Great Australian Road Trips Season 1 Episode 2

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Transcript

00:00SBS wishes to advise members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that

00:05the following program contains images, voices or names of deceased persons and may cause

00:10distress.

00:21Woohoo!

00:22Squeeze the juice out of this road trip.

00:24We're in Darwin!

00:25Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah.

00:26Look at that.

00:27The great Australian road trip.

00:31I love driving.

00:33For generations, it's been an intrinsic part of Aussie culture.

00:39Now here's a happy, relaxed family, all set for a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive.

00:46And still to this day, if you really want to experience this great southern land, you've

00:52got to hit the road.

00:53I love it so much!

00:55In this series, food guru Melissa Leon.

00:59I am the Lotus Queen.

01:01And comedian Nazeem Hussain.

01:03People who are in comedy, there's something wrong with them.

01:07Along with writer and performer Steph Tisdall.

01:09Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

01:12And me, Claudia Carvin.

01:14You'd look like an idiot.

01:15Cruise along some of the country's most epic roads.

01:19That's unbelievable.

01:21To uncover extraordinary places.

01:25Look at that light.

01:27There's a crook!

01:28Reveal a side of Australia that's often unseen.

01:31Rawr!

01:33I like that because that isn't really that well known.

01:36And head off the beaten track.

01:38Woo!

01:39Below red dirt.

01:41Because it's as much about the journey.

01:44As it is the destination.

01:49It can't get much better than that.

01:51I love you.

01:52Yay!

01:55This is Great Australian Road Trips.

01:58This time, I'm taking my mate Claudia to far north Queensland.

02:08On the epic Great Barrier Reef Drive from Cairns to Cape Tribulation.

02:13But it's the detour, not the destination, that I'm most excited about.

02:17I'm taking her to my country, Yidinji country.

02:21Up in the rainforest of the Atherton Tablelands.

02:24So we're going up to the Atherton Tablelands.

02:26So look, Yungabara.

02:27So Yungabara is...

02:28Yungabara.

02:29Is it?

02:30I've heard you say that word, Yungabara.

02:32My people are the Yidinji people.

02:34And then my clan is the Dugabara Yidinji people.

02:37Dugabara.

02:38So Dugabara is like the people of the rainforest of the Yidinji nation.

02:46So it's not rainforest or tropical here.

02:48It looks a bit dry.

02:49Yeah, it does.

02:50It gets rainforest at the top.

02:51Ah, okay.

02:52So these Gillies Ranges, this was actually built off the old rainforest.

02:55The old route that the blackfellas used to take.

02:58This was where my old people used to travel.

03:01Beautiful.

03:02These trees has taken care of so many hundreds of generations of my people.

03:18And their blood still runs through me.

03:20And I still get to come here.

03:22And I get to bring you here.

03:24Isn't that cool?

03:25Isn't that beautiful?

03:26Very cool.

03:27Very, very cool.

03:29Yeah.

03:30We're starting our drive on the Athenon Tablelands on our way to Lake Berean, my country.

03:41Then we'll head along the ranges to Garanda and down the mountain to Mossman before crossing

03:45the Daintree River by ferry and ending up with a bird's eye view of Cape Tribulation,

03:50the iconic point where the rainforest meets the reef.

03:55But first, I want to introduce Claudia to my mum.

03:59Which family members are we going to go up and meet today?

04:02So you're going to meet my Uncle Lowell?

04:04Yeah.

04:05Uncle Lawrence.

04:06Is he your mum's brother?

04:09No.

04:10No?

04:11No.

04:12Blackfell away, don't matter.

04:15So we're going to meet your Uncle Lowell?

04:17Yep.

04:18He's one of my oldest.

04:19He speaks the language.

04:20And you keep telling me he's got skinny legs?

04:22His name's Uncle Lolly Legs.

04:23Lolly Legs, that's why he's Uncle Lowell.

04:26And who else are we going to meet?

04:28Um, my cousin Leanne, who looks a bit like me but darker.

04:35Oh, look at those rocks.

04:37Yeah, it's cool, hey.

04:38Oh my God, they're beautiful.

04:40They're like sleeping animals.

04:42Yeah.

04:43Huge, beautiful dark.

04:44It's going to change a lot as we go up.

04:46I used to love this drive.

04:48I used to throw up every time.

04:51I don't usually get car sick but I am starting to think

04:54these windy roads might do it to me.

04:58I had a really special auntie who recently passed away.

05:09I really struggled with her passing.

05:12I didn't grow up on country and I had a lot of shame about that.

05:16You know, we used to come here as kids occasionally.

05:19A lot of my cousins grew up on country and I always felt like I was massively missing something.

05:27And do you still struggle with it?

