for those of you who don’t know what a cassowary is, just keep in mind the fact that they have a huge talon that could gut a human being in one swipe. So we’re safe behind our car doors, taking photos. At one point, the father separated from his baby. Each was on the opposite side of our neighbor’s car. I thought the father was panicking because he couldn’t see his baby—he began to jump and attack the car, leaving a foot-long scratch on it—but he probably just saw his reflection in the tinted window.
I was standing behind the car and looking out over the top when I noticed a second father cassowary with a baby further down near the beach! I was super surprised to see a second pair (though we were surprised to see the first! These birds are rare!) because the birds are so territorial. I was right: as the second father approached our part of the campsite, the two began to get very angry with each other. We crouched in our car to watch them fight. Once, one of the babies attacked one of the fathers. He basically ran and jumped on him, and the father ran off. Other times, the baby nearest us would just plop down on the ground to wait. “Come on, Dad, I’m bored. Let’s move on. Get this fight over with already.”
One pair of cassowaries climbed up onto a small ridge while the other pair stayed below. Each patrolled back and forth, neither willing to go up or down, but neither willing to sacrifice their territory. After crouching in the car for so long without the cassowaries leaving, we decided we had to get our tents packed away so we could get on the road. It was an interesting few minutes as we began to take the tent down, then ran back to the car as the cassowaries came nearer, then back to the tent, back to the car… Eva and Kelly were in the middle of the lawn, when they had just finished putting away Eva and Steve’s tent, when one pair of cassowaries charged! I was safe in the car, but shouted “Guys! Look out!” in a most frightened voice. I’ve never seen any two people look more terrified in my life. Luckily, the cassowaries just charged past them, chasing a car up the drive.
Eventually, we made our way out of Eddy Bay and headed toward Tully for our sky-diving adventure. Steve drove this time. Our road trip was off to an excellent start – seeing those cassowaries so closely was probably the coolest wildlife experience we’d had. Their black feathers, fluffed up when they were angry; the large scales on their thick legs; their bright wattles; their prehistoric helmets and large beaks… We were truly lucky to experience those moments. Before, we had only seen a fleeting glimpse of a cassowary, about 100 yards away, on our rainforest trip. This was so much more amazing.
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