Hunting for Cassowary

• Published date: 27 February 2024
• Publication title: Ensign, The

Meet the cassowary — “the most dangerous bird in the world”. As tall as a person, with knife-like claws, and the capacity to run as fast as a car, a cassowary can, in fact, kill people. If you ever doubted that birds are descendants of dinosaurs, the cassowary would convince you

So you can imagine my dismay when His Lordship looked up one evening from a tall pile of Australian bird books and said “wouldn’t you love to see a cassowary?” Swallowing my natural response (which was: “not if it’s the last thing I see”), I agreed that our next trip would be to northern Queensland. Those of you who follow this newspaper closely will know that I’m a marine scientist. It did not escape my notice that the Great Barrier Reef was right next door. After some negotiations, it was agreed that we would snorkel on the reef as well as court death while birdwatching.

Like the birds (though unlike cassowaries), we flew. Dunedin to Auckland to Melbourne, overnight at the tiny-roomed, featureless airport hotel, then on to Cairns. And back via Christchurch. Rising at 2:30 am is never my forte, the various queues meant we missed one flight, and baggage took forever to arrive. The best thing was how easy and pleasant customs and immigration are in Christchurch compared to everywhere else. My mother told me if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, so that’s all I’m saying about the air travel.

Cairns is a terrific seaside city with a charming esplanade. We often strolled along the waterfront, stopping for an ice cream or a coffee, taking a moment to watch the children paddling in the pool, and of course, looking at birds. The adjacent mudflats are covered with waders, herons, egrets, pelicans; there’s even a special bird-watching alcove where you can chat with your fellow binocular-wearers. There are parrots in the trees, and if you look up into the light fixtures, you can see five or six cute little woodswallows cuddling together.

Of course, you can’t actually go into the sea here — if the sharks and crocodiles don’t eat you, the box jellies will sting you to insanity — hence the pool.

At the southern end of the Esplanade is the marina, where we and a few thousand other people caught a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). There are all kinds of boats heading in all different directions all day long — we ended up choosing Ocean Freedom because it was small, comparatively inexpensive, and offered breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and all the gear at two...