Tag Archives: Queensland

Atherton Tablelands – Not Rooful

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Thursday 3 October 2024 – Long Post Alert!!!!

Yesterday, 2nd October, marked two months since we left the UK on this fantastic trip; it also marked the time to travel to our penultimate destination – the Atherton Tablelands. This is an area somewhat to the south of Port Douglas, and we had a drive of some 2½ hours to get there. So we bade goodbye to the coast as we passed a reminder of this once sugar cane dominated area – these rail freight carriages, or “bins” as they were called, used to take the cane to Mossman when there was a working sugar mill there.

Although the railway is defunct, there are still many road signs and other indications which give the impression of a working system.

Just before we got to Mossman, we turned left and headed inland – and uphill. It was difficult to find a place to stop, to admire the views that we were presented with back towards the coast; but we eventually found a layby with only a slightly perilous walk along a twisty road with big trucks barrelling down it, back to a viewpoint.

We stopped for coffee at a village called Mount Molloy, which had a hotel which, by the sound of the loud banter coming out of it, could have starred in Crocodile Dundee, but only if the censor had been feeling lenient that day.  A café on the same side of the road had just turned off its coffee machine, and so we crossed over to the “Ahoy Molloy Coffee Ship”.

It billed itself as a “coffee and whole foods store”,

and, indeed had a variety of things for sale around the back.

We asked the exceedingly hippy barista what the chemical symbol meant on the front, and he told us that it was the caffeine molecule. Rough round the edges, but a cool place, actually.

The landscape changed dramatically as we left the rainforests of the Daintree; trees became much sparser

and the grassy spaces were dotted with a multitude of termite mounds;

the dense forests disappeared.

The agriculture changed, too.

Mango, avocado and banana crops could be seen from the road and the surrounding lands were exploited for farming.

Our planned lunch stop was in the town of Atherton, which has given its name to the surrounding countryside. Its name came from one John Atherton, who settled the area and introduced cows in 1879. Interestingly, the landscape once we’d climbed out of Port Douglas was flat, but once we officially arrived in the Tablelands, where one might have inferred flatness from the name, we saw many more rolling hills. We’d been two months in Australia and never visited a fish and chip shop; given that there was a reasonably well-reviewed one in Atherton, our lunch venue was an easy choice.

The fish and chips were very good; and on the walls were some clues as to perhaps why Australia has a similar occurrence of obesity as the UK.

Jane had, as ever, done her research on Things To See On The Way, and it was her work that decided us on travelling via this slightly longer route to get to our destination; Madam Tomtom in our car would have taken us back down the coast via Cairns – slightly shorter, and, as it turned out, probably a lot less interesting. Jane had spotted something called the Curtain Fig Tree; and since individual trees rarely get their own spot on Google Maps, we decided to take a look. The tree has signposts, its own car park and even its own National Park. We didn’t explore the National Park, but took up on the offer of a car parking spot and followed the signs, which led to a boardwalk

from which one could start to get an idea of the scope of what was on show. Which was astonishing.

The area is a sacred place for the Ngadjon-Jii people and an info board explains how this extraordinary scene developed. A fig seed was deposited by a bird in the crown of a tree. It was a strangler fig seed, so it grew roots down to the ground which also reached out, encircled and eventually strangled the host tree. The host tree (now effectively dead) then toppled, and ended up leaning on a neighbouring tree; the fig continued to send roots earthwards, which developed into the curtain one sees today. We’ve seen it compared to the “Tree of Life” in Avatar – actually more like the tree of death for the original host…

Jane had also spotted a “Platypus Viewing Platform”, which was in the pretty village of Yungaburra.

As we searched for a place to park, Jane spotted that there were Stone Curlews on the green – the female presumably incubating eggs in a ground nest, and the male strutting around nearby.

The male, by the way, was another disciple of the Phoebe Waller-Bridge side-eye school.

There was, indeed, a formal platypus viewing area, but looking out from it revealed only a turtle.

As a platypus viewing exercise, it was a turtle disaster.

It was then but a short journey to our accommodation, the Rose Gums Wilderness Retreat. We were slightly amused, as we drove towards it, that we were traversing farmland, but once we’d arrived and checked in to our (very substantial) cabin,

it was clear that we were in forestland once again. As darkness fell, Jane stood on the balcony with a torch [ in the rain, I may add – Ed ], seeking out wildlife.  She’s like that. Her persistence resulted in the sighting of a snake,

a (reasonably sizeable) common brown tree snake, which came down off our roof and was looking around on the ground outside for a snack of some kind.