05:28Well, no, this is why my auntie was really important to me.

05:31Right.

05:32A couple of years ago I went through some really tough times and my mum said,

05:36alright Steph, you've got to go to country and do some healing.

05:39And I was like, I don't know if I'm ready.

05:42And my auntie was like, you don't earn country.

05:47That's your birthright.

05:48That's your country.

05:49That's your birthright.

05:50That's your country.

05:51Like, generations upon generations of your people have walked here.

05:58What a beautiful way to speak to you.

06:00Like, can I be totally honest?

06:11I want to do it completely alone and I'm still a bit scared to.

06:14I still want my mum to hold my hand and my auntie to hold my hand

06:17and that's the opposite of what I need to do.

06:20And country will call me when she's ready for me, you know?

06:24I've been making more of an effort to spend more time up here,

06:27book more gigs up here, you know, really reconnecting

06:30and making those connections with my aunties and cousins.

06:36Thank you, old people.

06:39Thank you so much.

06:40Thank you for having us and welcome, you know.

06:57The Yidinji people, my ancestors, have lived on the Atherton Tablelands forever.

07:04Explorers then came along looking for tin and gold.

07:07But instead, forestry and farming became the main industries,

07:11with the fertile red soil providing the ideal environment for crops and cattle.

07:16By the late 1800s, Chinese migrants settled in the area

07:20and were the region's earliest farming pioneers.

07:23An iron and wood temple was built here in 1903,

07:26but a cyclone knocked it out in 1956.

07:29It was restored and to this day remains one of the oldest Chinese temples in Australasia.

07:34Here it is, Lake Berean, 300 metres.

07:50Immediately, I feel energised.

07:53I feel really, really good here.

07:56Exuberance plus.

07:57I just feel amazing.

08:04Thank you for bringing me here.

08:13It's alright.

08:14You better be on your best behaviour.

08:17That's impossible for me.

08:19Claudia.

08:20Hi.

08:21This is my uncle.

08:22Hello.

08:23Uncle Lowell and this is Leanne.

08:24Hi Uncle Lowell.

08:25Claudia, nice to meet you.

08:26Hi Leanne.

08:27Hi Leanne.

08:28How are you?

08:29Nice to meet you.

08:30Nice to meet you too.

08:34Every time I come back to country, I've got to stop by and say g'day to these big old kauri trees,

08:43the largest pines in Australia, towering around 50 metres high.

08:47We the Dukubara Yirinji people, we welcome you to come here.

09:00We the Dookabara Yirinji people, we welcome you to come here.

09:10We all come together as one with a happy heart.

09:24Oh, oh my God.

09:29So it's gigantic.

09:31Here are twin carrie pines.

09:33Wow.

09:35Oh, it's like someone's like zoomed in on them.

09:37It's like they've been magnified.

09:40That is wild.

09:42And they're estimated to be around a thousand years old.

09:51So in English they call it twin carrie pines, but we call it Juggie Jumble Dookoe.

09:59Dookoe.

09:59Dookoe is a word for poin and that's the correct way, the Yirinji way of saying it.

10:07And Juggie and Jumble means two.

10:11Uh-huh.

10:12So we just say two poin trees that are together.

10:18You know, they just represent seniority in the forest because you call them the elders of the forest.

10:27And you've got some great stories from here too.

10:33Yeah, so this area is significant to obviously our mob.

10:38Um, I can recall as I was growing up, like my mum told me that her mother, when she gave birth, they would bury the placenta in the rainforest here.

10:51Nutrition.

10:52Nutrition.

10:53Yeah.

10:54Yeah.

10:54And we're, we're from this, you know, I love the way that Aunty Sib describes it.

11:01And when I came here at a bad time in my life, she made me stand right next to the trunk of that tree.

11:08And she said, so you notice that at the bottom there, Steph, it's got a belly like you, you know, it's thicker at the bottom.

11:14Um, it's got scars up it, both of them, you can see, and they've been struck by lightning, hurt, but they didn't stop.

11:25Yeah.

11:25They kept growing right on through.

11:28And then their branches come out and they reach above everyone else because they push through.

11:34And if you grow tall, it's because you want to give selflessly.

11:38That's how to make sure you grow through those scars.

11:42And I just love that.

11:44Beautiful.

11:53Isn't this just phenomenal?

11:57Thank you, old people.

12:11Well, we can't skedaddle without having a paddle.

12:13Well, we're going to go cruising on the lake.

12:16Hopefully, Claudia will get to see some marine life.

12:20He's stepping into his office.

12:22Yeah, sure.

12:22Uncle, what sort of stuff would we eat from the rainforest?

12:35You ate nuts and vegetable kind of foods like sort of yams and that, and berries, type of berries.

