Back in the US, and I’m finally getting around to posting the second blog about the rest of my vacation in Australia. Although it was pretty wet down there, I can see my first blog posting was a little dry. I’ll try to make this one a bit more interesting.
After my rather miserable hiking experience on Sunday, I decided to take it a bit easy on Monday by driving down the Queensland coast. There are a number of parks south of Cairns I’d been told to visit and also a place where I could see some Cassowaries, an endangered bird. Very changeable weather – it would rain like heck for 10 minutes and then I’d need my sunglasses. The first two places I stopped were swimming areas: the Boulders and Josephine Falls. Both were running way too fast for anyone to get in but the scenery was beautiful. At Josephine, there’s a place where you can slide down a waterfall so I was disappointed I couldn’t do that. Something to file away for the next trip. I did see a small rat-kangaroo about the size of a squirrel but couldn’t get him to stay still long enough for a photo.
Further south I visited the Murdering Point Winery (what a name!) and bought a bottle of local fruit-wine to bring home to my wife. I went off the main road to a small beach community called Etty Bay where there were supposed to be Cassowaries. Quite a nice beach and swimming area and yes, there he was out at the far end of the beach. They’re a large flightless bird, smaller than an emu or ostrich but pack quite a kick, I hear. Beautiful blue neck and head area. He wasn’t too concerned with me as I was able to get to within about 15 feet, but the shadows in the mangroves prevented me from getting a good photo. (All in all, my photos from the trip are pretty disappointing. Never quite had the right light. Or maybe the right camera. Or maybe the right operator.)
My destination for the day was Mission Beach. It’s a funky beach town that’s still a little off the tourist track, and after stopping at a Cassowary habitat on the way into town (where I saw another male and his chick – the dads raise the babies) I nearly hit one driving into town! I’m sure the Queensland police would have been just thrilled had I killed one of their rare state birds. Apparently cars are the leading cause of death and that’s why the species is endangered.
At the southern part of town there’s a hiking trail that goes for several miles along the coast and around a point. It was ‘closed’ due to storm damage but typically, I decided to go for it. After a couple of miles I came out onto a long strip of beach where there was literally not another set of footprints. Amazing that you can still visit places where no one’s been all day! I proceeded a little cautiously since there were supposed to be crocodiles, but I didn’t see any. What I DID see, at the end of the beach, were four kangaroos! (I’d kind of forgotten about kangaroos since I think of those as being an outback kind of thing and not tropical.) They were on the other side of a fence and I didn’t get too close before they hopped away. Made my day, though. And as a bonus, I saw another cassowary on the way back down the beach.
On Tuesday I made connections with Adrian (whom I’d met while at the Great Barrier Reef) and we left for the outback at 7:30am. It was a long drive (by the end of the day I’d logged almost 350 miles) through a variety of different landscape. It’s the wet season in the outback too, so it wasn’t at all what I’d pictured – things were pretty green and there was quite a bit of grassy ground cover that I’m sure is gone later in the year. The road was mostly paved with a few flooded areas we had to drive through and a few stretches of graded dirt that was surprisingly in pretty good shape. Our destination was Chillagoe where there are some limestone caves and a ranger-led tour. Of course, we were the only tourists out there (it’s the off-season, as noted in my other blog) so we got a personalized tour. The caves aren’t large but the formations are quite spectacular. Nearby there was a small hike that led to a ‘balancing rock’ and various other rock formations. On our way back we stopped at an abandoned marble quarry and explored. Ginormous blocks of marble – obviously the price on the marble market must be down because this stuff looked to be worth something. I suppose transport must be expensive as it’s pretty far away from anything….
On our way back to Cairns we drove through the ‘Tablelands’ which is the plateau behind the coastal mountain range. There are a lot of creeks and places where we were supposed to see platypus, but we never found the right spot at the right time. (Dusk is supposed to be the optimal viewing time.) We did get a closeup of one of those ‘stinger trees’ that inject painful neurotoxins and I got some good photos. I guess I shoot trees better than animals.