Rose Gums doesn’t have a restaurant, and we’d prepared by buying all kinds of good food in Port Douglas on our way here. But we ended up taking gin and peanuts as our evening meal. Well, we’ll be back in the UK soon and having to go back to a healthy diet; we had some gin left over from our Port Douglas stay, and You Can’t Take It With You, You Know.

That was last night. Today was our time here, and we were booked on a full day “Nature Tour”, with a guide all to ourselves.  Accordingly, at 8.30am, along came the very energetic, up-beat and knowledgeable James

to whisk us off to, well, whatever we agreed would be a good place to be whisked off to. We gave him the task of finding us a cassowary and a tree kangaroo, and, to his credit, he didn’t blench, but instead told us he’d see what he could find for us.

First, though, we took photographic advantage of two features of the Rose Gums retreat: a feeding of rainbow lorikeets

and a hide from which one could see musky-rat kangaroos, or possibly musky rat-kangaroos (the sign was ambiguous) which are the smallest and the most primitive of the quokkapadewallaroo family. Rather than hop they scurry very rapidly which made things rather difficult for your photographer…

Interestingly, the hide enabled photography of some other interlopers, too; an emerald dove and a peaceful dove, both very prettily coloured.

It was good to have James on hand, since he could identify these birds. He is an inveterate birder, which enabled some great photos for us – see later.

Our first stop was Petersen Creek, somewhat upstream from where we’d failed to see any platypuses yesterday. Today?

There were at least two of them – interestingly much smaller than the ones we’d seen in Tasmania. On the same stretch of water, we saw a Pacific  Black Duck

and, in the surrounding woods, an arrangement which looks like a very comfy hotel room for a possum.

James then took us to see a nearby colony of spectacled flying foxes

and then walked us along the Peterson Creek walking trail in search of cassowaries and tree roos.  No luck with them, but he did find us some possums: the bum of a sleeping coppery brush-tailed possum

and a very cute pair of green ring-tailed possums,

who looked a bit uncertain as to whether we were good news or not.

After a coffee stop, we headed out to Mount Hypipamee through the typical Atherton Tablelands countryside

to a secret location, unvisited by the public and known only to several hundred birders; this was to be our final chance to see a cassowary.  It involved looking for a specific entry to a track through a type of forest called mabi forest“, mabi, being the indigenous name for the (annoyingly elusive) Lumholz Tree Kangaroo. Before entering it, James sprayed our shoes with anti-leech spray and warned us to be very careful of stinging tree leaves (the upper and somewhat moth-eaten ones in this photo)

brushing against which could prove anything from very painful – with the pain lasting for months – to, erm, fatal. It’s a member of the nettle family, with the neurotoxin sting being delivered by very fine hairs on the leaves and the fruit. Apparently, the fruit is edible once you remove the hairs, but I’m buggered if I’m prepared to try that out. Its aboriginal name is gimpie gimpie which translates as “ouch ouch” i.e. a big ouch. The things I go through to bring you this stuff, eh?

Did we see a cassowary? Did we see a tree kangaroo?

Nope.

Were we disappointed? Absolutely not. Birder Lore had led us to the bower of a bower bird.

As luck would have it, its owner was (a) in the vicinity, and (b) stayed still long enough for even me to get a decent picture of it.

A Golden Bower Bird – a rare species which figures high on the twitchers’ list, apparently. This is a young adult male, yet to achieve his full golden-ness of plumage.

There was much interesting tree bark:

and, to relieve the focus on fauna and flora, James also took us to see the crater lake of the local volcano, which was 50 metres deep and very impressive.

The route to our next stop took us past some more lovely Atherton Tablelands scenery

and into a real old Australian Pub called, quite accurately, The Big Pub, in Malanda,

where we had a very agreeable lunch (and possibly my last-ever taste of Castlemaine XXXX). Afterwards we went to the Malanda Falls National Park,

where we could see saw-shelled terrapins,

Wompoo Fruit-Doves,

and a Boyd’s Forest Dragon,

which was a great source of relief to James, who didn’t want Aaron to be the only one to show us one of these delightful creatures.

