Townsville’s Aquarium
The aquarium in Townsville is a nice piece of art. They copied an entire reef slice - including all the corals and the fish, so people can really get a good grasp of what a “coral reef” means. Alex the non-diver was really impressed by the beauty, I was impressed by the work (It is extremely difficult to mimic the delicate environment required to maintain a healthy coral reef. They use special wave-machines and nutrients controlers to keep their aquarium). We also got to see the shark feed, and got some explanations about the sea predators (good thing I didn’t know in advance, but the Olive Sea Snake I was playing with at the Yongala is extremely venomos). I finally got to see Australia’s nightmare - the sea wasp.
A sea wasp is the common name of the box jelyfish. It has a rectangular box head, around 20c”m size, and tentacles that stretch to 3 meters and can instantly kill up to 4 persons. It is common in Australia’s tropical seas on the summer (October-May) and is the reason nobody gets into water without wearing a full body lycra suit (including a hood and gloves), called “stingersuit”. On the winter this jelyfish is supposed to be in a harmless, polyp stage - but would you count on it? Several beaches here have anti-stinger nets; However, in recent years they found a new type of deadly jelyfish, called “Irikundji” or something like that, which is small enough to get through the holes in the net. This type is also transparent, so you almost never see it before it hits you. All in all - don’t go into the water without this stingersuite.
After the aquarium we went exploring the nightlife. There are plenty of clubs, but they do work in different hours from our habits. The most profound example was the club that held a wetshirt competition … at 18:30 in the evening. Bad habits. The australian nightlife keep disappointing - maybe in Carins we’ll have better parties.
Regarding Carins: I’m about to finish my east-coast journey and it’s time to decide where to go next. There are basically four possibilities:
1) Pay a visit to Fiji - a nice tropical country, probably similar to Australia’s islands or perhaps to those of Thailand.
2) Jump to Papua-New-Guinea to see some primitive tribes, have some good dives, or see the highest mountains in the area.
3) Continue a bit north into Cape York Peninsula - I can get by 2 wheel drive up to Cooktown, on gravel roads, where I can see some more Australian wilderness (crocodiles and termite mounds)
4) skip all these and continue directly to Darwin and into Australia’s outback.
Right now I tend to take option (2), and maybe save Fiji to September. If anyone has any suggestions, tips or advices - I will be happy to accept them.
