Nerdtrip 2012: Total Eclipse of The Excuse for a Tropical Getaway

Next week I’m head­ing to far north Queens­land to see one of the won­ders of the world. Or should I say, one of the won­ders as seen from the world. Low down on the hori­zon, not long after sun­rise on Novem­ber 14, the Moon will pass in front of the sun and a Total Solar Eclipse will be vis­i­ble to any­one in or nearby to Cairns.

For a visual idea of what is going to hap­pen, here’s a sci­ency GIF.

Total Solar Eclipses are the Olympics of the astro­nom­i­cal world. They cause a lot of peo­ple to rush to one loca­tion with the promise of a great spec­ta­cle. Occa­sion­ally the weather ruins things, but quite often they deliver a visual delight that is hard to match. I mean, the things those gym­nasts do on the bars. Yikes!

I’m going on this Nerdtrip, with a nerd-friend of mine called Ken, because I want the spec­ta­cle. But I’m also going because I’m curious. Will the eclipse tem­porar­ily throw dark­ness upon the land? Will the birds stop chirp­ing, mis­tak­enly think­ing the day went by super fast? Will otherwise-oblivious passers-by see the eclipse and freak out, think­ing the end of the world has sud­denly come?

A Total Solar Eclipse is a nat­ural phe­nom­e­non that only occurs every 18 months or so, and doesn’t usu­ally take place over densely-populated loca­tions like Cairns and Port Dou­glas, which are per­fectly posi­tioned for this eclipse. Around 50,000 are expected in the region to see the celes­tial event.

As a boy I was always jeal­ous of my mum who wit­nessed the Great Mel­bourne Total Solar Eclipse of ’76 (as it is never called). No doubt the elu­sive­ness of that oh-so-close eclipse (missed it by just six years) has been feed­ing my desire to see one for reals. That, and the roman­tic image of a Total Solar Eclipse sav­ing Tintin’s hide which was burned into my mem­ory as a kid (and which now, on reflec­tion, appears to be quite con­de­scend­ing to the Incan people).

Nonethe­less, I am excited for this eclipse. And I’m not the only one. Char­tered flights will be bring­ing peo­ple to Cairns direct from Japan; an eclipse-themed music fes­ti­val will run for seven days; there will be cruise ships on the Coral Sea and hot air bal­loons in the sky; a bunch of impor­tant NASA sci­en­tists will be at a VIP gath­er­ing some­where west of Cairns; there will be an eclipse tweet-up on the beach at Palm Cove; and the eclipse chasers will be out in force. Eclipse chasers are exactly what they sound like – peo­ple who fol­low eclipses all over the world. One of the more pro­lific chasers Kate Russo dra­mat­i­cally defines an eclipse chaser on her web­site as ‘some­one who has made a life choice to give in to their insa­tiable desire to re-experience the thrill and excite­ment of total­ity’. It sounds kind of bonkers, but you have to respect the unfil­tered passion.

Even down here in Mel­bourne we’re not immune to eclipse fever. This is an actual sticker I saw a month ago at a pedes­trian cross­ing in Colling­wood. Some guerilla mar­ket­ing from the peo­ple run­ning the eclipse music fes­ti­val (the same folks who run the Rain­bow Ser­pent fes­ti­val, by the by).

I shouldn’t fin­ish writ­ing with­out warn­ing that if you are plan­ning on see­ing this solar eclipse (or any other) you shouldn’t look directly at the sun. It will fry your eyes and melt your brain. See instruc­tions for safe eclipse view­ing here. There is also a wealth of infor­ma­tion about the Novem­ber eclipse on this edu­ca­tional web­site set up by the Astro­nom­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion of Queensland.

Sadly it will all be over in a mat­ter of moments as the eclipse lasts for barely two min­utes. And my Nerdtrip trav­el­ling buddy Ken and I will have to deal with the eclipse come­down by snor­kel­ing, swim­ming, rain­forest­ing and beer-ing in the sun.

After all, what good is a Total Solar Eclipse if you don’t use the oppor­tu­nity to work on your tan?