The first breath

Today I woke up to a lazy morning. Charlie and Dee went for a run, Eva went to see the opera house and parks, and I just stayed home pretending this whole city episode isn’t happening. I spent the morning catching up on the Internet and uploading pictures to this blog.

At noon we got packed and left for the airport. Can’t wait to be in Cairns now (The name of which is pronounced the same as Cannes, by the way, which is horribly confusing)! Nothing much happened at the airport, and I just spent most of the time there and on the plane reading and adding more pictures to this blog. The views from the plane were pretty great, though more familiar. It started with Sydney’s massive suburban sprawl. I knew it’s big, but seeing it from above, those rows and rows and rows of little houses, going on and on and on… Not even that many parks or anything, just more and more houses. I really don’t understand the appeal.

Just to give you some numbers, Sydney’s population density is 400 people/km2. For comparison, London has 5590 people/km2. Yes, you read this right, there are fourteen times more people living in the same space in London than in Sydney. London has 8.8 million people, Sydney has 5, yet space-wise you could fit about eight Greater Londons into Sydney. Melbourne isn’t much different, by the way – with 4.7 million people and 453 people/km2, you could still fit almost seven Londons in it. Crazy!

Back to the airplane. After the massive city, a sudden contrast – almost as soon as the suburbia ends, Blue Mountains begin. Miles and miles of unbroken forest, no roads, just rivers and cliffs breaking up the waves of green. Quite amazing, it seems like a great place to go. And it’s so close to the city! Well, to this side of the suburbia, it’s miles from the city centre…

Then the views became more what I’m used to – farmlands, forests, rivers. Feels almost like flying over Europe until you realise that you’ve been looking out of the window for the last thousand kilometres, with a clear view for a few hundred ahead of you, and you haven’t seen a single city. Or town. Signs of human presence are obvious, with the straight lines of fields and roads, and the glistening roofs of isolated houses every few miles, but that’s it. Then it got even emptier with more desert and mountains. Numbers again – population density in New South Wales excluding Sydney is less than 4 people per km2, and in Queensland this drops to 1.4 person per km2. Scotland, which is pretty damn empty for European standards, has about 50 people per km2 living outside of main cities. Crazy I say, crazy! (by the way, Northern Territory deserts unsurprisingly have some 0.1/km2)

Moving on, the clouds are razor-thin here, and then there are the fires – I’ve seen about a dozen bush fires that looked pretty large. Half the time you think you’re seeing a cloud, it’s actually smoke. As we were nearing Cairns, there was more and more forest and with it, more bush fires. And some properly massive ones – kilometres wide, it seems.

We landed, the door opened, I left the plane, breathed the air… And that was it. Holidays. The hot, humid, tropical air, smelling of happiness and joy from the very first breath. I could feel everything relax and my face began sprouting a massive grin. This is what I was waiting for. The tropics.

We checked in our pretty awesome apartment with its complimentary Timtams, and just sat on the balcony all ridiculously happy. Dee caught an adorably silly mood, enjoying everything and speaking in funny voices. By 7pm it’s still about 25 degrees – what a winter!

Evening darkness upon us, we took a short ride to the waterfront, went on a stroll, saw an interesting bird, found delicious ice cream, then came across a small pool (I just had to jump in, getting my trousers horribly wet), and saw many pretty big bats circling over the city lights hunting insects. It’s really great to see tropical plants, too – not least because they’re not eucalyptus trees, for a change, finally. We did a shop and went back home to enjoy delicious seafood by Dee, with wine and chats about books. In the meantime, I got a sewing kit and managed to repair my trousers – should serve me at least until the end of the trip. After dinner, I just stayed up for a bit longer, enjoying the warmth and writing this post.