Tag Archives: Rainforest

What, The Actual Fox?

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Wednesday 11 March 2026 – As is becoming a common pattern in this trip, a short journey from one accommodation to the next turned out to be rather less dull – in a good way – than the simple journey of a couple of hours it might have been had Jane not done her usual thing of finding Things To Do En Route.

What we had to achieve was to get from Franz Josef to Lake Moeraki, a journey of just over 100km. Since the journey passes by the neighbouring Fox Glacier, Jane suggested that we should investigate a couple of viewpoints that present themselves on Google Maps. Although the distance between the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers can be as little as five kilometres up in the mountains, it’s about 25km by road from one township to the other; as usual, quite a scenic drive.

The Fox Glacier township is even smaller than Franz Josef.

There is a Fox Glacier viewpoint marked on the maps; counter-intuitively, one drives 10km away from the glacier to reach it, but, distant as it is, it does offer a decent view of the glacier.

It also offers a fine view of a sweep of the southern alps, and a thoughtful person has installed a sighting device to help you identify what you’re looking at.

In theory, one can see Mounts Cook, Tasman, Dampier and Teichelmann (or, to give them their Māori names Aoraki, Rarkiroa, Rakiroa and Rakirua), but the weather was against us that day. As well as the sighting device, the site has an installation called “The Canoe of the Gods”.

An info board explains how this pays tribute to the myth of the creation of the mountains, which are named after four brothers whose canoe capsized and created the South Island.

We called in back at the township for a coffee and (in Jane’s case) a vast cheese scone (of which someone else ate half – Ed) at the excellent Cafe Nevé, and then carried on to the next viewpoint possibility, which is reached by a walk starting at a car park just outside town. The walk goes by the south side of the Fox River

along a well-made path. (It’s robust enough that one could drive up it and save all that energy; but that’s not allowed, and I’m rather glad, as it’s a pleasant walk. I was careful to walk in a butch kind of way, as I wanted to avoid the Fox Glacier mince.)

It’s exceedingly rainforesty – probably the most rainforesty rainforest we’ve yet walked in this trip.

We saw this sign

which indicates something I’m hoping for back in the UK. The temptation to see how warm the actual spring was by sticking a hand in evaporated somewhat on looking more closely at it.

The path leads gently uphill for about three km to a couple of viewpoints for the glacier, the first of which allows me to indulge in some photographic nerdery, because the light conditions were quite challenging – very dark foreground and bright background.

I had the Nikon with me as well as my phone.  Taking photos with the Nikon requires care – it would be easy to overexpose the bright parts, and once those highlights have been clipped they cannot be recovered. So the trick is to turn the exposure down so that the highlights are not lost. It is possible to do this on the phone, but it requires special buggering about which I can’t be bothered with. So I just pointed the phone at the scene to see how its software dealt with the conditions.  Here are the results.

Nikon, no processing
Phone, no processing

The phone’s Gallery app has its own processing capabilities and so I tweaked the phone image using the “Light Balance” slider. And, once I got to my laptop, I processed the Nikon RAW image using DxO Photolab. Again, here are the results.

Nikon, RAW processed
Samsung, Gallery processed

As ever, a certain amount of personal taste comes into this, but the Nikon image unsurprisingly has a lot more detail in it and I think looks a lot less garish. But putting the processed Nikon image next to the unprocessed phone image shows what a good job a modern software can do to improve phone images.

Nikon, RAW processed
Samsung, not processed

The path carries on from this viewpoint to another one where That Chap is on duty again to make sure you don’t do anything you might regret.

The view was fine enough

but Jane spotted that the clouds were moving leftwards so we waited a few minutes and – lo and behold!

we got a cracking photo of the glacier and the mountains beyond.

Much of the time we were there was accompanied by the soundtrack of helicopters whizzing about, and I wanted to wait to get the perfect shot of a helicopter against the glacier. So we waited and listened for a helicopter. Finally, one came along and flew by the glacier, as I wanted. You can see it in this photo.

Oh, yes you can.

I think that gives a great insight into the deceptively huge scale of the glacier.

Rather than just walk back along the path to the car park, we took a small diversion along what was signposted as a “Moraine Path”.  This was even more rainforesty.

It was a delightful diversion, including taking photos of the tiniest mushrooms you ever did see, which were growing out of a tree.

The path was quite up-and-downy for a while, but then offered the pleasing illusion of being part of a narrow gauge railway track.

