AustLit

'From the first emergence of geographical models which postulated a warm tropical zone between the two hemispheres, philosophers, theologians, and thinkers of all kinds have speculated on what might be found in the tropics and about the equator. When eventually mariners, navigators and explorers opened up this zone to naturalists and travelers, fantastic accounts and descriptions of the tropics proliferated. The area was described as both an Arcadian paradise where beautiful animals lived in harmony with human beings, and an infernal dystopia of monstrous beasts and polygamous savages and cannibals. In places the tropics could be a desert of barrenness and infertility or an expanse of featureless ocean, while elsewhere it was an aquarium of exotica or a fecund forest of immense biodiversity. For naturalists and scientists it became a vast laboratory in which modern geological, zoological and evolutionary theories were incubated. For imperialists and businessmen it was a cornucopia of precious metals, plantations, and profit.'

'Our odyssey started conventionally enough, at the bus terminus on Trinity Wharf, Cairns-a terminus the fixtures and fittings of which had absorbed the amount of lonely boredom and frustration bus halts invariably do absorb. Thankfully there was no frustration on this occasion, nor even any need to use the seats: it was 6.45 am, and far too early for things to be running late. Our hand-written tickets in our hands, my companion and I surrendered the white copy (going up) to Mick the driver, and retained the pink copy (going down). Our bags were stored in the luggage trailer, a dozen or so others climbed on board, and at length we nosed into the quiet streets and the morning sunlight, passed the Casino and the glittering hotels, and began our passage to the north. There are two roads from Cairns to Cooktown, I should say before we go any further. The inland route is comparatively smooth, metalled all the way bar seventy kilometres of unsealed road, and often as featureless, dry, and dusty as an Australian road can be; the coastal route through rainforest and across numerous rivers-well, that is different.'