By this stage we were approaching the end of our tour, but we had one more moment of delight in wait for us as we headed back to our accommodation: a bird we’d seen as we departed the retreat but had failed to photograph, because it buggered off as soon as we hove into view. We saw it again on our return (or another one of the same type) and for some reason this time it stayed put.

It’s a Pheasant Coucal – this one a young adult male, apparently, and a very handsome chap he is, too. Apparently it’s rare for them to pose like this; James was so excited that he even wanted me to send him this photo, which I have done.

Aaand…that was it for the tour; no cassowary, no tree kangaroo, but we had a great time anyway, with a great guide, lovely scenery and some new wildlife to photograph (oh, and look at too, I suppose). So we bade goodbye to James, and, since the Rose Gums retreat doesn’t actually offer any internet to its cabins (it’s a Retreat, OK?) instead of catching up on Facebook we went for a short walk to find out more about the Rose Gums that give the place its name.  These are not floral versions of wine gums, they are

gum trees. Having hacked down a track, we thought that the above tree was the Giant Rose Gum that we’d read about in the information in our cabin; but we were wrong. This (the one on the left below) was.

It’s immense. You can’t really see that from the photo, even if I include someone for scale

or if I show you what the crown looks like,

but take it from me, it’s a big’un. OK, it’s a gum tree, and, yes, a very old one (estimated to be 600 years old). But why Rose? Jane took a revealing picture at the bole of the tree

which shows that the wood is of a definitely pinkish colour.

To end the day, Jane did her “look for wildlife in the dark and the rain” bit again, and spotted

a bandicoot! We’re honestly not sure what actual species of bandicoot it is, but it is the first of these marsupials we’ve seen (outside a stuffed example in a display case). That we’ve not seen one before is not really a surprise, since they’re strictly nocturnal and we’re not.

We have one more place to visit on this trip, and, if all goes according to plan, we’ll get there tomorrow. It should offer us a final chance to relax before we head back to the gloomy wet and cold of an English autumn, but maybe there will be some decent photos to share. Keep watching these pages to find out, OK?

Julaymba and Mossman – Gorgeous

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Tuesday 1 October 2024 – Blimey, what a day we’ve had! My brain is full, and I’ve already forgotten most of what I was told today, but here’s what I can remember.

We were booked on an all-day tour, with a company called Walkabout Cultural Adventures. In order to help me decide what photo gear to take with me (meaning, mainly, do I take the big, heavy lens or not?), I looked at their website, but it was really rather vague about what the day held. After the event, I understand why. Beforehand, I guessed that the lens might be too cumbersome and I was almost entirely right about that.

We were ready for our scheduled pickup at 0745. Unusually for this kind of thing, the minibus turned up on time, and out jumped our guide for the day, Aaron,

full of energy, engaging and well-organised. As we went to pick up the final members of the (10-person) group, he drove his bus,

asked us about ourselves, commented on the state of all manner of things and looked out for items of interest, all at the same time. He is a man of many talents, opinions and anecdotes.  His expertise is in bush medicine, and, having lived in the bush for most of his life, his knowledge of flora and fauna is extensive, engagingly delivered and almost always correct.

Confirmation that the crop we saw yesterday was indeed sugar cane came in the form of a drive-by (photo) shooting at Mossman Sugar Mill

once the beating heart of local industry but now sadly disused; it had struggled to stay afloat financially for years, but ageing machinery and a finite amount of cane-growing land available eventually pushed it into liquidation, despite a Aus$45 million bailout from the state government to help local farmers buy it.

The next stops were part of prep for the day, picking up lunchtime wraps and stopping at a local business which grew exotic fruit.

It’s owned and run by a lady who’s originally from Florida, and has all manner of fruit, some familiar, some less so.

Inside the shop was a root vegetable that I’d never come across before, called Taro

which, as you can see, can be thinly sliced and fried to make taro chips. Outside grew wild bush grapes (Brazilian grapetree)

which unusually grow direct from the trunk and branches. Aaron showed us how to eat them; they have tough skins but delicious contents. He also retrieved a dangerous-looking blade on the end of a pole and started chopping at a tree to retrieve some flowers

which he then used to stage a demonstration – and bade us follow his example.  Place them in a little water in the palm of your hand, mash the mix around vigorously,

and – hey, presto! – you have Ylang Ylang perfume.

