Australia Rainforest

Rainforest Walk through the Atherlands: April 25, 2003

This was our first day to sleep in because our tour didn't leave till 2:00pm... but of course that didn't happen and we were up around 6:30am ready to head out to see the city while we had some daylight. Our plan was to walk over to the Central Mall and finish our souvenir shopping, however, we learned quickly that it was a holiday - Anzac Day - and almost all the shops were closed, including the mall.

The mall was only 3-4 blocks from the bay and from where we were staying so we walked back. We sat in the park for a little bit until it was 11:30 when they started serving lunch at restaurants. The park was pretty neat and had a big swimming pool right outside in the open. It was probably the first time it really stopped raining and the sun was out so you could really feel the humidity. Good thing we didn't have long to wait because we were both pretty hot and the humidity was making us tired.

We ate lunch at a bar/restaurant right by the bay - we had a couple beers (Kilkenny and Foster Light Ice) and some sandwiches. After lunch it was about time to head back to the hotel to get our stuff together for the tour. We got some pictures from our hotel patio looking out towards Marlin Bay and the Casino before we left.

They picked us up at 2pm outside our hotel. They also picked up Elena (a guide in training), Cindy (a local resident of Adelaide), and a couple (Rob and Jenny) from the UK. Our guide's name was Rick. We drove up through the Atherton tablelands to the Danbulla State Forest Drive where we walked through the Cathedral Fig Tree Park. It was raining slightly so we had to wear rain gear. We didn't really see many animals (only a couple lizards) - mostly plants and stuff. After the walks we went to a platypus viewing area. It was a little river where they typically see platypus. It was getting dark but our guide tried to point out one platypus. It was really hard to see and mostly you only saw the water moving where he was.

We then stopped for dinner at a Swedish/Italian restaurant called Nicks. After dinner we did another rainforest walk to try to see night animals (possums, lemuroids, etc). We did spot quite a few possums and lemuroids (the guides actually spotted all of them). You could see them when the lights shined in their eyes - their eyes would glow red and stand out in the darkness. We tried to take pictures of them but they all came out too dark.

To end the night we went to another platypus viewing area and this time we saw quite a few of them swimming around in the pool of water. They are a lot smaller than we thought they were - probably only a foot long. We tried to get pictures but it was hard to focus in the dark. We had an 1 1/2 hour drive back to our hotel and got back around 11:45pm.