Friday 15 October 2010

Wetness is not a dirty word

: Someone other than me that thinks rain is fun.

by Mat Churchill

Tourism is a big part of The Newsport because it's a big part of everyone's lives here in the Port Douglas hinterland.

The current challenges we face are well documented, none more so than how we attract people to our area during the wet season (aka off-season, green season, green time, low season etc.).

Whether you take the time to make your thoughts known, or keep them to yourself, it seems everyone has an opinion on how things should be done. The marketing, the branding, the service, the product, the tourism bodies - it's open for discussion.

As a new fish to town it has been interesting to hear people's passionate opinions, so I figure I might as well have one too.

And here it is.

THE WET SEASON IS NOT EVIL!

I like rain. I'm a Victorian until someone tells me otherwise and I haven't seen any for a decade. I love hearing it on the roof, watching it as I sit in the pub with a XXXX Gold (am I a Queenslander yet?), and even getting out in amongst it strolling through the rainforest (I also like long walks on the beach and my favourite colour is blue).

Rain gets a bad wrap up here and I think people have convinced themselves that it's the party pooper that tells all of the tourists that it's late and time to go home.

I spent my first wet season living in Port Douglas last year. I went to the reef on water as smooth as glass (a much more common experience at that time of year from what I understand), and did a couple of Daintree tours in torrential rain that made me realise that was how a rainforest was meant to be.

I headed to the Bump Track and saw the Mowbray falls raging in the distance, and I hiked up to Spring Creek Falls to see them raging on top of me. All unique and memorable experiences.

Sure it's summer down south, but most of the world's population is well into their bone-chilling winters so where would they rather be? Sipping a cocktail in the tropics or sipping a cup of Bovril in Blackpool?

We can't swim freely in the ocean without the use of nets or a stinger suit, but every place here has a swimming pool so we're already ahead of 95% of the rest of the world.

To me it's how we choose to see our area. Maybe some people have been here so long that they've forgotten that this place offers so much even at it's wettest and most humid.

Or perhaps I need to keep my mouth shut until I get through my first cyclone!

Have your say !

Nick Marshall, 24-10-10 09:48:

Thirty years up here and I still look forward to the wet season every year. The time of renewal when the hillsides turn black-green from dusty green, when the cane grows so tall that the cane farmers house disappears in a sea of green and north queensland regains some of its wildness again. I dont care that there are not so many tourists during the wet months and that many people leave because they can't tke the wet. The wet is the time for people who love the fantastic electric storms and the relief afterwards when it is all over and the forests and fields are sparkly clean and the roads are steaming. I love the deafening clatter of rain on my tin roof or the crescendo of sound that our unwanted immigrants, the cane toads, can make at night after a few days of downpour. The amazing rocket frogs springing off a forest road in a brief arc through one headlight beam and then the other. The beautiful flushes of copper red syzygium leaves and the way the trees just fill up with turgid life again after the dusty months of the dry season. I remember driving down to Bramston Beach to secure out cottage when cyclone Steve was threatening and seeing Michael "Tarzan" Fomenko with his head down jogging north of Deeral. Two hours later I was returning across the Mulgrave and there was Michael again having run some 20km in 2 hours. I stopped to offer him a lift because the rain was now horizontal and my vehicle was being buffeted by severe wind gusts. Michael just looked at me in astonishment, shook his head and set off again into the maelstrom with his head down and the hessian potato bag over his bare shoulder. I continued on to Edmonton just thinking that I will never make it as a North Queenslander in the face of that bravado.
The wet season - the deluge of rain is North Queensland. It is what makes our region beautiful and creates the character of the people and the place.

Monika Spicer, 21-10-10 08:40:

Wow! I think Phil has been here too long. It is paradise here - in all weathers - and I agree with Mat - it is how you see it. People will always be miserable - anywhere - all the time - if that is how they choose to see the world. You can write a screed of horrible things about any place if you choose to think about it that way.

maz manns, 21-10-10 08:03:

Philip, do you live in Port??? if you do then maybe you should reconsider another spot, perhaps Tasmania?? The top end of Australia is littered with signs regarding Crocs and Stingers, thats what makes that part of the country so unique and beautiful, no place in the world like it, the only warning signs in the rest of the country that could be put up would be warning you of the dangers of other humans, so the crocs and stingers arent so bad. As far as over priced restuarants, they are everywhere in the country, not just in Port Douglas,however, the food in Port is worth paying for, you should try the restuarants down here, they charge an arm and a leg for crap food, and i havent come across full of themselves people up there yet.I agree with Mat, its got nothing to do with the weather, it rains in Victoria too, but its cold and shitty, at least in the tropics its warm and still enjoyable. At the end of the day if your the type of person who enjoys life you will enjoy it anywhere, anytime no matter what the weather brings, so if you cant enjoy life because the sun isnt shining and natures not throwing a few curve balls, then you arent living at all and perhaps investing in a life might be a good start, or buying bubble wrap and forget ever going outside again.

Will Devlin, 20-10-10 21:11:

Well, about time for some objectivity. I don't quite know what Philip means; censorship? propoganda (sic)? Mat is right on the money - the rainforest is at its best during the wet season (and that makes complete sense) and the ocean, in my experience, is often more calm during the wet season. Sure, we are likely to endure lots of rain - the rain that the rest of the country would love to have. As well, maybe a cyclone or two - that's the El Nina effect for you, and nothing at all to do with North Qld or Port Douglas, unless you include our contribution to the arguable global warming effect. Anyway, like all places, one loses a certain sense of the beauty surrounding us, no matter where we live. Look around you - the table lands, the ocean, the sun, sand and palm trees. Where else would you live? Where else would you holiday? Give me Far North Qld over ANYWHERE else on the planet! That's how I roll!

philip dalziel, 17-10-10 04:24:

THATS NOT GUNNA HAPPEN ,CENSORSHIP IN ACTION ,IF YOU WANT AN OPEN FORUM WITH DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW THEN PUT YOUR PROPOGANDA ASIDE AND GET A BALANCED VIEW AND STOP WHINGING ABOUT THE COCONUT GROVE SIGHN ,FOR GODS SAKE (YOU CANT SEE IT FROM SPACE ,REALLY)

philip dalziel, 17-10-10 04:21:

do you think that if you told the tourists what to expect ,stingers ,crocodies ,dengue fever ,overpriced full of themselves restaurants etc that they would still come ??? name me another beach that displays signs that say don't go closer that 2m from the water or risk a crocodile attack and all the pics of fourmile are at its peak which is 3 days a year ,for the rest it is a mud puddle