12:46That's what we call ma'i.

12:48Ma'i.

12:48We have a separate word for meat, as you may know, which is minya.

12:57Minya.

12:58Lake Berean is a crater formed about 15,000 years ago by two massive volcanic explosions.

13:07In 1942, the Australian Army built a military base in the Atherton Tablelands to help defend against a Japanese invasion.

13:18At its peak, around 40,000 diggers were stationed here.

13:22Steph, that's what the turtles, we call a bajigal, the freshwater one.

13:30Bajigal.

13:31Bajigal.

13:32Bajigal.

13:33Bajigal.

13:34Bajigal.

13:34Are they like a long-necked, like a terrapin thing?

13:37They do have a long-necked, but they snap.

13:41They're very snappy, so don't put your hands in front of them.

13:48Oh.

13:49We'll go visit them now.

13:51I haven't told them we're coming, though.

14:01There's the turtle, there's the turtle.

14:03There it is.

14:05Can you say that, Steph?

14:06Oh, wow.

14:15Thank you, thank you, thank you for having me and for letting me show this country.

14:29Why do you love driving so much?

14:31I remember when we did Bump Together, you were telling me how you just loved your car.

14:35You loved, you were in the car doing the long drives up and down to Brisbane.

14:38Yep.

14:39All the time.

14:39Yep.

14:40I guess it's like a little bubble, isn't it?

14:43It is.

14:43It's a little safe capsule.

14:45And also, like, if you're sitting in your own house, you're often like, oh, the floor

14:50needs vacuuming.

14:51Yeah.

14:51Oh, no, I need to stay in the dishwasher.

14:53But in the car, you're released from sort of domestic chores.

14:58But it's also like you can control the temperature.

15:02Ah, it's your own climate.

15:03Yep.

15:03You can drive to wherever you want to go to.

15:05Like, nobody can bother you.

15:07It's just home.

15:09I'm going to take you somewhere that I love to go swimming.

15:15Every time that I come up and see Leanne, my cousin, we always go for a swim there.

15:20And I swear, the first time I ever saw it, I went, no, but I've seen this place before.

15:26Because I'd dreamt of it.

15:28Oh, wow.

15:28And I'd never even seen it.

15:29Like, I don't know how to describe that.

15:31It's like, I knew it before I knew it.

15:33And it was...

15:34Amazing.

15:34Yeah, so it's always felt really, really special to me.

15:44So we're going to be swimming in this river?

15:46Yep.

15:46Just a different part of it.

15:48Oh, it looks good.

15:48That's one part that we swim at sometimes.

15:51Let's get in there.

15:52I know.

15:54Come on, watering hole.

15:58Are you going to put your head under the water?

16:00Yeah.

16:01Why not go all in and ruin my makeup?

16:04There we go.

16:12I'm going to take my shoes off.

16:13Do it.

16:15Isn't that beautiful?

16:16It's so good.

16:20Let's do this.

16:26We love this place, my family and I.

16:28So I said, oi, come and have a swim with us.

16:32Get in here.

16:37I'm in.

16:38Woo!

16:48So refreshing.

16:49Coming up, we head to the hippie village of Karanda.

17:02You've always got to buy soap at a market.

17:04You have to buy soap.

17:04I love soap.

17:06You're like the nerd of the soap world.

17:07How good was it swimming at Little Mully?

17:22So good.

17:23Truly, truly, that is my favourite place in the world.

17:26Karanda, now we're on the right track.

17:30Oh, we're going to be turning left to Karanda.

17:34To Karanda.

17:35Miranda, Karanda.

17:37It's like Picnic and Hanging Rock.

17:40We're now going to go and meet some alternative types in the hippie town of Karanda.

17:45Then we're going to head down the mountain and cruise along the iconic Great Barrier Reef Drive.

17:53Look at that mountain.

17:54It's so beautiful.

17:56So steep.

17:56Yeah.

17:57So do we head up that mountain to get to Karanda Markets?

18:01Yeah, I think so.

18:02So why are you taking me to Karanda Markets when you haven't even been there yourself?

18:05How do you know they're not any good?

18:07Well, I've been around Karanda and I've done the Karanda Trail before, but I just was like,

18:12you know what, I've got to show you how great Final Sweets Land is.

18:17The entire table ends up here is just hippie town.

18:21What does hippie town mean?

18:22I don't know, there's just a lot of hippies.

18:24Have you ever been a hippie yourself?

18:26No.

18:27Why not?

18:29I don't want to ever stick too much to any one idea, which I know seems hippie-like.

18:35Also, I don't really have the structure in my life to be able to be a hippie, which I know, again, sounds crazy.

18:41You need a compost.