Aaron then drove us around to various places, sometimes pointing out things on the way, like this view of so-called Snapper Island

which looks like a crocodile lying in the water (except with no tail); and sometimes stopping to get out and search for stuff to show us.

In the first instance it was a Noni fruit (which seems to be a panacea for many ills – though sadly not for old age).

When mashed in the hand, the fruit emits a pungent smell like blue cheese.  The young fruit on the tree looks like this.

In the second instance above it was lilli pilli,

a very sour fruit, but one which contains a very high concentration of vitamin C, so is a good addition (thinly sliced and in moderation) in salads.

We stopped at a wild mango tree, where one of our number commented that he had eaten a wild mango fresh from the tree 40 years ago, and was keen to do so again; a bit of comedy ensued as Aaron started throwing unripe fruit at the ripe ones, aiming just to dislodge them, and recruiting the youngest fittest bloke to catch them so they weren’t bruised.

We all got to taste wild mango fresh from the tree and very good it was too. We aren’t the only creatures who think so; the evidence of fruit bats tucking in to the ripe fruit was hanging from the tree!

As we went on, Aaron commented on the scenery

and showed us a view over the upper Daintree river,

as we headed into the Daintree National Park, whose aboriginal name is Julaymba. Its Australian name is derived from the Daintree River, which in turn was named by George Elphinstone Dalrymple, an early explorer of the area, after his friend Richard Daintree, a pioneering Australian geologist and photographer. The 1,200km² park consists of two sections—Mossman Gorge and Cape Tribulation, which include the towns of Mossman and Daintree Village.

His next trick was a wowser.  He took us to the nest of some weaver ants, which were busy repairing a hole he’d made in it some days before,

and made another hole in order to get them angry, so that he could pluck some off the nest as they boiled out to defend their home.

The result of his mashinations was something that definitely cleared the nasal passages. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he was covered in ants that were biting him.

We had a short stop in Daintree Village

where I had a coffee at a place which had a much more engaging table identification system than boring old numbers

And then we went to a place called Daintree Ecolodge.  The main reason for this was to visit something that has much significance to Aaron, as an aboriginal man; a women’s birthing pool, which is in an area that he, as a man, is forbidden to enter under aboriginal law. So we walked, or rather, stumbled up some rocky steps, up to it without him guiding us.

The pool itself is shown in the middle of this photo,

which also shows the damage caused by a landslip after last December’s storms.  The damage meant that the pool itself was inaccessible. Even when it was, it was a fairly challenging climb up the steps; those aboriginal women were tough!

The Ecolodge itself has some very interesting-looking cabins on offer

and in its forest surround, we found a wonderful creature;

a Boyd’s Forest Dragon (this one a female). Unlike most other lizards, it doesn’t bask in the sun, instead letting its body temperature fluctuate with air temperature (thermoconforming rather than thermoregulating). It has a strange hunting strategy: sit and wait. This involves staying extremely still until it spots suitable prey (typically invertebrates); strange, but, it would seem, not ineffective. Aaron cautioned us not to touch it, as doing so would cause it to hibernate too early and therefore starve to death.

Aaron also found us a type of nut, which he called a “wild bush almond”, although it looks more like nutmeg [a Native Nutmeg, I reckon – Ed];

when chewed, it’s a mild hallucinogen, something (he said) that aboriginal elders would chew as they sat around the fire, thus quite possibly giving birth to their stories that are part of the Dreaming.

We had been in moderate hopes of seeing a cassowary, but the closest we came to it was a fine specimen of cassowary plum.

See yesterday’s page for a description of its consumption that will make your eyes water.

We passed a raptor and its nest

which Aaron told us was a Whistling Kite, but it isn’t. We are pretty sure it’s an Osprey. This is the only time that I missed having my big heavy lens with me; I could have got a much better picture of the bird.

More demonstration followed, as Aaron showed us how to make a foamy potion which would relieve mosquito bites and dry skin, using the leaves of what he said was called silver wattle or silver ash – we suspect western botany knows it as the latter; the stalks could be used to make a muscle ache reliever similar to Deep Heat.

He also selected a variety of coloured stones which could be ground up with water to make a paste

which is the paint that aboriginals use to paint their bodies when they dance.

These colours can be supplemented by black, which is made from the ash of burnt eucalyptus.