Wednesday I was back on my own, so I drove up to the Daintree Rainforest, which is one of the oldest in the world. I had to take a car-ferry across the Daintree River and ford a few more streams before I arrived at Cape Tribulation, so named because Capt. Cook grounded his ship there in the late 1700s. The drive itself was fantastic – right along the coastline and every bit as beautiful and winding and challenging as California’s hiway 1 along Big Sur. As an added bonus there were waterfalls at every turn, some spilling out over the roadway, so it also reminded me of the Hana hiway in Maui. Every beach seemed to be totally empty. I had intended another ambitious hike up along a ridegetop, but I’d been warned that the trail might not be in good shape. As I arrived at the trailhead about 10:30am there were no cars around and there was a sign warning that the trail shouldn’t be attempted alone. I could see one of those dinner-plate-sized spiders with a web directly across the trail so I knew no one had been up the trail that morning, or even recently, so I reluctantly gave up and decided to walk the beach instead. At Cape Tribulation beach, it was low tide so I walked 2 miles up the beach and pretty soon I was completely alone. Just me and the crocs that I never saw. I slogged a little ways into a mangrove swamp (with mud over my shoe tops), just to see what was there but didn’t encounter any local fauna. On the drive back south to Cairns I stopped at another empty beach just to relax. Just amazing – here in California you’d never see an empty beach in any season, unless it was storming. I could get used to that!
Thursday was going to be my last full day in the area so I was determined to see a platypus. There was a special viewing platform just outside of a town up in the Tablelands, so I built my day around arriving at that spot in the late afternoon. First, though, I wanted to check out an aboriginal town that I’d seen on the map about 30 miles out of Cairns. The road to get there was steep, 20% grade in spots as you climb up and over a small mountain range. When I drove down to the waterline and was checking out the small inlet, an old aboriginal woman came over and started talking to me. And she talked and talked and talked, about the area, how they used to have barge deliveries, the shack down the beach that she grew up in, local croc sightings, and on and on. It was pretty interesting. I guess they don’t get too many random visitors so she was happy to have someone new to talk to. She introduced me to her grandkids who were visiting from someplace up in the Tablelands; they’d never seen the ocean or eaten saltwater fish. I stayed and talked for a while and then drove down towards a beach she’d told me about. But the road got too sandy and I was afraid I’d get stuck so I turned around. Hard to get out of the sand when you’re by yourself….
I went back to the main hiway and headed up towards the platypus area. The road that goes up and over the coastal range is locally famous for its many curves. (When Adrian and I had come down from the Tablelands on Tuesday I’d driven down this road in a driving rainstorm at night. It was pretty weird driving such a windy road on the ‘wrong’ side in some adverse elements – it almost seemed like one of those video driving simulators.) It was supposed to be a beautiful drive so I was happy to drive it during the day. And it WAS quite pretty. Just for the heck of it I decided to try to count the curves that seemed to be at least 90 degrees or more, and I counted 96 of them in stretch that’s less than 15 miles. And later on I was reading something that said there are 612 curves on that road. Not for the faint of heart (or stomach)!
I found a creek hike that I hadn’t known about and walked it, probably about 6 miles all told. That stretch of creek had been restored by students at a local Episcopal College over the previous 10 years. There were supposed to be tree kangaroos but I didn’t see any; they’re shy. As evening was approaching I walked to a little café in the town and was about to order a pizza when the power went out. Apparently it went out over a wide swath of Queensland and was out for a couple of hours. So instead I stopped at a little grocery store and bought some milk and cheese and walked over to the platypus viewing platform. It was dusk and I was in the right place so I was sure to see this odd animal. But no luck – I saw one at a distance but he never came close enough to get a good look. I walked back down the creek trail in the growing darkness thinking I’d have better luck somewhere else, but it just meant I had a long drive home in the dark again. Disappointed, but I guess that’s just one more reason I’ll have to come back to Australia….