18:43Well, you need a compost.

18:43And if you're moving around a lot, how are you going to take your composting everywhere?

18:46Exactly.

18:47You need a compost, you need to eat certain things, you need to cook.

18:50You need to burn incense, which is like burning incense at the hotel room.

18:53Well, exactly.

18:54People set up the smoke alarm.

18:55Exactly.

18:56I would definitely say I'm part hippie, part punk.

18:59I just take a bit from everywhere.

19:01After settlement, but long before all the hippies came in and the swinging 60s, it was the building

19:12of the railway line from Cairns that was the game changer.

19:16Bucket loads of workmen, mostly immigrants, lured here from Italy and Ireland, forged their

19:21way up the mountain.

19:22They dug 15 tunnels across 75 kilometres of track, an incredible feat of engineering.

19:30Today, tourists go nuts for the Kuranda Scenic Rail, which cuts through the World Heritage

19:35Rainforest.

19:40I love picking up a bargain.

19:42You've always got to buy soap at a market.

19:43You have to buy soap.

19:44I love soap.

19:45What's your favourite smell of a soap?

19:47You know what?

19:48I'm really into a fruity.

19:49Fruity?

19:50Vanillery.

19:51Vanillery.

19:52I like a goat's milk soap and I like lemon myrtle.

19:55You're like the nerd of the soap world.

19:59You are a hippie, aren't you?

20:09Alright.

20:10Kuranda Markets.

20:11So good.

20:12Kuranda Original Markets.

20:15Right.

20:15In amongst all these trees.

20:16Usually markets are sort of, you're out in the sun.

20:19It's all nice and sheltered.

20:28Incense.

20:29Mmm.

20:30There's a different kind of incense smell at the front.

20:42Yum!

20:42Japanese sweets.

20:43Have you been to Japan before?

20:44No.

20:45I went to Tokyo earlier this year.

20:47It was amazing.

20:48I've never been before.

20:49I'd love to go.

20:50Let's go in.

20:50Yeah, let's do it.

20:51Alright.

20:51Mochi.

20:52Do you want a mochi?

20:53Red beans, sweet red beans.

20:55I want something.

20:55It's all my favourite stuff ever.

20:57Good.

20:57Excellent.

20:57Let's do it.

20:58Hello, welcome.

20:59Hello.

20:59How are you?

21:00Hello.

21:00I'm Steph.

21:01Miwaka, miwaka for short.

21:08Oh, we're going to do the tea ceremony now.

21:11We're going to get sweets.

21:13Yum.

21:13They're making us some special sweets for a tea ceremony.

21:15I'm hungry.

21:15And then, um, yeah, she's doing the tea ceremony.

21:20Oh, okay.

21:21Oh, yum.

21:22Oh, yum.

21:23Is this a mochi?

21:24Mochi.

21:25Mochi.

21:28Thank you so much.

21:29This looks delicious.

21:30That looks like it's ground green tea on top.

21:32A matcha.

21:33Oh.

21:33And maybe sesame.

21:36Look at your bottom white lip.

21:40Your bottom lip is completely white.

21:42I'm doing my best.

21:47Is it mine too?

21:48It's mine.

21:49You're not as messy for something.

21:50There you go.

21:51Now.

21:52Now you're welcome.

21:53This is like the Milo challenge.

21:55Mmm.

21:56Yum.

22:03Would you like the smell of it?

22:22Are you going to drink it to be polite?

22:25But you don't like it?

22:30It's really an overthink.

22:32Does it remind you of anything?

22:34Fish.

22:34It smells like fish.

22:35Yes, yes.

22:36Seaweed.

22:38It's nice.

22:39It's really yum.

22:39Thank you so much.

22:41Thank you so much.

22:44What's the history of tea making and the ceremony?

22:47Yes.

22:47Yes, so tea ceremony is like harmony.

22:51Yeah.

22:51Harmony and also purity and also respect and tranquility.

22:58Oh, that's beautiful.

22:59Yes, you know, all the days there is, you know,

23:01the warlords summarized.

23:03These warlords love the tea ceremony because before or after going to or coming back from

23:11the battlefield, this is the time for serenity and reflection.

23:17So they love this moment.

23:19You know, like a nice balance of the busy chaos and the stillness of the moment.

23:25Wow.

23:25Thank you so much.

23:50Have a nice day.

23:52Bye-bye.

23:53Bye-bye.

23:58I loved Kuranda Markets.

24:00I loved lunch so much that I got some mochis for the road.

24:06What flavour mochis are they?

24:08Red bean.

24:09Sweet red bean paste.

24:09Yep, yep, yep.

24:10Got some incense.

24:11Amazing.

24:12The best smelling, the original and the best.