It was a very enjoyable walk, but now it was time to head to Lake Moeraki, and our next destination, the Wilderness Lodge there. The weather had closed in a bit by then, and the landscapes on the drive were quite dramatic in places.

The Lodge is basically in the middle of nowhere – the nearest town is Haast, some 33km away.

It has cabins for guests

many of which, like ours, have a lovely view over the Moeraki River.

The lounges are very comfortable

and, as we discovered later, the food is excellent. But before we ate, we joined a guided tour organised by the Lodge, to explore a bit of the local area. Jack, our guide, explained a little bit about the unique nature of the environment. Lake Moeraki is near the west coast, but most of the bits north of it have been exploited in some way – what was forest is interspersed with farmland, which has changed the nature of the nature in it. But the Lake Moeraki area has never been exploited, and so is closer to what it was once originally.

The six of us were enjoined to don welly boots and Jack led us across the Munro Creek

and along a path where he explained about some of the trees we could see.

Silver Beech
White Pine (Kahikatea)
Red Pine (Rimu)
Mature Rimu
  • The Silver Beech, particularly one as old as this one, is a rare tree these days. It’s slow growing and doesn’t bear fruit – it reproduces via wind-blown pollen and seeds. The last ice age, 12,000 years ago, did for them and since that time other, faster growing trees have tended to dominate in the rainforest.
  • An example would be the White Pine, which is not a pine, actually – as any fule kno it is Dacrycarpus Dacrydioides. This particular tree was the basis for some added CGI and use in the film Avatar. It’s a faster-growing fruiting tree, hence being able to compete in the silent, slow war that is a rainforest. (Fruiting is useful – the fruit get eaten by birds, which then distribute the seeds.)
  • Finally, Jack asked us to guess the age of the Red Pine, or Rimu tree. To cut a long story short, we were all out by a long way: the one he showed us, not much taller then him, was about 100 years old – surviving by consuming tiny amounts of resource in order to grow.
  • He also showed us a mature Rimu, which, having got to the point where it reached the canopy, could compete on more equal terms with the trees around it and grow much faster. This one, like the other mature trees he showed us, is thought to be about 900 years old.

Then Jack took us towards the banks of the Moeraki River where he intended us to see a wildlife cabaret. But first we were distracted by a bit of birdlife – a fantail was flitting about in the trees near us, feasting on the insects we people disturb as we crash through their landscape.

I took many, many photos in an attempt to catch it with its tail doing the fan thing, but only managed to get this.

Not perfect, but you get the idea.

By the banks of the river, we had a view back to the Lodge

and Jack started the cabaret act by rinsing the chunks of meat he had in a container with river water and splashing the rinse water in, before throwing a couple of pieces of the meat into the river. Obligingly, the local denizens started appearing to feed.

and soon there were a lot of them.

These were Longfin Eels, the same species we’d seen in the Wildlife Centre in Hokitika, but living wild in the river. It’s worth emphasising that the eels are in no way dependent on this feeding, but they’re happy to join in if the food happens to be there.

Guide included for scale

Drinks and dinner followed our return to the Lodge and, well fed up and agreeably drunk, we retired for the night.  We had no formal activities planned for the next couple of days – a chance to relax, maybe, but my money is on Jane finding Interesting Things for us to Do.

 

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.

 

 

Being there – Masoala Forest Lodge Day 2

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Monday 3 June 2024 – As if yesterday weren’t busy enough, today has been something of a day of relentless achievement also. We had a comfortable night, lulled, I suppose by the crashing of the waves on the beach outside our “bungalow”.  As background noise, this was quite loud, and at times supplemented by heavy rain, but it didn’t keep us awake, and I managed to get down the steps to the bathroom during the night without injuring myself or damaging the property.

We had agreed an outline plan to congregate after breakfast to decide whether to proceed with the plan A half-day rainforest hike; and the weather prospects seemed OK, not that it’s easy, or even possible, to predict from one minute to the next whether it will rain or not. So, off we pottered in one of the lodge’s Zodiacs, with Ursula and Pascal.

