No Worries

Range Life: The 100 percent unobfuscated horizon on the Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive.
Photo By: Toby Zinman

A whirlwind of adventure in the Outback.

by Toby Zinman

Whips cracking, cows lowing, horses whinnying and I'm singing "Oh what a beautiful morning" in the Australian Outback.

In my total incomprehension of the International Date Line and time zones in general, I fancifully figured that if I crossed enough of them I might wind up in another century. And sure enough — after 22 hours in the air — I arrived in the 19th century. This is not some faux Disneyland moment, but the old Birdsville-to-Marree cattle trail: 300 miles of bush and desert. There are 500 head of cattle, 140 horses and moi, one of a multinational bunch of city slickers getting in on the real deal, riding the range. I joined the Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive for five days of its six-week trek through Australia's vast interior, under the care of Ozzie's legendary drovers. These guys shoe horses, roll cigarettes and dance with their hats on. And can they ever cowboy.

This, my first trip to Australia, was a study in vivid contrasts: From the magnificent desolation of the Outback, where not a tree, not a hill, and certainly not a building interrupts the 360-degree horizon, I went up to Cape Tribulation, where the prehistoric lushness of the Daintree Rainforest (among the oldest on the planet) literally meets the underwater splendor of the Great Barrier Reef. Then I gave in to the civilized pleasures of Sydney, a surprisingly clean, safe and glamorous city with more possibilities for shopping than I've seen anywhere. Australia, remember, is nearly as big as the United States, so it's impossible to see it all in one trip. With so much to report, let's get right to the highlights:

Exotic Sights
• Your intrepid travel reporter in the rainforest, licking (!) a green ant, valued by the Aboriginals for their vitamin C: intense citrus followed by sudden numbness of tongue that lasts two seconds.
• Billabong — not a clothing line but a pool of Artesian Bore water, steaming hot, reeking of sulphur. We dunked our feet.
• The Southern Cross, a constellation visible only in the Southern hemisphere. At night, the sky in the Outback looks like a planetarium.
• Melaleuca Paperback Tree, covered in many, many cushiony layers of papery bark. The one next to our restaurant table was 300 years old.
• Guikens — spirit faces carved by Aboriginal people into the boles of trees to protect the rainforest.
• Two nearly naked Aboriginal men, in full body paint, playing didgeridoos at Sydney's busy cosmopolitan harbourfront.
• Sydney from the top of Harbour Bridge — a surprisingly easy climb, cleverly organized, and not at all scary (unless you're afraid of heights).

Exotic Sightings
• Not five minutes after seeing a caution sign warning of cassowaries (ostrich-sized birds, nearly extinct, with bright blue faces and huge reptilian feet), one crossed the road right in front of us.
• A brilliant blue-purple starfish draped over yellow coral ten feet below my snorkeling mask.
• Hundreds of white cockatoos settle on the landscape's lone tree, making it look like a fabulously localized snowfall.
• Fruit bats, also called flying foxes (these are furry and cat-sized with big black bat wings). They hang upside down by the dozen from trees in the elegant Sydney botanical garden while people in business suits stroll below them during lunch hour.
• A group (gaggle? mob?) of emus runs clumsily across the plain, black feathers gleaming.
• A golden orb spider, bigger than my hand, poses in its sunlit web.
• Gigantic crocodiles slither silently off the bank of a lagoon as our barge goes by.
• Koalas, wallabies, all kinds of bizarre life forms, but not a single kangaroo.

Exotic Foods
• The much-recommended Daintree ice cream, sold only at one little stand, in flavors like wattleseed (blaagh) and soursop (better than it sounds).
• Dragon fruit, rambutans (spiny shells encasing a divinely juicy fruit that tastes like perfume), plus the more familiar lychees, papayas, mangoes and deliciously slimy passion fruit.
• Barramundi — Aboriginal name for a delicious fish, specialty of reef restaurants.
• Bags of crocodile jerky hanging next to bags of the famous Aussie licorice in every convenience store.

Exotic Lingo
• Everybody really does say, "No worries" instead of "you're welcome." This sounds particularly inappropriate if you're in sticker shock. (The exchange rate is good, but Australia is expensive.)
• People — male or female — really do greet you — male or female — with "G'day, Mate." Even at night.
• The showers (miraculously hot and strong) at the Cattle Drive campsite were labeled "Sheilas" and "Blokes."

If You Go:
The next Great Australian Cattle Drive will be from April to June, 2007 (www.cattledrive.southaustralia.com). Voyages Coconut Beach Lodge: cabins deep in the rainforest where the wind at night sounds like dinosaurs on the roof (www.voyages.com.au). Hartley's Crocodile Adventures (www.crocodileadventures.com). Skyrail: cablecar rides above the rainforest's canopy (www.skyrail.com.au). Bridge Climb (www.bridgeclimb.com). Tour of the Sydney Opera House: still spectacular, but do not waste tons of money on the over-cheffed food at its restaurant, Guillaume (www.sydneyoperahouse.com).