24:14I like that one, yes.

24:15It's the best.

24:16Actually, the car.

24:16Can you smell it in the car?

24:17I can, yeah.

24:20I loved it.

24:21It was calm.

24:22It was a beautiful environment.

24:24And how beautiful was that couple?

24:26They were really a match I made in heaven, weren't they?

24:30That age.

24:31Did you think of that earlier or was that all you just now?

24:33It's very good.

24:35That was really good.

24:37Isn't that cute?

24:38Yes, I liked that a lot.

24:41Do you think you'll be drinking matcha regularly?

24:44Oh, absolutely not.

24:46Your face, you were so cute.

24:48You were like, because the bowl was so big, I could just see your eye.

24:51Yeah, because I just looked at you like from the side.

24:54I thought I'm going to be very, very polite here.

24:56Because it was such a lovely, you know, ceremony for them to let us be a part of.

25:03Are you just really not enjoying my company right now?

25:06I'm loving your company, but I am a bit in need of a nap.

25:10Okay, well, let's just get to it.

25:12We obviously can't put...

25:14Oh, my God, Claudia.

25:16I'm just...

25:17Luckily, you look like an idiot.

25:24I'm just going to put on my napping pillow.

25:27Because I need to sleep.

25:29All right.

25:29Oh.

25:30You want to hear my story?

25:38Psh!

25:49Next up, we finally hit Great Barrier Reef Drive.

25:53Oh, my...

25:55Golly, golly, goodness.

25:57And cross a croc-infested river into the Daintree Rainforest.

26:00Stepping an eagle eye out for crocs.

26:09Great Australian road trips.

26:12One adventure at a time.

26:14With Lexus.

26:14There's three different animals that can eat cane toads.

26:27So one is some kind of water bird.

26:30Two, the ibis.

26:31And three is a crow.

26:33Ibises will annoy the shit out of them until they've secreted all of the poison.

26:37And then they shake them around in water and wash them and then eat them at whatever, however they please at that stage.

26:46That's very, very clever.

26:47I'm glad I could, um, entertain you.

26:56We're driving through sugarcane country, heading to the historic town of Mossman.

27:02Then we'll wind our way up the coast along Great Barrier Reef Drive towards the croc-infested Daintree River.

27:08Oh, so tropical.

27:10Mm.

27:11So fecund.

27:14Did you call me?

27:17The fecundity is overwhelming up here.

27:20That's a, um, that's another joke of mine that went viral that I didn't tell you.

27:23Tell me.

27:24Um, I, um, I love white guilt.

27:29I love what's going to happen in real life.

27:31It's like, I'm going to eat it, you know.

27:33And to make sure that I get my fix, I need it at least once a week, otherwise I start getting the shakes.

27:37What I like to do is go to, like, a really hipster cafe and, um, I'll wait behind the biggest hipster I can find.

27:45And then I'll, um, I'll wait for them to order a smashed avo and then I go, what the f*** did you call me?

27:53And I watch them go, no, no, no.

27:56That's funny.

27:57That went viral.

27:59Ah, you bitch.

28:05Comedy is very revealing, isn't it?

28:07What you find funny and what you don't find funny.

28:10Do you find funny, like, things like, you know, people, like, falling over, falling off swings, falling off flatters?

28:17I find it absolutely hilarious.

28:19Unless they get quite injured and then I get a little bit upset.

28:22Yeah, if it looks like they're really badly injured themselves, it's awful.

28:26But I find, you know the other one, the jump scare one?

28:29I find that so funny.

28:31Mum and I.

28:32I will cry.

28:33I will piss myself laughing.

28:34Mum and I always watch people getting scared.

28:36If we were sitting here just now and I went, ah, ah, ah, ah, did that.

28:39Oh, hilarious.

28:40And then you start going, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

28:46Absolutely.

28:55Can you tell me what that is?

28:56Sugar cane.

28:57Is it?

28:57This is something that I remember so much from my childhood

29:00when we would drive up north is sugar cane everywhere

29:05from way before, probably from like Mackay even

29:08or a little bit further up than that, through Bowen.

29:11Sugar cane and mango trees.

29:17There's a lot of Italian farmers up this way,

29:20but before their arrival, South Sea Islanders were enslaved

29:23and forced to work in the sugar cane fields

29:26in what was known as blackbirding.

29:30There were some 10,000 Pacific Islanders living in Queensland

29:34and northern New South Wales around the early 1900s.

29:38That was when the federal government passed

29:40the Pacific Island Laborers Act,

29:43which ordered the deportation of most of them.

29:45Only around 700 of them were exempt from the mass deportation.

29:51At around the same time,

29:52a migration scheme increased the flow of Italians

29:55into far north Queensland to replace the sugar cane workforce.

