Travel Biography - Week 78.

The Flight from Singapore to Cairns.

After spending five days in Singapore, there I was waiting at the departure lounge at Changi Airport. The flight I was about to board was unique. It wasn't a direct flight to Cairns but featured a stop at Darwin, an outback town on the coast of Northern Territory. Although one of the country's most northerly cities, Darwin isn't the closest south of the Equator. That honour goes to Bamaga, near the Cape York tip of Queensland.

After boarding and take-off, I saw that the Boeing 747 wasn't at full passenger capacity. Like on the London-Singapore flight, there were plenty of unoccupied seats. And like on the initial flight, I had the row to myself. Two other unique characteristics were connected to this flight. On one hand, this was my first flight that was neither out from London nor returning to London. This feature sets this flight apart from all the other flights I had taken up to then, as they were all either out from London, or returning to London. Indeed, I was quite excited about that. Secondly, not long after take-off from Changi Airport, I crossed the Equator from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere, thus officially passing out of Summer into Winter, as I was reminded by some locals after arriving at Cairns.

The Shopping Mall, Cairns, Queensland.

Shopping Mall Interior, Cairns.

It was still dark when the plane landed at Darwin. It rested at its airport for a while before other people boarded for Cairns. After Darwin, this was no longer an international flight but now a domestic one. As the plane took off, I was able to make out the city directly below. The streets were laid out in a symmetrical grid pattern, not unlike in size of that of Tijuana or even San Diego.

We were flying over water as the day broke. The sky was clear and the view I had by the window was unhindered by clouds. The sea I was flying over was the Gulf of Carpentaria, a large three-sided bay on the northern coast of Australia, bounded in the west by the east coast of Northern Territory, and in the east by the west coast of Queensland.

Just then, the western coast of Queensland came into view. I was surprised by what I saw! Below was a thick rainforest, the tops of the trees forming an unbroken green canopy across the whole land below. What surprised me about the topography was that I was expecting a desert to appear beneath me similar to the Outback surrounding Uluru, or Ayers Rock. This was one of the reasons why I believe this Round-the-World trip was so educational as well as pleasurable. It was during my stay in Cairns that not only had I learned much about the Great Barrier Reef, but also of the Great Divide. The eastern fringe of Australia, including the peninsula we were flying over, is dominated by the Great Dividing Range of mountainous country, covered with rainforests and also where the majority of Australians live. West of the range, the thick vegetation peters out and the land becomes a semi-desert.

Arrival at Cairns.

It was still morning when the plane landed at Cairns Airport. Like in Singapore, the weather was hot, but unlike the Asian city, the air was less humid and more bearable. Almost straight away, I noticed that I wasn't prone to thirst here in Cairns.

While I found that entering Singapore was straightforward, almost walking straight through Passport Control, here in Cairns, the border control was more strict. One habit the officer tended to find pleasure in was flicking through the pages of my passport casually, back and forth, with his thumb and forefinger. Actually, he was watching me to see whether I was hiding something illegal, and looking out for any signs of guilt. Satisfied, a blessed entry visa was stamped on one of its pages. But it wasn't over. At customs, I was told to empty my rucksack. With all my belongings, out fell a Bible I always carried on my travels.

The officers were taken aback by the sight of the Bible and actually apologised to me for being so tight on security. I replied that if the Government paid me to do this job, I would have done the same.

In the same room as Security, there was a currency exchange kiosk. Here, I cashed a US Dollar Traveller's Cheque for some Australian cash. I received a wad of notes and some coins, and I thought how clever they were. Each banknote was laminated with a thin but strong layer of plastic sheeting, making the banknote both waterproof and tearproof.

Mudflat outside the Mall, Cairns.

A Chinese Boat, known as a Junk, at Cairns Harbour.

I made my way outside, where a main road led into town. Presently, a taxi arrived and I asked to be taken to the YHA Esplanade. I climbed in, along with another backpacker, and I was taken to a point several miles into town. The driver alighted along with me (although the companion remained in the car). After lifting the rucksack over my shoulders, he pointed to a building a couple of hundred metres along the esplanade.

"You see that building over there?" he asked with a typical Aussie drawl in his voice.

I answered, "Yes, I can."

"That's the place you want."