My flight was Friday night so I still had almost a full day. I decided to hit some of the local beach towns (and swim at the beaches inside the area protected by stinger-proof netting) and generally chillax. I still got quite a bit of walking in along the beaches, saw a couple of monitor lizards, and just enjoyed the warm waters and looking at some of the more expensive beachfront homes in the area. I got to the airport in plenty of time and it wasn’t busy, so after I returned the car and checked in I walked a mile back to a nature trail I’d seen on the drive in. It took me on a boardwalk through a mangrove swamp that gets filled by a high tide only a few times a month. Reading about the mangrove ecosystem and listening to the various sounds was interesting but I couldn’t spend too much time there. I got on the flight to Melbourne and arrived an hour late at 1am. My friend and coworker Michael picked me up at the airport and I went to his house for a quick day-and-a-half visit with his family. Along with his kids we did a small hike in the Dandenongs and hand-fed the wild parrots and cockatoos. (Those darn things BITE!) That evening we went downtown Melbourne to cruise around, see the sights, mix with the tennis crowd (the Australian Open was being held nearby) and check out the casino. It was a short visit but I had never seen his kids (his wife Elke was pregnant with their first, the last time my wife and I were in Australia) so it was well worth it. On Sunday I flew from Melbourne to Sydney, got lost at the airport (didn’t realize the international terminal was 3 miles away) but found the bus and made my flight to San Francisco. Interestingly enough, the gentleman sitting next to me on the long flight was Linus Torvalds, who invented a widely-used operating system called Linux. Unfortunately I didn’t get to talk to him because the flight was so empty, he found a whole row of seats and laid down and slept most of the flight. I’m not an IT geek any more but it might have been interesting to hear his take on things.
So that was the blow-by-blow description of my vacation in Australia. (I fear this blog is just as dry as the last….but it’s 1am and I’m not in the mood to re-write) Bottom line: it simply whetted my appetite for a real exploration of the country – at least 6 months with a camper-van or 4WD, which I’ll do as soon as I can re-retire.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
ahhhh. 'stralia!
G’day from tropical Australia! I’m in Cairns which is known as the ‘Wet Tropics’ and is, of course, living up to its name. January is mid-summer here and it’s rained every day since I arrived Thursday night (Sunday night as I write this). It’s pouring right now.
Fortunately I avoided the worst of it, which happened about a week ago: Typhoon Charlotte dumped 9 inches of rain in 24 hours! That unfortunate event, coupled with a ‘king tide’ (highest tide in 14 years, I heard) flooded Cairns with water up to waist-deep. According to the locals, though, it all drained off by the next day and by the time I arrived, everything looked to be normal. It was raining quite heavily and they’d had the airport shut down due to lightning strikes, so my flight was a couple of hours late. By the time I’d mastered driving on the ‘wrong side’ and got lost trying to find my hotel, it was 12:30am before I checked in. Fortunately I didn’t hit anything or drive on the US side – I’d already had a bit of practice while conducting business in Sydney the previous 4 days as I was the ‘designated driver’ one evening.
Given the late hour, I decided to make Friday a get-my-feet-on-the-ground kind of day. I hadn’t really been able to take note of my surroundings as I was driving in, so I struck out on foot from my hotel, which is about 5 miles out of the city center. (One of the reasons I got lost – wasn’t expecting it to be so far out of town. But it was cheap!) Even at 8am it was about 80 degrees with 80% humidity. Or something like that. I soaked a shirt in no time but walked about 3 miles towards town before I turned around. Got a good view of the locality (mainly restaurants – I’m not exaggerating to say that there are 2 or 3 times as many McDonald’s in Australia as in the US - and the local grocery and mall) and picked up an awesome single-serving apricot pie at a local bakery. I’m definitely going back there for more!
After reviewing the maps I’d gotten with the rent-a-car, I drove into downtown around noon and started walking some more. The main thing I hoped to accomplish was getting some information on day trips out to the Great Barrier Reef and also hiking information about the many National Parks nearby. All of the locals are very friendly and I ended up purchasing a reef trip from the outfitter a friend had recommended (only $104) and also spent an hour at the parks office. She gave me a good list of hikes she’d recommend (and had done them all) and what was closed due to damage from the typhoon. I finished the day with a short hike (about 4 miles) at a hill just outside of town. With the heat and humidity (I came from winter!), the walking I’d already done, and the fact that I’m apparently not in as good a shape as I thought I was, it was a lot harder than I expected….it rained while I was hiking but I was already pretty wet so it actually felt good.
Saturday was the realization of a life-long dream – getting to see and snorkel the Great Barrier Reef which has intrigued me since I was young. The weather was perfect and at the end of the day they said the visibility was the best they’d had all summer. I’m not much of a pray-er but on the way out to the reef I had to take a moment to thank God for letting my life work out so wonderfully that I could have this opportunity. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to see some things I’d always dreamed of, like the Everglades and the Great Wall. Some day I’ll get to Madagascar, Iceland, New Zealand, and the Norwegian fjords. But hopefully there’s plenty of time and things continue to work in my favor.