29:59And by the 1930s, they owned almost 50% of the farms.

30:04When I look at sugar cane fields, I think of snakes.

30:06I think how many snakes would be hiding around in that cane.

30:11And, you know, the snakes up here are terrifying

30:13because we've got taipans up here.

30:15And taipans, Dad was telling me a story

30:17from when he was woken up this way

30:19or a little bit further inland,

30:21and a taipan just went for the car.

30:25Wow.

30:25Like, actually attacked the car and they were like,

30:27oh, God, put your windows up!

30:29Like, they're ruthless.

30:31Terrifying.

30:31Oh, here we go.

30:38This is pretty, isn't it?

30:40It is.

30:41Snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes.

30:46Sugar underpinned the economy in this area

30:48for over a century from the mid-1800s

30:51and was in the DNA of its people,

30:54many of them immigrants.

30:54Our families come from the four corners of the earth.

30:59If you cut cane with a man, you soon find out what he's like.

31:03If he hasn't got the guts and stamina for the game, you drop him.

31:07If he has, well, you stop worrying about the colour of his hair

31:10or the shape of his head.

31:12A good mate's a good mate, and that's that.

31:17Peter Verry is a third-generation sugar cane farmer.

31:21His Italian family came out in the 1920s

31:24and bought 100 acres of sugar cane.

31:27Here's our weapon.

31:28Oh, mama.

31:29Okay.

31:30That's brutal.

31:31That's what they call a cane knife.

31:32Oh, God.

31:33Oh, wow, that's cool.

31:34How old would this be?

31:35Oh, this is not very old.

31:37It's a few years old.

31:38And do you use that still?

31:40We don't cut any cane anymore with cane knives.

31:42Wow, it's pretty rough.

31:48So do you still own all this?

31:50The land?

31:50Yeah.

31:51Yeah, the land, I do, and the cane.

31:52And the cane?

31:53Yep.

31:54But what's happened to everyone else's?

31:55Same thing as me.

31:56We've fertilised and planted.

31:58We thought we were going to have a good harvest this year.

32:00The price of sugar was pretty reasonable.

32:03And unfortunately, our mill got put into an administration,

32:08and now it's been liquidated.

32:10Wow.

32:10What's the future?

32:11Will this farm just stop operating?

32:14Well, I think it's dead in the water meself.

32:19You know, we're making nothing out of it.

32:21It's really quite sad, isn't it?

32:25You want to see how it's done?

32:27Yes, please.

32:27Okay, come on over.

32:29When my father cut cane, he was cut green, okay?

32:33And to get to the bottom of that...

32:36Oh.

32:39Wow.

32:40He's still got it, doesn't he?

32:41Yes.

32:43Very, very.

32:46Then you've got to top it.

32:52Pretty dirty work.

32:53Pretty dirty work.

32:55Hot and dirty work.

32:56There's no gloves in those days.

32:58It's all by hair.

32:59So you blister.

33:01After you blister, you blister, you're going to bleed.

33:04Tough work.

33:04And a lot of times they'd pee on their hands to toughen their hands up.

33:07And have leathery hands.

33:09That's tough work.

33:13Just chew?

33:14No.

33:15Smells so good.

33:17Chew on the fibre.

33:18Oh, wow.

33:24Yeah, yeah, that's exactly like sugar.

33:27You're worse than the bloody rats.

33:32I'm worse than the bloody rats.

33:34There you go.

33:37Yeah.

33:38Do you get a lot of cane toads around here?

33:40Oh, you'll always get cane toads.

33:42They're here all the time.

33:44Do you do anything about them?

33:45No.

33:45There's too many of them.

33:48Ugh, cane toads.

33:49Who needs them?

33:50They secrete poison that has killed so many native birds and animals and pushed others to the brink of extinction.

33:56Somebody had a bright idea to bring these guys across in 1935 to help insect attacks on the roots of sugarcane.

34:03And they've since spread like a virus across Queensland to the NT and even Western Australia.

34:10And today they reckon there are billions of the suckers.

34:13Yeah, I'd be interested to see where it all goes.

34:19I mean, sugar's not going away.

34:21Mm.

34:24Look, straight ahead.

34:27Oh, wow.

34:27Oh, my golly golly goodness.

34:34You've got to be kidding me.

34:35I want to take photos of it.

34:42This spectacular stretch of road is the iconic Great Barrier Reef Drive.

34:47It'll take us along the Coral Coast all the way to the World Heritage-listed Daintree Rainforest.

34:56No, it's not really a good photo.

34:58OK.

35:06So, do you think you can swim in that?

35:09I actually don't know.

35:10I really don't know.

