Tjapukai is an experience park run by the local aboriginal tribe to introduce tourists to their culture. It is quite expensive but interesting. There are dance and didgeroo presentations and muti-media displays of dream-time stories. You can try your hand at boomerang or spear throwing and learn about traditional medicines.
I was interested to see that to add to the authencity they had tiled their floor with genuine aboriginal lizard Escher tile tessilations.
We drove north to Daintree tropical forest. It is the oldest area of tropical forest in the world, older than the Amazon. We went on some crocodile spotting tours. On the first in freshwater we saw no wildlife just lots of knockout scenery. We went to the visitor centre which was too much information about the flora and fauna and the Cassawary bird but unfortunately no sightings. The second cruise was through the mangrove swamps and we saw one nearly 2m crocodile and a couple of small year old ones in the mudflats. I have never understood about mangroves which I thought was a particular order of plants but in fact they are an example of convergent evolution from different geni, the definition being those tropical plants that can live between high and low tide levels.
Well, a new camera courtesy of Darwin Airport but the old memory card disintegrated and it took us 3 shopping centres to find a replacement. Sweetheart arrived after a 24 hour flight. She'd declined dinner on the plane in order to sleep and then been offered 3 successive breakfasts , mostly centring around eggs which she does not eat.
I had not been prepared for how beautiful Northern Queensland is. It is the rainy season but sweetheart brought the sun. It is the off season and much is shut,a bit like Rhyl in early March or late November. The beach is about 50 yards fromthe flat door but you have to walk a way down if you want to swim to a special fenced off area of sea which keeps the crocodiles and stingrays out.
As a child I always liked Somerset Maugham's short stories and "Rain" in particular.
I'm beginning to understand it a bit more.
We wnet to the water gardens made in 1946 but the last Kinig of Bali. They deserve a bit more of a showing say at Chelsea.
We were not lucky with the sunshine with them as we arrived on Sunday at about 3 and thought we'd have lunch before visiting . As we finished lunch it started deluging so we abandoned plans and went to Candbasi and booked into the hotel. We went back the next morning , paid our money, got through the gate and it started deluging. Undeterred we put on kagoules, hired umbrellas and took pictures. The camera didn't like the rain though. I didn't drop it in a opuddle or immerse it in any way just used it in the deluge and it has now given up the ghost. Beloved tried drying it out with a hair dryer but to no avail. So when we went up to the caldera of one of the volcanoes yesterday no pictures. Wonderful views that disappeared afer and hour just as the coach parties arrived to be rained on.
We hired a car and escaped Seminyak. The resort resembles a touristified greek island and like Beloved said "if this is the upmarket resort what are the downmarket ones like?". We did have some good food though and Blackpool it was not. The island has incredibly lush vegetation. The soil is volcanic ash and the climate tropical with rain for half the year (this half) so eveything grows like jungle. The main crop is rice grown in terraced paddyfields using irrigation channels that date back to the bronze age. They are all flooded at the moment although some have a full standing crop others look relatively recently planted. There are also coconut palms and banana plants and the roadside stall sell a vast array of strange fruits, rambutan, papaya, and the durian fruit which smells so bad that most hotels ban it but apparently tastes delicious.
There are bamboo stands and plants with muticoloured leaves.
We have both a bungalow at a hotel by the beach (view from porch below) and a huge car with very comfy seats for the price of the hotel in Seminyak so it is worth getting out of the main resort area. Beloved worried about how much petrol we would use and decided to put £12 worth in and see how we got on but the petrol wouldn't fit and he got a full tank and change. It turns out it's 30p a litre. Indonesia of which Bali is part is an oil producing country.
Like a lot of women my age I have been entranced by Bali since South Pacific. We've been here 2 days.Yesterday we just lounged round the pool and went to the perfect beach restaurant for fish at high tide and watched the surf. Today we were a little more adventurous and went into Depensor to the Bali Museum..
It sits on the site of the old Palace. Bali did quite well at avoiding colonisation. It was a Buddhist country until the 11C when it first got an influx of Hindu and Javanese cultures and was under Javanese control from the 13C. As java became moslem Bali remained and the Majapahit empire collapsed Bali flourished and had its Golden Age controlling much of East JavaIt wasn't until 1906 that the Dutch who had be advancing across Java turned their attention to Bali. On September 20th the Rajah of Bandung marched out of the Palace Gates to face the invading Dutch. Followed by betweeen 600 and 2000 (nobody was counting) men women and children dressed all in holy white robes and each carrying a golden kris dagger they proceeded to a mass suicide or putupan rather than submit to the invaders. The Dutch shot down anyone who was a bit slow and then razed the Palace. It was rebuilt as the Governor's Residence and the museum in mock Palace/Temple style built.
It was Saturday so there were wedding couples having their photos taken. It is apparently a common thing for couple from the whole of East Bali, but they were not getting married today, next Saturday is the propitious day for marriages. The photos taken today will be given to guests at the wedding.
The Balinese keep their own style of Buddhaesque Hinduism and many of the exhibits were of statues and drawings of the Gods together with masks and costumes for festival dances and shadow puppets. There were also fine examples of the various textiles from the island woodcarvings.