He then drove off in another direction, leaving me alone at the furthest location away from home.

I approached the hostel here in Cairns the same way as I did with Will's Homestay in Singapore, which is the off-the-street approach without having first booked. I walked up to the reception, which looked out onto the street, and asked whether a bed was available. Like before, I was offered one and I gladly accepted. 

I was happy as I carried my rucksack into one of the dorms and found an unoccupied bed. Like most YHA hostels, mine was an upper of a two-tier bunk bed. However, close by, a hosteller was in his bed, asleep in the middle of the day. I didn't give any thought to first seeing him lying there, but I quickly caught on that he was down with a fever.

I took some essentials and asked whether there was a grocery nearby, as this was a hostel proper, and had a member's kitchen and dining room on the upper floor that was open all day. There was a Woolworths store on the next block (the streets of Cairns, like in Darwin, were laid in a symmetrical grid pattern.) The Australian Woolworths store was different from the British store. Those in the UK sold all kinds of small household goods and appliances. Here in Australia, the store was divided into two sections. One half stocked household hardware like those in the UK. However, the other half was given fully to groceries, and thus, while I stayed in Cairns, I stocked up at Woolworths.

In all, I spent five days in Cairns, the same as in Singapore. This consisted of three days on the mainland and two days on day trips to the Great Barrier Reef.

After the shopping was completed and stocked up one of the pigeonholes in the member's kitchen, I went out on a stroll to explore the town. In 1997, Cairns did not have a beach. Instead, at low tide, the esplanade faced a mudflat which stretched between 50-70 metres wide at low spring tide (or the king tide as known here in Aussie.) When the tide was in, the sea lapped gently against the wall of the esplanade, covering the entire width of the mudflat. The mudflat coast looked ugly and unsuitable for either sunbathing or swimming in the sea, yet it was rich with shore life and, as I saw it, a nature reserve. However, I believe that sometime after 1997, sand was added to the shore, creating an artificial beach to attract tourists. Why spoil such a rich wildlife environment? To me, that was criminal.

Towards the end of the esplanade, the walk turned towards an indoor shopping mall where booking for catamaran trips to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) could be made. The interior of the mall was rich in aesthetics, especially in marine life. Surrounding the mall, Cairns Harbour housed different boats and was the terminal for all GBR trips. There were many souvenir shops there, along with cafes, and there was even a decorative but fully functional postbox. One morning, I used it to post a picture postcard to the one who teased me relentlessly about wearing long hair in Singapore. At the back of the postcard, I wrote a message to him saying that I still had my long hair as I arrived safely in Australia.

In the busy streets of Cairns, along with the mall, there seems to be an infinite number of shops and businesses offering PADI courses in diving, from beginners to advanced levels, right up to coaching to become a diving instructor. (PADI stands for Professional Association of Diving Instructors.) So frequently these shops appear it has become impossible to remove the idea of diving out of my mind. If only my stay in Australia wasn't so limited! Here is a city with golden opportunities to learn a new skill. But I wasn't feeling too discouraged. Would snorkelling be a good alternative? As I walked the street, ideas began to fill my mind.

That afternoon, my eyes began to feel heavy. I didn't sleep much on the plane from Singapore. There was the city square and a place where I could sit. Once relaxed, I simply dropped off to sleep. How long I slept, I had no idea, but my small knapsack was intact. None of its contents were tampered with or stolen. And that includes my trusty film camera, a device I would never go without whilst on my travels. I sauntered back to the hostel to make dinner.

Town Square, Cairns.

Palm Fronds at Cairns Harbour.

Later that night, after dark, I went out for a stroll. The streets of Cairns were lined with nightclubs as well as restaurants. Bouncers stood as doormen at the nightclubs. If I recall, proper dress such as a shirt and trousers was required to enter these clubs. I wasn't interested. I was much more keen to stare out into the blackness of the night from the esplanade, and looking up to the clear, starry sky.

The view of the heavens was astounding. Streaking across the sky was the white band of the Milky Way, like the view I had from the floor of the Grand Canyon two years earlier, but more intense when seen from here. The view was enhanced by the presence of the Southern Cross Constellation, seen only from the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore the ability to look up into the sky to see such a constellation directly above my head was a wonderful privilege.

