on wednesday i did a rainforest and waterfall tour outside of cairns, in the atherton tablelands. we went to a highland tropical complex mesophyll rainforest, if anyone is interested in the specifics. it wasn't a real intense tour, get on a bus, drive a couple hours, walk on a path for about 500 meters looking at plants, get back on the bus, drive a few minutes, walk 600 meters in the forest and swim in a lake, get on the bus, drive a few minutes, walk 20 feet to a waterfall and swim, get on a bus, walk 100 meters, swim under a waterfall, drive 5 minutes, look for platypuses, drive home. it was a 12 hour trip but it was not anything physically exerting at any point, just a long day. a nice day, but long.
i met a great bunch of people on this trip from holland, bangladesh, italy, brazil, israel, austria and australia. i like being the only american although that doesn't stop the american jokes, it just means that i get more attention. and not always in a good way.
the rainforests were beautiful, the highlight of the first was a cathedral fig tree. the original tree has long since been covered by other trees roots so all you can see is hundreds of smaller trees roots (smaller being several stories high), then a trunk way way up in the air, then leaves. pretty massive.
i was pretty amazed that there were no mosquitos in the forest. i had previously thought that it was because of the bats but turns out that the bats were strictly fruit eaters. and not even exactly bats, but spectacled flying foxes (i think, no internet right now so no fact checking, and given that i'm half way through a bottle of australian red wine i'm not likely to remember to look it up). not really sure why there were no mosquitos.
our guide bart loved to find us bizarre insects, not so much to show us cool things but to try and scare the girls. we got to play with a rhinoceros beetle and leeches. both were entertaining, and bart named every insect he picked up 'eric'. after the second rainforest walk we sat in a park at lake barrine to have lunch and ashish discovered that he had picked up a leech along the way. it was between his toes and about 20 times the size of the one we were playing with. after much fussing it was finally scraped off, blood everywhere, lunch is served.
bart is also the first person here that i've been able to talk american football with. i wasn't able to find anywhere to watch the alabama game so i got a play by play during the trip.
the waterfalls were fun, the first one we went to was milaa milaa falls, the most photographed waterfall in australia. that's because you can drive right up to it. the water was pretty brown and freezing but we swam anyway, the cascade was fairly small because its the end of the dry season. we swam behind the falls and took tons of pictures and at some point i slipped on the slimy rocks and have had a giant bruise covering my entire left thigh.
this is also the falls that the somewhat famous 'hair flip' pictures were taken for some shampoo ad long ago. so we (not only girls) sat in the pools and tried to recreate it. i just don't have enough hair.
another waterfall, climbing on rocks, doing stupid things because most of the guys are 20 years old and i was the only girl stupid enough to follow them around. good fun.
the last stop of the day was at a river where the platypuses feed. we waited around in total silence so we didn't scare them and finally we saw a couple from a distance. they are much smaller than i imagined. very cute.
we made a plan on the way home to meet up and have some drinks after the trip. i ended up going out with christine (austria), ashish (bangladesh), marco (italy) and marcio (brazil). marcio took us to a bar he liked in town, loud, dancing on tables to win prizes, and a wet tshirt contest. that's what you get for following a 20 year old brazilian guy to a bar.
No comments:
Post a Comment