After a lunch stop, at which we ate the exotic fruits acquired earlier (yes I have pictures of their exoticness; no I am not going to show them) we went to the delightfully-named Wonga Beach, where Aaron attempted to teach us how to throw a spear, aboriginal-style. I shall draw a veil over our attempts to emulate him.  After that, some people went hunting for mud crabs

although the only evidence of crabs on the beach were these distinctive patterns in the sand.

Aaron told us that these were made by Ghost Crabs as they excavated their holes. Those of you who have been paying attention will remember that we also saw these on Cable Beach, near Broome, way back in August when we were in the Northern Territory. It’s possible that these patterns, and those seen on the spotted goanna, might have been inspiration for some of the patterns seen in aboriginal art.

The final segment of the day was a walk along Mossman Gorge. This is partly over constructed boardwalk

and partly up and down a path which contained some fairly challenging going at times.

It led across a suspension bridge over the river, from which one got a decent view,

past a lookout giving another viewpoint

(and showing further evidence that Aussies in the hot parts of the country can’t pass a body of water without getting into it).

There were big boulders

and big trees

and, near the exit, a huge golden orb spider, which was quite friendly, at least with Aaron.

The big spider is the female;

the tiny orange blobs e.g. at bottom right are the males, otherwise known to the female as a post-coital snack.

That was the final act in a day spent in Aaron’s theatre.  It was hugely informative, engagingly delivered and made fun by our guide for the day, but I was almost too exhausted to make G&Ts when we got back to our hotel; that’s how brain-challengingly content-rich it was. Luckily, the morrow is going to be more relaxed.  Sadly, we have to leave the Daintree and head for another region, the Atherton Tablelands, where we hope to see some more wildlife, including, if we’re very lucky, at a cassowary. All we have to do tomorrow is to drive there; what happens the day after when we do our tour, will be something you’ll be able to read about if you stay tuned.

Casso Wary

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Monday 30 September 2024 – Our schedule today included an all-day tour. Like these things so often do, this one required a somewhat early start, as we had, officially, an 0810 pickup at the hotel reception which (you of course remember, because you were paying attention) is a non-trivial walk away. Our shopping expedition of the day before had netted some breakfasty-type stuff as well as the Twinings Finest Earl Grey, so we ate in our room before heading for the hotel reception

so that we could wait an extra 10 minutes because the pick-up was late.  However, some good came of the wait; we chatted to the lass at reception, who confirmed a possible future holiday travel destination as being a sound choice. We will start saving up just as soon as we get home.

Our destination was the Daintree Rainforest, part of the largest contiguous area of tropical rainforest in Australia, the Wet Tropics of Queensland. The region, along with a select number of other rainforest areas on the Australian east coast, collectively form some of the oldest extant rainforest communities in the world at around 180 million years old.

Our guide, a jovial and, as it turned out, very knowledgeable chap called AJ,

picked us up in his bus, which seemed to be almost devoid of any suspension mechanism,

where we joined a dozen and a half other people on the journey further North! up the coast.  I think all the others had come from Cairns, because it wasn’t long before we stopped for a comfort break at what I think is the most colourful set of toilets I’ve ever seen.

We learned a couple of things there: the first was the disturbing extent of flooding that followed the epic storm that hit eastern Australia in December 2023, when the full extent of that 2m flood indicator was a relevant measure; the second was

the words for Ladies and Gentlemen in the aboriginal language of the area.

After the loo break, we carried on northwards, crossing the Daintree River via a cable ferry.

We passed the Mount Alexandra Lookout, normally a part of this tour, but noted as “temporarily unavailable”.  It became clear, from extensive roadworks along our way, that this was another consequence of the storms of last December, a little more of which later. Having passed it, our next stop was at the Jindalba boardwalk, where we hoped to see a specimen of wildlife that Jane was particularly eager to see, but which is notoriously elusive – a Cassowary. AJ had said, in his various spiels, that it would be possible we might see one, and that one sign that one of these beasts was in the neighbourhood would be fresh scat. Well,

there was a seemingly fresh pile of cassowary shit there, containing some of the “seeds” that this bird eats. Let me give you some idea of scale, here:

those “seeds” are the size of plums, and the cassowary will have gobbled them up whole. Indeed, there is a particular tree, called the cassowary plum, whose fruit (a fetching shade of navy blue)

needs to have passed through a cassowary’s digestive tract to enable it to germinate. Sorry if you’re reading this over a meal.