The boat ride to the first snorkeling site took just over an hour. I’d decided to rent a full-body lycra ‘stinger suit’ for about $4, and I’m glad I did. Not only did it protect me from jellyfish, of which I saw literally thousands of small ones, but I didn’t have to worry about sunburn either. (I was already a bit of a crispy critter after that first day.) We were supposed to buddy-up so I found another solo guy and we hit the water pretty quickly. He’d rented an underwater camera (I gotta see those pictures) and it was a good thing because first thing we saw was a small white-tip shark. (All the sharks we’d encounter are harmless, they said.) The coral and fish and shells were spectacularly colored – didn’t touch anything but just looked. The depth ranged from 3-20 feet or so and we spent about an hour there. At the second site we again saw a shark – a different type – and one of the crew had said there were Giant Clams so my buddy and I set off in search of one. Took a while but when we found one, it was quite a sight. Looked to be about 4 or 5 feet across with it’s shell open and the valves going. There were supposedly turtles there but we didn’t see any, nor any rays. At the third and last site there were many Giant Clams – even a couple of babies about 2 feet across – and some ginormous fish. Although I wasn’t supposed to touch anything I couldn’t resist diving down and touching the clamshell – just to say I touched one. I definitely could have spent a lot more time snorkeling. I’ll just have to come back – maybe I’ll re-retire and man one of those boats.
The boat returned about 4pm so I called my wife and talked to her for a good long time, and then wandered around down by the marina and downtown area for several hours. My snorkeling partner, Adrian Hamilton, is also on vacation and said he’d like to drive out to the outback with me, so we made arrangements to do that later this week. He has an interesting story – born in South Africa, living in London, but immigrating to eastern British Columbia to work in construction/remodeling.
Today I went hiking in Barron Gorge National Park, just 12 miles out of town. It’s got rainforest as well as some dry oak habitat at the higher elevations. The parks gal had recommended a loop hike that was about 8 miles so I thought no problem, I should be able to do that in about 3 hours. But I gotta say – this hike would make it into my top 5 all-time least-fun hikes. Not only was it exhausting but there were several moments of near-panic. First of all I got lost even trying to find the trailhead. It wasn’t well-marked so I went a mile up another trail which dead-ended. After consulting the map I figured out where I was on a different trail so I headed back and started up the real loop trail. The first thing I saw was a stupendous example of what I took to calling Arachnida dinnerus platus, which likes to spin its web right across the trail. The parks lady told me they were harmless and was quite excited that I might see one – but when I did I was excited in a different way. I think they call it ‘arachnilepsy’ – the funny dance you do when you walk through a web. He may have been harmless but had he landed on me, he’d have definitely been harmed. I love nature and all, but I prefer to admire spiders from a distance – especially ones the size of dinner plates.
Anyway, I struggled up the hill in the heat and humidity. It’s off-season (winter is their tourist season because it’s warm) and the trail was poorly-marked and poorly-maintained. (They could have used a few cairns!) I finally met another hiker near the top; she was coming from the other direction and told me to be careful of the ‘whitey wall’ plants which were growing over the path. (I looked it up, it’s actually known as “wait-a-while”.) The thorns have hooks in them and they rip your flesh, clothing, whatever they touch. When you get hooked you’re supposed to back out of it but I don’t think thast worked too well for me. There are also ‘vicious hairy mary’ vines (more thorns) and signs promoting the stinger trees which have tiny hairs and inject a neurotoxin which is quite painful and can take months to go away. I was doing OK with the wait-a-whiles until I met up with another couple coming in the opposite direction. They told me there were two tree-falls just ahead that had these things all over them, and they had the blood to show for it. Well, I struggled getting past these barriers (had to lie flat and crawl under the second obstacle) and didn’t get too ripped up – but I kept encountering these things and by the end of the hike I had wounds everywhere, head to toe, and a pair of shorts that will go in the trash. And I had to cross two streams that were running pretty fast and no marking on the other side as to where the trail picked up again. All I knew was, I wasn’t heading back through those tree-falls again! So I had to keep forging ahead. For one of the few times in my hiking career I was happy to see civilization….took me almost 5 hours to do 8 miles.
So I dropped all of my stuff at the car and headed back up this little short trail I’d been on at the beginning, which ran along one of the fast-running streams. I took my shoes off, jumped in and sat there in the running water for a good 30 minutes. The water was warm so it was quite pleasant. I decided the rest of the week I’m going to hit some of the trails that are more heavily traveled in case I need to partake of the local knowledge. I’m so tired from hiking today I think I’m going to go for a drive south the Mission Beach where I hear there are some Cassowaries – a flightless bird that’s on the endangered species list. There’s a little island called Dunk Island just offshore that you can reach by water taxi fairly cheaply, so I may go over there.