Later that night, even if the dormitory lacked privacy, the bed was still welcoming.

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Next Week: First Trip to the Great Barrier Reef - Green Island Coral Cay.

Oh, The Things We Don't See...

Earlier in the week, my wife Alex and I watched Simon Reeve's report about Cuba on the BBC. As with all documentaries about far away lands, we as viewers get the impression that the presenter is all alone, by himself. Bravely trekking through often dangerous territory unknown to tourists, or through a politically explosive environment, the presenter reels off a huge amount of local knowledge, vast enough for the likes of me to ponder how on earth could he have possibly stored it all in his head, and breeze it all out without making any error on the facts. Of course, when he talks, he always looks straight at us from the television screen. Then again don't we all look at the person listening when we are talking to him?

I have watched several travel programmes made by Reeve, including a series about circumventing the whole of the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Perth in Australia. During  this particular journey, he visited countries of political and environmental extremes such as from the war-torn Somalia Republic on the eastern horn of Africa, to the paradise islands of the Maldives. He also made three Round-the-World documentaries as he travelled along the Tropic of Capricorn, the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer. Yet despite his enviable travel adventures and the national fame which came with them, he is a character I grew to admire and respect. One of his attributes I like so much is the way he dresses during presentation: not in a suit and tie but in casual clothes with some face stubble, without the need to deliberately look scruffy, and with a personality to match.

BBC Presenter Simon Reeve

Curious, I decided to check out this globe-trotting presenter on his own website. When I clicked, About Simon, which is to do with his biography, these are the words I read:

Simon attended a local comprehensive in West London and was described as an unspectacular student. After a series of terrible jobs, including working in a supermarket, a jewellery shop and a charity shop, Simon finally found gainful employment as a post boy at a national newspaper.

What? Terrible jobs? Terrible jobs? Wow! So working in Retail is classed as a terrible job? I must admit, I felt somewhat aghast in reading that statement, although I'm not sure if Reeve himself was the author or was this the opinion of the biographer - as the whole page was written referring to him in the third person. True, I guess that a routine in the supermarket can be stressful, with a huge influx of customers, many of them becoming impatient as they wait unnecessarily long at the checkout line. Then again, the job title Shelf Stacker does not convey the idea of the employee having graduated from Oxford. But surely, working at a jewellers must be a totally different environment altogether. Not even during the Christmas rush do people make a beeline to the jewellers. Maybe that was it, the job became crushingly boring, even if the assistant was bestowed with a very high level of trust by the shop owner or manager. However, such attitude reflect our class-warped British culture. It is also true that many of these Retail posts are taken by immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe but also from Asia. The common thought is that many Britons see Retail as something beneath them, as the above statement so ardently reflects. I would hate how this biographer would have thought about domestic window cleaning, particularly in Winter.

The fact that Simon was "an unspectacular student" was just a posh way of saying that he was either dim in his youth, or he just wasn't interested in the curriculum. He attended a comprehensive, the equivalent of the secondary modern which I attended. In other words, Simon Reeve failed his primary eleven-plus exam and was not selected for grammar school, nor did he wear the famous School Tie of Eton, Harrow, Rugby or Winchester. Yet during his employment as a newspaper post boy, he found time to study foreign current affairs, from which he submitted papers from which publication lead to his big break with the BBC. In other words, he graduated to degree status at home.

Therefore at present, we see him as if he travels the world all alone, well not quite. He always had a local guide with him, and whenever he knocks on the door to where he is to spend the night, the door always opens and is warmly welcomed. I can compare this with my own travels. For example, when I arrived at New York from London in 1995, I entered one backpacker's hostel after another without being offered a bed, due to a surge in students spending the last week or so on the town before returning to their colleges. This was after making one or two calls from my apartment before take-off. Eventually I found a squalid, cockroach-infested room at a seedy hotel on 8th Avenue. And I had no guide, nor was I was in company at the host's table, as Reeve always seem to be.

And oh yes, talking at the TV screen, often walking while doing so. If I was to talk alone into the air, anyone watching would think that I was a nut who had escaped from a loony asylum. With Reeve, we all watch, glued to the screen. There is the difference. Neither Reeve or any other presenter travel alone. Instead, they always have a team with them, including camera crew and a director, plus various other crew members as needed. Having a team also protects him from danger if broadcasting from a political dangerous territory, as he has the whole corporation behind him, who was involved in arranging the local guide as well as hotels, guesthouses and private homes, along with all travel payments and facilities, and what to present along with how to go about it.