35:12Boxed jellyfish?

35:12They do often have the nets out and everything.

35:16Oh, do they?

35:16Yeah, I think so.

35:18But, I mean, it's just...

35:20Wow.

35:21Unreal.

35:27This water might look good, but don't go swimming,

35:30because from October to June, it's full of boxed jellyfish.

35:34This place is also chockers with crocs and the tiny but very deadly Irukandji.

35:40This is our only way to get into the Daintree.

35:55It's really remote.

35:56Yes, I have heard that.

35:57Truly remote.

36:02Oh, we're off.

36:03Oh, that's uncomfortable, isn't it?

36:06The movement.

36:06Look at the crocs.

36:10Yep.

36:11Keeping an eagle eye out for crocs.

36:20The first commercial transport across the Daintree River was in the 1950s

36:25and was used to ferry timber.

36:27This is the connecting point for Cape Tribulation and the Cape York Peninsula to the rest of

36:32the country.

36:33And it's mayhem when cyclones and storms make the river impassable.

36:38But otherwise, this ferry goes daily.

36:40Daintree, we're in the Daintree.

36:42How exciting.

36:43Coming up, we reach the rainforest.

36:50I love it so much.

36:52It's so beautiful.

36:53I would cry.

36:55And end our roadie on a high.

36:57Sky high.

36:58Above the canopy.

36:59I feel emotional.

37:01Not just because I'm scared.

37:03Scared my heart's pounding.

37:04You smelling it?

37:29I want to smell it.

37:31Can you smell it?

37:32Smells good.

37:42We're on the homestretch.

37:44The Daintree rainforest, the oldest continually surviving tropical rainforest on Earth, is

37:50within reach.

37:52And we're going to get an epic view of it, with Cape Tribulation in the distance.

37:59Oh, Cal Bay.

38:00That's where you come from, Claudia.

38:06This is gorgeous.

38:10Wow, what a privilege to be here.

38:13I think of Tarzan, too, like swinging from the ropes.

38:17All those thick vines.

38:18Oh, wow, though.

38:24Isn't it beautiful?

38:26I love it so much.

38:29It's so beautiful.

38:30I would cry.

38:31It's pretty lush, isn't it?

38:34It's just so special.

38:35Oh, we're going to get to look at the canopy from that big crane.

38:42Which I will probably cry the entire time.

38:48Okay.

38:50Despite being utterly terrified of heights, I'm determined to experience this ancient rainforest

38:55from a bird's eye view.

38:56I love how dark rainforests are as well.

39:06Yeah, that's right.

39:07The sun just can't get through.

39:09I know.

39:09I find that astonishing.

39:11That the canopy is just so dense.

39:13Yeah.

39:15Like there's some places in rainforests where sun just doesn't even ever reach.

39:19Yeah.

39:20I find that amazing.

39:21It is amazing.

39:22But it wasn't so amazing in 1983 when the rainforest became a battleground.

39:28Environmentalists chained themselves to trees and buried themselves in the path of bulldozers

39:33who were trying to build a controversial road.

39:37Then Premier Joe Bielke-Peterson battled with the protesters, saying they should be driven

39:41out of town.

39:43Many were arrested in clashes with the police.

39:46They failed to stop the road, but their protests led the United Nations to list this region as a

39:51World Heritage Site.

39:54What do we do?

39:55I want to leave you 15 minutes.

39:57We keep going, keep going, keep going.

39:58That's what she's saying.

39:59It's the international language of keep going.

40:03World Heritage Area.

40:04Why did she look cranky about it?

40:06Because you were slowing down.

40:07Keep moving, babes.

40:16Every time that I look at really dense rainforest, I always think it's quite like,

40:21unforgiving, like it doesn't want you to enter, does it?

40:25You know?

40:26It's like, no thank you, you stay out there.

40:29Because it's so dense.

40:31And it's so ancient, and yet it's so, what did you say, perfunct?

40:51Fecund.

40:52Fecund.

40:53The fecundity is...

40:55But it's so ancient, but it's also so, like, fresh, like there's new, you know what I mean?

41:01It's alive, isn't it?

41:03Yes, exactly.

41:04The Daintree Rainforest Observatory is a field station nestled at the base of Mount Sorrow.

41:21Installed in 1998, good old Lofty the Crane was the first of his kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

41:31A heavy lift helicopter was used to install the crane piece by piece,

41:37until it was a scary 47 metres above the ground.

41:40You notice the shift in temperature.

41:48Yeah.

41:49And you also notice how much darker it is in the rainforest.

41:51Yeah, so much darker.

41:53So there's a constant competition for space and for it to get to the sunlight in the rainforest.

41:59Yeah.