Ursula had suggested that we use poles to help us on the hike.  I was initially reluctant – I have my manly pride, after all – but when she said that she would be using one, I decided that it might be worth doing; and she provided both Jane and me with suitable sticks. As it turns out, I’m exceedingly glad that I swallowed my pride, as the going was

pretty tricky underfoot and

somewhat up-and-down. It turns out that the first 20 minutes or so was a test to see whether we were up to the rest of the hike. (We passed.) The trail proper started at a noticeboard

whose photo gave a clue as to the main objective of the hike – to see if we could find, view and (of course) photograph the red-ruffed lemur.  The going continued to be quite tough in places; the combination of that, and both guides’ insistence on “mora, mora” (slowly, slowly) – as that way you’re less likely to miss something and also to injure yourself through over-ambitious orienteering – meant that my Garmin watch refused to credit us with moving at all for most of the way up to the top. (I turned off auto-pause for the way down, which is how I know that we climbed about 130 metres during the hike.)

Given that rainforests are supposed to be a haven for biodiversity, there was very little by way of wildlife to be seen.  Ursula is something of an expert on the plants of the forest, particularly also on their medicinal properties, and so was able to point out some interesting things on the way.  For example, this particular palm tree

is unusual in that dead leaves don’t drop, but stay attached and continue to provide nutrients to the plant itself.  There were some substantial tree ferns

which are a marker that one is actually in proper rainforest.  Ursula pointed out what looked like fungus on another tree,

which is actually the fruit of the tree, which is colloquially called a cauliflower tree. If you look just above the “fungus”, you can see another fruit about to burst open, too. Buttress-rooted trees were not uncommon, and some of them had very substantial root systems

(distinguished academic provided to show scale). Generally the rainforest was quite a spectacular environment.

On a couple of occasions, Ursula and Pascal had to engage in bridge-building

in order to ensure we could safely cross some of the streams that were, erm, streaming down the hill.

By this stage, we had spent some two and a half hours squelching  up and down in search of the elusive varecia rubra, and time was beginning to press if we were to return to our start point punctually.  Ursula and Pascal decided that they would try one last possible location, so off we went and

bingo!  There it was, apparently guarding some fruit to stop other lemurs (typically white-fronted brown lemurs) from stealing it. (I guess that’s how the guides knew there was a good chance it was there.)

By the way, it was bloody miles away up in the treetops. I am frankly astonished, as ever, that they could see anything.  Even through a 560mm telephoto lens (that’s about 10x magnification) what was on view was this.

You can imagine that to mere mortals like Jane, Tom and me that was simply a bit of tree, but the guides could somehow see that this blob was not just a trick of the light but was actually a lemur.

A word on image quality, here.  Both Jane and I were sporting Samsung Galaxy Ultra phones, and it was possible to get a clear image on either of them.

This is an untouched image from one of the phones (left), put beside an enhanced one from my Nikon-Zf-with-hulking-great-lens-attached (right).

 

On the face of it (and particularly viewed on a phone screen), they look pretty similar. But look at them in detail and a difference is much clearer – phone first, then Nikon.

It’s a great tribute to the imaging power of modern phones that you can get such astonishingly good results; but a large sensor and top-quality lens still trumps that if you’re after the best quality results.

In other words, it was worth lugging that sodding lens all the way up the hill.

Just as bloody well, really – that was the only wildlife we saw during the entire morning. But we were really glad that Ursula and Pascal were able to find the elusive red-ruffed lemur for us.

We returned to the lodge for a well-deserved and, as usual, excellent lunch followed, in my case, by a bit of a siesta until it was time for tea followed by another sundowner cocktail hour. Once again, this was interrupted by calls to go and look at some wildlife, one before dusk

White Chameleon

and one after.

White-fronted Brown Lemur (male)

After dinner, we did another night walk scramble, which turned up a few more images. Our little mouse lemur was there again, and looked very unimpressed with all the lights being shone at him.

I got another chance at a decent image of a woolly lemur, with slightly better results than yesterday.

Woolly Lemur

We saw a big-nosed chameleon, although it’s not, frankly, easy to see why it gets that name from the photo I was able to take.

Big-nosed Chameleon

There were some tree crabs in, erm, trees,

and there were moths and frogs, too, but you’ve seen one Cyligramma Joa Boisduval, you’ve seen ’em all. Oh, you haven’t? OK, then:

Cyligramma Joa Boisduval

 

They are rather lovely, aren’t they?

Finally, a cricket match.

This night walk was interrupted even more markedly by the rain, so we hastened back to the lounge for a final cup of tea and consideration of the possibilities for the morrow before retiring for the night. The main candidate seemed to be a canoe paddle up a nearby river, but again this is going to be subject to whether the weather permits; the prospect of drifting slowly along whilst getting drenched is not an appealing one.  Who knows what we’ll get up to?