AJ was eloquent about this and other fruits of the rain forest,

giving us hints about how not to kill ourselves by eating the wrong stuff.

Because the Jindalba boardwalk was severely restricted because of storm damage, we then headed off in the general direction of Cape Tribulation, named thus by Cook (only a Lieutenant at the time, not the Captain) when Endeavour was holed as it hit a reef. En route, there’s another boardwalk, the Madja boardwalk, where we were able to explore the hinterland where rainforest and mangrove swamp meet. AJ pointed out various other interesting plants, such as this vine

which indigenous people used as fishhooks. Given that disentangling oneself from an accidental encounter with this vine takes a lot of time and careful unpicking, it is not surprising that it’s called the “wait-a-while” vine.

We saw other things at Madja that were new to us: this palm tree;

and mangrove “snorkels” of an unfamiliar kind, much stubbier and blunter than we’d ever seen before;

apparently there are some three dozen varieties of mangrove in the Daintree area. Naming of them, like the wait-a-while vine, is a reasonably simple affair; for example, here is a picture of the fruit of the cannonball mangrove.

Unsurprisingly, there were several varieties of crab fossicking about in the mud

as well as angler fish in the creeks (these are the ones that squirt water at insects to dislodge them from low branches)

and weaver ants

whose bum tastes, allegedly, of citrus. AJ told us that you “pick, lick and flick”; pick them up, lick their bottoms and then flick them away from you. Apparently if you try to brush them off, they will bite, which is uncomfortable. The citrus taste is, he said, ascorbic acid, better known as Vitamin C, mistakenly thought by many as being a cure for the common cold.

The rainforest was very atmospheric, with some very photogenic corners.

Our next stop was the beach at Cape Tribulation, which is, frankly,

just this beach, you know, although it does have an interesting variety of mangroves growing there.

It was on the walk back from the lookout path that things became more interesting.  Firstly, the main lookout had been completely destroyed by the storm;

in front of us should have been a sizeable platform, but instead there was a massive landslip and a chap who  was doing some surveying about repairing the damage. Secondly, there was a demonstration of the dark side of Mother Nature; give this video 30 seconds if you’re interested.

I was rather taken by this image of the goanna which was part of this scenario.

We dashed towards the final item on the tour’s itinerary via the Daintree Ice Cream Company, who offered us a tasting of four of their exotic fruit flavours, including black sapote and wattleseed. I can report that these taste nice, but are not particularly spectacular. The reason for the rush was that we had to meet a cruise ferry. Not a big one, you understand,

but nonetheless one that could give us a chance to see some of the flora and fauna in and around the Daintree river; our guide on the boat was a knowledgeable chap called Mick. Sadly, the time of day, and, indeed, the time of year, were not the best for wildlife spotting (too warm in both cases), but Mick gave a good educational talk about the varieties of mangrove we were looking at and the root systems they depended on; and also was able to show us some of the damage that that storm had done, in entirely demolishing what were once beaches along the river.

We did, finally, catch sight of the main objective of the river trip – an estuarine crocodile (commonly called a saltwater crocodile), actually the alpha male of this stretch of river,

and a juvenile who might one day take over as such, and seemed to be smiling at the prospect.

We also saw a kingfisher, one of my favourite bird species; this one was an Azure Kingfisher.

The wildlife might have been largely absent, but the general view was pleasant

belying the very clear destruction that must have happened during That Storm. At the top of the walkway off the boat, we got a further idea of how high the floods ran.

At the “Cruise Terminal”

we had a cup of tea and a chuckle at the local entertainment on offer.

Also there is the second prize in the “best painted loo” competition.

AJ dropped us off at our hotel and, before we allowed the evening to descend into an abyss of drinks and snacks, we went to its beach,

which is nice enough, but just this beach, you know?  On the way down there’s a warning

and on the way back a gentle suggestion.

Our final wildlife encounter of the day was a katydid by the light switch for our cabin.

So we never got to see a cassowary; any that were there were obviously reluctant to show themselves. Maybe we’ll get another opportunity; we certainly hope so.

The morrow has another all-day tour, which looks to have a bit more culture and a bit less wildlife in it. I expect we’ll learn a bit more about the region and I’ll share it with you when I can.