That is what is hidden in a typical TV documentary, especially involving travel, the things we don't see. The TV crew who accompanies the presenter, and makes sure everything goes hunky-dory. What I'm really saying is, if given the chance and allowed the right preparations, even over months, I have actually pondered whether presenting such a documentary would have been within my abilities! With such back-up, any potential error in facts would be edited out, and with a speech impediment, a more than average number of outtakes may be required. The only setback to this idea is that our culture requires that a university degree is demanded for this occupation. Simon Reeve has disproved this. Only having done a mere average at school, I believe that a period of his life working at a "terrible job" had benefited him well, refining his character and developed a pleasing personality.

As for myself making a presentation, let's take the Grand Canyon, a location which has always dazzled me since I saw it first time in 1978. We know that it is approximately two hundred miles long and about 1,600 metres deep. It is a huge gorge cut through the Colorado Plateau by the constant flow of the Colorado River. Between 1880 and 1881, Clarence Dutton, a British geologist who also had an interest in eastern religions, gave names to many of the more spectacular features within the Canyon. Buttes such as Buddha Temple, Zoroaster Temple, Cheops Pyramid, Isis Temple, Wotan's Throne, Deva Temple, Brahma Temple, Hopi Point, O'Neal's Butte, Plateau Point, Tonto Plateau and other features were all unknown to me when I completed the two hikes to the River, first in 1978 then again in 1995. But with thorough research, using both maps and photography, all of these became familiar. How possible would it have been to research before the hike, and then give a running commentary on the trail, together with an expert guide who would have corrected any error, itself edited out before broadcast.

Brahman Temple (left) and Zoroaster Temple buttes overlook the Colorado River, Grand Canyon, 1995.

This is one of the things people don't see in me and other like individuals. The potential to shine. Instead, the powers that be looks for a piece of paper with a degree printed on it, along with the sparkling personality which would have enhanced the delivery of the message.

Something like this has occurred already. Back in 1990, I offered to write an article for my former church elder. When the elder received it, he read it and looking surprised, asked,

Frank, did you really write this?

Yes, yes, I wrote it. You thought I was illiterate, didn't you?

(Implied) Illiterate? No, not necessarily. But window cleaners are supposed never to have shone at school, else you would have had a far more respectable career.

A few years later, I offered to write an article about church members helping the unemployed find work. After interviewing the person involved, to collect enough material for composition, I arrived home and started writing. The person I submitted the article to was somewhat flabbergasted! Window cleaners are not supposed to have produced such written work. According to our British culture, such labourers are supposed to be dim. A week later, I believe, the article appeared in a local newspaper, one of quite a number of articles I have written and were published.

I am amazed at the attitude of Paul the apostle. Had he been around in my lifetime, he would have taken me by the scruff of the neck, rebuked my pessimism (inherited from my Dad) and would have told me that God has given everything I needed, so get writing! Because in his first letter to the church in Corinth, he wrote:

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Isaiah 29:14, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31.

I thank and praise my Saviour that he has given me enough enlightenment to glorify him. And that is what I wish to do, glorify God. Paul has also written in his same letter that we as believers are all members of the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12). Within this chapter, he emphasises that the parts which are weaker in the body are treated with greater modesty and respect, a direct rebuke to the British obsession with social class.

Am I ashamed of my job as a window cleaner? Do I view my work as "a terrible job?" No not at all.

 
At the time of this writing, I have been earning a living cleaning windows for the last 32 years. As one who is self employed, cleaning windows comes with responsibility, including that of ensuring that all expenses are met, we are able to eat and stay clothed, keep a roof over our heads, as well as being accountable to the taxman. And if God permits, enjoy some travel too. Sure, my line of work has collected some teasing, like "an up-and-down job" (in referring to the ladders used) and even ridiculous titles, like "Vision Technician" - thought up by the middle classes as a vain attempt to grant us greater respect.

Paul wrote that whatever we do, do for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31.)

Now that is something for Simon Reeve to ponder on.