Touched by an Emu

The turn-of-the-century village and its surroundings make me think of what travel must have been like in 1940s America -- low-key, very little traffic, family-owned accommodations and restaurants, small shops, friendly people who probably gossip about you after you've gone, and sparsely touristed natural beauty all around.

When we arrive, our innkeepers are standing on the porch of their home, worried because we are later than expected. After giving us a key to our cottage, they tell us we might like to see the frogs that live in the toilet of the cottage next door, and give us a key to that cottage as well.

We head straight for the next-door cottage. But there are no frogs in the toilet. Later, we discover that they live not in the toilet bowl, where we'd been looking, but in the tank behind the seat. The owners suggest that guests leave the tank top askew and the bathroom window open so the frogs can come and go as they please.

Just before dawn, I awaken to see the nocturnal platypuses in a creek just down the road from our cottage. I watch these creatures that seem to be from the era of the dinosaurs and figure that in another billion years, they'll have evolved into a large-nosed race of people. We could, of course, have spent the morning enjoying our cottage, our hot tub, the village and our neighbor's toilet before heading to Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef. Instead, we drive about 15 minutes to take a quick swim in Lake Eacham, a crater lake formed by an extinct volcano. Still dripping, we find the nearby path that leads to a waterfall that we're told cascades into a swimming hole.

A sign on the road next to the path warns drivers to avoid kangaroo, cassowaries, emu and fat-tailed dunnart. This gives me pause. An emu in a zoo once tried to attack me over a sturdy fence. I'd read enough to know that cassowaries have a huge, sharp claw that can rip you to the bone, and although I have no idea what a fat-tailed dunnart is, it doesn't sound good. Nonetheless we soldier on -- until I walk into a giant spider web and flee for the car.

When we hit Mossman Gorge, just outside Port Douglas, we hire Kurranji, an Aboriginal guide with just one name, to walk us through the bush. There are 2,000 species of flora and fauna in this forest, he tells us, but 70 percent of the plants that grow here are toxic. He shows us a fruit that is edible, but if you eat too much, it will make you go blind, he says. He shows us a "fire plant" that stings and injects fiberglass-like shards into your skin. "It won't kill you, but you'll wish you were dead," he says.

"God showed us through dreams and visions what is good to eat and what is poisonous," says Kurranji. One method of His instruction, I'm guessing, was probably trial and error by death.

On and Off the Reef

It's the largest living organism on Earth -- the only underwater creation big enough to be seen from outer space. You'd have to be crazy to visit Australia and miss the Great Barrier Reef.

If pressed for time, however, you could skip Cairns, one of the two gateways to the reef. In fairness, Cairns is bigger, cleaner, less densely developed and more sophisticated than the beach towns of most of the U.S. East Coast. Plus it has a number of excellent Aboriginal art galleries. But it has that tourist-beach-town feel. The smaller, less-touristed gateway of Port Douglas is my kind of town.

The first morning there I'm awakened by birds -- flocks of Hitchcockian proportion. But the air is filled not with threatening sea gulls but with hundreds of red, purple, blue and yellow parakeets and lorikeets, which are basically giant parakeets but more brilliantly plumed.

Port Douglas's downtown area, bracketed by sandy beach and bay, has a sunny air of understated wealth and natural beauty. Not that we have a lot of time to enjoy it. After daylight, we board a 400-passenger catamaran for the 11/2-hour sail to Agincourt Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef. There we break loose from the masses and board a motorboat with just three other passengers and a marine biologist. We head farther out to sea, to the very edge of the continental shelf.

With snorkel gear, including a thin nylon suit that protects the skin from stinging jellyfish, we explore a different world beneath the sea. The numerous parrotfish we see, biologist Megan Bell tells us, increase their odds of living through a nap by excreting a mucus casing, like a sleeping bag, that disguises their fish smell. She points out giant clams I would have mistaken for rocks. We see fish harems led by one male, and Bell explains that if the male dies or abandons the school, one of the females will replace him by turning into a male -- a neat trick that would come in handy for humans.