This is lake McKenzie, one of the most beautiful beaches we have seen. And it is also one of the most beautiful beaches in the world according to many travel guides. Life is really hard when you have to spend hours laz'n about here. Our group had a lot of fun together, with alot of great group jump shots and laughs. The camp site held all the tours from the booking agent we went through so the site seeing and swimming in the day turned into debauchry by night. I actually believe that we had an excess of drink that we were unable to consume despite our best efforts. It just ment that we had another night together once we got back to the main land to try to rectify the situation. All in all Frasier Island was an amazing time.
The logger head turle below came to the beach to lay her eggs for breeding season. We saw her pop out seemingly hundreds of tough leathery little ping pong ball eggs. She was beautiful. Aparantly turles are deaf and can really only see light above water so we were not supposed to have disterbed her nesting even though there is no dought that she knew we were there.
The under water pictures were taken various places along the Great Barrier Reef. Some were taken on the Whitsunday Island sailing trip and others were taken on the snorkling tour we did in Cape Tribulation. Both amazing places and bright colored fish. The Whitsundays did seem to have a wider range of coral and brighter colors but it really depended on the weather... and since we went at the begininng of the rainy season we really were very lucky.
The whitsunday sailing trip was a three day boat trip on an americas cup boat called the Southern Cross. All of us slept on the boat and snorkled many hours of the day. This trip was almost cancelled due to weather as well... but again we got lucky and had amazing weather, while on the main land the flooding and rain continued. The town we left from was land locked due to the flooding the day we left and this turned out great because our group of 14 was down sized to 9 because no one could get into town. We came into town a day early on an accidental logistics problem. The night prior to our trip leaving the town recieved a half of a meter of rain over night and our tent nearly got washed away by the river that was a creek. Very exciting!
Terrorist marsupials!!!!!no dont do it! They threatened that they were going to blow us all up if we didnt hand over the food. After three long hours of negatiation we were able to talk them down peacefully without any bloodshed. It was a victory for mankind.
On our way inland in Queensland we took a road called Waterfall Way and on it were waterfalls.... many waterfalls. Since one waterfall can begin to look like every other waterfall we only put one on. It was in this area that we also saw our first Platypus, out of two. We were very excited but due to the rain and the dusk and the Platypus's preference to remain in the water none of the pictures came out very well. Also Australia has recieved record rainfall since we have arrive so every waterfall we have visited has been amazing. We spoke to one park ranger and he was telling us that for years this one particular waterfall we are looking at here was usually a trickle. As you can see it is not!
The Undara National Park is in the outback of Queensland and was defenitely worth the drive. The features were huge lava tubes extending over 100km. The lava from the nearby volcano flowed steadily for a long enough time that a number of these huge tunnels formed. With this picture it is hard to capture the enormity of the caves. That small tree in the background is a full grown eucalyptus and the tiny rocks on the ground are any where from 4 to 8 feet in diameter. So from that you can see that the tubes are big, really big.
Let us set the scene.... we were in Cape Tribulation walking back from a nice refressing swim in the croc free river when Tony looks down and gets excited at what he recognizes as Cassowary droppings from an information site that we had seen (the casaway is extremely important to the rainforest because their droppings spread the seeds of many of the trees, and they looked exactly like the wax version at the information site). We continue walking with Emma leading the way... when out of the bushes stands a very tall, very big Casawary, which Tony has not yet seen. I turn to Tony with wide eyes unable to say what lies ahead due to (at the time) unprovoced fear. Tony sees what lies ahead and pops the camera out of his pocket and begins snapping away with the pictures, following down the trail. The event was amazing to be able to see one of these rare creatures in the wild. About a week later I was flipping through the guide book looking for dangerous snakes and came across a picture of a Cassowary. Apparently Cassowary is one of the most dangerous things in Australia! They have massive nails on the end of their foot that can slice through human skin like a knife through butter and will kick out with both legs. And we were following it. Luckly for us they usually only strike when there are chicks around or in the breeding season, apparently both were not the case. The guide book suggest that you place a large object between you and the cassowary like a tree (or travel partner).
This picture was also taken in Cape Tribulation. We were camping at the national park camp ground which was rainforest. It is the oldest rainforest in the world and was one of the few places where the rainforest met the reef. It was an isolated beach, probably because you weren't able to swim in the water, but there were a few swimming holes nearby. All kinds of curious little creatures lulled us to sleep everynight.
A close encounter of the leech kind. We had heard that the leeches were very bad during the wet season and we did check ourselves after every treck to make sure we were leech free. This time we were not even trecking, just walking trough the trees to somewhere and hoped back in the car. It took a while for the little bugger to actually make its way up Tony's sock to his leg. Mmm, tasty man flesh!
Another aspect of the rainforest of course is the amzingly moist climate, which breeds all sorts of biting insects. This face was pretty much the feeling of the day with all the dang mozzie bites. The itching fades and the memories of the woderful things we have done and seen remain.
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