I got some information about where I might see a platypus too, so I hope I get that lucky. Mostly what I’ve seen so far are the geckos around my hotel room as well as some other types of lizards. And the spiders of course. There seem to be a million different bird calls (and they’re really noisy!) but I’m not too much of a birder.
Hopefully I’ll have time to post another blog before I get back home. We’ll see. I have quite a bit of work to do while I’m on vacation so I gotta take care of the job too.
Thanks for reading – hope you found it interesting!
Fortunately I avoided the worst of it, which happened about a week ago: Typhoon Charlotte dumped 9 inches of rain in 24 hours! That unfortunate event, coupled with a ‘king tide’ (highest tide in 14 years, I heard) flooded Cairns with water up to waist-deep. According to the locals, though, it all drained off by the next day and by the time I arrived, everything looked to be normal. It was raining quite heavily and they’d had the airport shut down due to lightning strikes, so my flight was a couple of hours late. By the time I’d mastered driving on the ‘wrong side’ and got lost trying to find my hotel, it was 12:30am before I checked in. Fortunately I didn’t hit anything or drive on the US side – I’d already had a bit of practice while conducting business in Sydney the previous 4 days as I was the ‘designated driver’ one evening.
Given the late hour, I decided to make Friday a get-my-feet-on-the-ground kind of day. I hadn’t really been able to take note of my surroundings as I was driving in, so I struck out on foot from my hotel, which is about 5 miles out of the city center. (One of the reasons I got lost – wasn’t expecting it to be so far out of town. But it was cheap!) Even at 8am it was about 80 degrees with 80% humidity. Or something like that. I soaked a shirt in no time but walked about 3 miles towards town before I turned around. Got a good view of the locality (mainly restaurants – I’m not exaggerating to say that there are 2 or 3 times as many McDonald’s in Australia as in the US - and the local grocery and mall) and picked up an awesome single-serving apricot pie at a local bakery. I’m definitely going back there for more!
After reviewing the maps I’d gotten with the rent-a-car, I drove into downtown around noon and started walking some more. The main thing I hoped to accomplish was getting some information on day trips out to the Great Barrier Reef and also hiking information about the many National Parks nearby. All of the locals are very friendly and I ended up purchasing a reef trip from the outfitter a friend had recommended (only $104) and also spent an hour at the parks office. She gave me a good list of hikes she’d recommend (and had done them all) and what was closed due to damage from the typhoon. I finished the day with a short hike (about 4 miles) at a hill just outside of town. With the heat and humidity (I came from winter!), the walking I’d already done, and the fact that I’m apparently not in as good a shape as I thought I was, it was a lot harder than I expected….it rained while I was hiking but I was already pretty wet so it actually felt good.
Saturday was the realization of a life-long dream – getting to see and snorkel the Great Barrier Reef which has intrigued me since I was young. The weather was perfect and at the end of the day they said the visibility was the best they’d had all summer. I’m not much of a pray-er but on the way out to the reef I had to take a moment to thank God for letting my life work out so wonderfully that I could have this opportunity. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to see some things I’d always dreamed of, like the Everglades and the Great Wall. Some day I’ll get to Madagascar, Iceland, New Zealand, and the Norwegian fjords. But hopefully there’s plenty of time and things continue to work in my favor.
The boat ride to the first snorkeling site took just over an hour. I’d decided to rent a full-body lycra ‘stinger suit’ for about $4, and I’m glad I did. Not only did it protect me from jellyfish, of which I saw literally thousands of small ones, but I didn’t have to worry about sunburn either. (I was already a bit of a crispy critter after that first day.) We were supposed to buddy-up so I found another solo guy and we hit the water pretty quickly. He’d rented an underwater camera (I gotta see those pictures) and it was a good thing because first thing we saw was a small white-tip shark. (All the sharks we’d encounter are harmless, they said.) The coral and fish and shells were spectacularly colored – didn’t touch anything but just looked. The depth ranged from 3-20 feet or so and we spent about an hour there. At the second site we again saw a shark – a different type – and one of the crew had said there were Giant Clams so my buddy and I set off in search of one. Took a while but when we found one, it was quite a sight. Looked to be about 4 or 5 feet across with it’s shell open and the valves going. There were supposedly turtles there but we didn’t see any, nor any rays. At the third and last site there were many Giant Clams – even a couple of babies about 2 feet across – and some ginormous fish. Although I wasn’t supposed to touch anything I couldn’t resist diving down and touching the clamshell – just to say I touched one. I definitely could have spent a lot more time snorkeling. I’ll just have to come back – maybe I’ll re-retire and man one of those boats.