41:59So you notice a lot of plants are growing on top of other plants.

42:02Yeah.

42:03That's trying to climb their way up to the light.

42:05It's like a fun ride, isn't it?

42:14I'm scared.

42:15Are you?

42:15But I love it, yes.

42:27All right.

42:28We're here.

42:28Welcome.

42:30This is the crane.

42:31It looks really scary.

42:32I think the scarier thing would be actually having to climb it, rather than be lifted up.

42:40Don't you think?

42:40Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.

42:43So this goes up, what, 23 metres, does it?

42:46No.

42:4647 metres tall.

42:47Oh, 47 metres.

42:4847 metres.

42:49So it's 47 metres tall and 55 metres long jib, so that means we can access one whole hectare

42:55of rainforest.

42:57Shall we do it?

42:58Is it OK if I cry?

43:00Yes.

43:00Yes, but I am so terrified, I can't tell you how scared of heights I am.

43:05Come in.

43:06He's going to disappoint it here.

43:07Although my anxiety is in overdrive, I really want to end this roadie with Claudia on a high.

43:17Up and away.

43:21Just keep breathing slowly through your nose.

43:23So there's a little bounce when we stop going up, but there's nothing to worry about.

43:37I'm going to slow down into first gear.

43:38Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.

43:40Don't laugh at me.

43:48I'm not laughing at you.

43:52Long, slow breaths through your nose.

43:55Is that helping?

43:56If you look down, your knees do get a little bit jiggly.

44:00If I look down, my knees, like, get, like, little electric shocks.

44:07If you look to the south, it looks like every tree's got vine on it.

44:10Yes.

44:11And when you look to the north, it almost doesn't look like there's any vine.

44:14And so the same thing, you set up your solar panels, you want the maximum amount of sunlight.

44:18But they're making the most of their environment.

44:21Oh, right.

44:22And they're constantly on the move, probably moving to the north.

44:28We've got 85 species of tree just under the hectare of the crane.

44:32And there's more than that.

44:34That's just what we've documented at 10 centimetres or greater.

44:37Steph, are you feeling any better?

44:41Was that a recent landslide over there?

44:43Yeah, so January after Jasper, all the landslides and all the way to Cape Bedford

44:48on the same Sunday night, between 800 to 1,200 mils in about four hours,

44:55after a metre of rain for a week.

44:56My dad said it was the highest single rainfall ever in Australia in its history that they know of.

45:02Mossman High Street went underwater.

45:04I mean, that's never happened.

45:05Is that a nest out at the end of the crane?

45:18Yeah, so that's where they've been the last ten seasons, having their legs up there.

45:21Oh, there's a nest out there?

45:23That's the osprey.

45:24The ones that are screaming.

45:25I didn't realise that.

45:27I thought that was a tree.

45:29No wonder they're squawking, because they're moving around.

45:31It does feel like you could sort of walk across the top of it, doesn't it?

45:53But it's almost like grass.

45:56You'd get a shock if you tried to walk across one, you just fall straight through.

46:02Look.

46:03It's almost neon, some of those vines.

46:05Yeah.

46:06I mean, basically, this is time travel, isn't it?

46:13We're in a little time capsule.

46:15Yeah.

46:16I feel really emotional.

46:19It's continually growing, moving, evolving, but it's still the same.

46:25Yeah.

46:26I feel emotional, not just because I'm scared, scared my heart's pounding, but this feels like

46:34everything's lived here for so long, you know?

46:40It's still this, like, history and it's seen so much.

46:46I feel elated.

46:49It's a good place to end, isn't it?

46:51Up here, in the sky.

46:54You just slingshot us straight up to the moon.

47:01I didn't grow up on country, and this road trip back home with my mate Claudia has helped

47:07me reconnect to both country and culture.

47:10I'm so glad I found the courage to face my fear.

47:13You did well, Steph.

47:14I cried a bit, but it was happy tears.

47:24Next time, Mel and Naz head to the wild west coast of the Apple Isle.

47:29Oh, wow.

47:30On the iconic 99 Benz, from Queenstown to Cradle Mountain.

47:34I feel like the luckiest human on the planet right now.

47:44I feel like the likes of the world, because you've got a duty and the adaptive disease.

47:50I feel like you're not a magic turtle.

47:52I'm so glad I'm proud to have you.

47:56Take a deep inhale of the ride.

47:57I don't know.

47:58We're young people like many of you.

48:00Take a deep breath in.

48:02Hey, here we go.

48:03Take a deep breath in.

48:04I'm so glad I'm sorry.

48:05It's a nice feeling.

48:06Come, sir.

48:07Take a deep breath in.

48:08There's a doubt is, like, maybe 15,000.

48:10You're not the most...

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