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Australasia

Cruising to PNG - Cairns & Kuranda

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Cairns

After a brief reconnoitre of the city it seemed to be quite familiar - perhaps after travelling.  There's something somehow familiar to Australian towns and cities - probably the people.

 

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Cairns - it feels very Australian

After a coffee and a drink we decided to visit Kuranda by the Skyrail. Wendy had been to Kuranda before but not by Skyrail. An adventure.

 

Kuranda Skyrail

At 7.5-kilometre (4.7 mi) the Kuranda Skyrail was the longest gondola cableway in the world when it was completed in 1995. It's like a very long ski lift except the towers are extremely high, like television towers so that the gondolas are well over the forest canopy. The ground, when it can be seen at all, is about ten storeys below. I imagine it's not a good choice for someone uncomfortable with heights.

 

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Kuranda Skyrail

 

The tropical rainforest below is among the oldest in the world, significantly older than the Amazonian forest - well that's Australia for you.

Once reached, Kuranda is a pretty village almost entirely given over to tourism. I bought a kangaroo leather bush hat - identical to the one that's been several times around the world and is now getting a bit shabby (see elsewhere on this website).

 

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Kuranda

 

Wendy previously visited by train. These days one can take the Skyrail one way and the conventional train the other but we didn't think we had the time - or did we?

Back on the Skyrail we got off at the last stop to have a closer look at the falls. Big mistake - or was it?

 

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Kuranda Falls - not Niagara but apparently better than during the drought - more than a trickle.

 

The last leg on the cable car is the highest and a thunderstorm was on its way. Just as we approached an empty car everything was shut down.

We had booked it ourselves to be back on board to sail at 3.30 - surely they wouldn't go without us? Yes they will we were told: "They take your bags off and leave them on the dock". Thankfully there were people on ship-sponsored tours trapped along with us. Phew!

In the end it would have been OK - the ship was experiencing never identified problems leaving Cairns - was it the tide or motor bearings - or software? No one would say.

 

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Technical difficulties?

 

Tugs hovered around us for three hours - then suddenly we were off - and soon up to top speed, 22.4 knots, to catch up.

 

 

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Travel

Denmark

 

 

  

 

 

In the seventies I spent some time travelling around Denmark visiting geographically diverse relatives but in a couple of days there was no time to repeat that, so this was to be a quick trip to two places that I remembered as standing out in 1970's: Copenhagen and Roskilde.

An increasing number of Danes are my progressively distant cousins by virtue of my great aunt marrying a Dane, thus contributing my mother's grandparent's DNA to the extended family in Denmark.  As a result, these Danes are my children's cousins too.

Denmark is a relatively small but wealthy country in which people share a common language and thus similar values, like an enthusiasm for subsidising wind power and shunning nuclear energy, except as an import from Germany, Sweden and France. 

They also like all things cultural and historical and to judge by the museums and cultural activities many take pride in the Danish Vikings who were amongst those who contributed to my aforementioned DNA, way back.  My Danish great uncle liked to listen to Geordies on the buses in Newcastle speaking Tyneside, as he discovered many words in common with Danish thanks to those Danes who had settled in the Tyne valley.

Nevertheless, compared to Australia or the US or even many other European countries, Denmark is remarkably monocultural. A social scientist I listened to last year made the point that the sense of community, that a single language and culture confers, creates a sense of extended family.  This allows the Scandinavian countries to maintain very generous social welfare, supported by some of the highest tax rates in the world, yet to be sufficiently productive and hence consumptive per capita, to maintain among the highest material standards of living in the world. 

Read more: Denmark

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Cloud

 

 

 

 

 Chapter 1 - The Party

 

 

 

This morning Miranda had an inspiration - real candles!  We'll have real candles - made from real beeswax and scented with real bergamot for my final party as a celebration of my life and my death. This brief candle indeed!

In other circumstances she would be turning 60 next birthday.  With her classic figure, clear skin and dark lustrous hair, by the standards of last century she looks half her age, barely thirty, the result of a good education; modern scientific and medical knowledge; a healthy diet and lifestyle and the elimination of inherited diseases before the ban on such medical interventions. 

It's ironical that except as a result of accidents, skiing, rock climbing, paragliding and so on, Miranda's seldom had need of a doctor.  She's a beneficiary of (once legal) genetic selection and unlike some people she's never had to resort to an illegal back-yard operation to extend her life. 

Read more: The Cloud

Opinions and Philosophy

A Carbon Tax for Australia

 12 July 2011

 

 

It's finally announced, Australia will have a carbon tax of $23 per tonne of CO2 emitted.  This is said to be the highest such tax in the world but it will be limited to 'about 500' of the biggest emitters.  The Government says that it can't reveal which  these are to the public because commercial privacy laws prevent it from naming them. 

Some companies have already 'gone public' and it is clear that prominent among them are the major thermal power generators and perhaps airlines.  Some like BlueScope Steel (previously BHP Steel) will be granted a grace period before the tax comes into effect. In this case it is publicly announced that the company has been granted a two year grace period with possible extensions, limited to its core (iron and steelmaking) emissions.

Read more: A Carbon Tax for Australia

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