The boat returned about 4pm so I called my wife and talked to her for a good long time, and then wandered around down by the marina and downtown area for several hours. My snorkeling partner, Adrian Hamilton, is also on vacation and said he’d like to drive out to the outback with me, so we made arrangements to do that later this week. He has an interesting story – born in South Africa, living in London, but immigrating to eastern British Columbia to work in construction/remodeling.
Today I went hiking in Barron Gorge National Park, just 12 miles out of town. It’s got rainforest as well as some dry oak habitat at the higher elevations. The parks gal had recommended a loop hike that was about 8 miles so I thought no problem, I should be able to do that in about 3 hours. But I gotta say – this hike would make it into my top 5 all-time least-fun hikes. Not only was it exhausting but there were several moments of near-panic. First of all I got lost even trying to find the trailhead. It wasn’t well-marked so I went a mile up another trail which dead-ended. After consulting the map I figured out where I was on a different trail so I headed back and started up the real loop trail. The first thing I saw was a stupendous example of what I took to calling Arachnida dinnerus platus, which likes to spin its web right across the trail. The parks lady told me they were harmless and was quite excited that I might see one – but when I did I was excited in a different way. I think they call it ‘arachnilepsy’ – the funny dance you do when you walk through a web. He may have been harmless but had he landed on me, he’d have definitely been harmed. I love nature and all, but I prefer to admire spiders from a distance – especially ones the size of dinner plates.
Anyway, I struggled up the hill in the heat and humidity. It’s off-season (winter is their tourist season because it’s warm) and the trail was poorly-marked and poorly-maintained. (They could have used a few cairns!) I finally met another hiker near the top; she was coming from the other direction and told me to be careful of the ‘whitey wall’ plants which were growing over the path. (I looked it up, it’s actually known as “wait-a-while”.) The thorns have hooks in them and they rip your flesh, clothing, whatever they touch. When you get hooked you’re supposed to back out of it but I don’t think thast worked too well for me. There are also ‘vicious hairy mary’ vines (more thorns) and signs promoting the stinger trees which have tiny hairs and inject a neurotoxin which is quite painful and can take months to go away. I was doing OK with the wait-a-whiles until I met up with another couple coming in the opposite direction. They told me there were two tree-falls just ahead that had these things all over them, and they had the blood to show for it. Well, I struggled getting past these barriers (had to lie flat and crawl under the second obstacle) and didn’t get too ripped up – but I kept encountering these things and by the end of the hike I had wounds everywhere, head to toe, and a pair of shorts that will go in the trash. And I had to cross two streams that were running pretty fast and no marking on the other side as to where the trail picked up again. All I knew was, I wasn’t heading back through those tree-falls again! So I had to keep forging ahead. For one of the few times in my hiking career I was happy to see civilization….took me almost 5 hours to do 8 miles.
So I dropped all of my stuff at the car and headed back up this little short trail I’d been on at the beginning, which ran along one of the fast-running streams. I took my shoes off, jumped in and sat there in the running water for a good 30 minutes. The water was warm so it was quite pleasant. I decided the rest of the week I’m going to hit some of the trails that are more heavily traveled in case I need to partake of the local knowledge. I’m so tired from hiking today I think I’m going to go for a drive south the Mission Beach where I hear there are some Cassowaries – a flightless bird that’s on the endangered species list. There’s a little island called Dunk Island just offshore that you can reach by water taxi fairly cheaply, so I may go over there.
I got some information about where I might see a platypus too, so I hope I get that lucky. Mostly what I’ve seen so far are the geckos around my hotel room as well as some other types of lizards. And the spiders of course. There seem to be a million different bird calls (and they’re really noisy!) but I’m not too much of a birder.
Hopefully I’ll have time to post another blog before I get back home. We’ll see. I have quite a bit of work to do while I’m on vacation so I gotta take care of the job too.
Thanks for reading – hope you found it interesting!
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