Good Girls Three: Australia! Day Two...

Just a warning: I took a LOT of pictures. This was such a fun day!

The package thing we did included a waterfall tour. Our first stop was a place called Babinda Boulders. Beautiful river over granite.

The path followed the river downstream, through the rainforest. This is a bird's nest fern (Asplenium australasicum), an epiphyte that grows on most of the trees. Pictures just don't do these trees justice. They are MASSIVE! Most of them are 30-35 meters, which is around 100 feet.

It was so nice seeing rocks again! Guam has some, some nice volcanic cliffs mostly, but seeing some wonderful granite was great.

This would be Devil's Pool, the site of the drowning of a poor Aboriginal maid, who was being forced to flee with her true love (according to our guide). Now her spirit lures men down to the depths to drown. B was ok, though. Our guide did scare us with enough tales of (modern) people drowning that no one was too tempted to leave the path, except in the shallow pool at the top.

This is the most amazing plant! Called wait-a-while, or lawyer's cane. (Calamus moti) The stems are, you know, scary, but the long canes have the wickedest spines on them!

This is not wait-a-while... Just a pretty fern.

Tree fern! (Cyathea cooperi) The coolest thing. One of the many primaeval plants in these forests.

B and K.

Curly vine things all over the place...

Babinda Boulders, cool place! Our next stop was Josephine Falls.

This is our guide Peter on the path to Josephine Falls, showing us another scary Australia plant, stinging tree (Gympi gympi). This one is crazy. I'll copy from my plant book (Plants of Tropical North Queensland, the Compact Guide): "The fine silica hairs on leaves and stems act like small syringes, and continue to inject venom for several days. Sudden cooling of the site, even several months later, can produce a tingling sensation. The immediate pain is severe... There is no effective treatment." Fun, huh? This is it below, too. Even touching the tree will release the little barbs, and if you breathe near the tree, they will enter your lungs.

Here is Josephine Falls! This was an awesome swimming place- unfortunately, Peter had several scary experiences with people getting drowned here, so he insisted that only very strong swimmers get in the water here- and I am certainly not a strong swimmer... But B and K had a good time.

Here they are climbing up the rocks...

And a series of B going down the slide...

Such a pretty place...

I like to take pictures of my feet in the places they end up...

More going down the slide...

The paths around the falls were pretty too... More bird's nest fern, and BIG trees...

We have a sort of series of photos, comprising every picture that K took of B and I in Australia. It seems she is rather incapable of focusing...

Luckily, we met some nice people at the upper falls who took our picture. So here is one sharp picture of us!

Ok. Is this not the most awesome rv ever?!?!? I must have one.

Peter pulled over to a remote sugar cane field and cut us each a piece. There were only five people on our tour this day; us, an American girl named Crista who teaches English in Korea, and Sven, a guy from Germany who was very very quiet.

K, sucking on some cane.

K and I just nibbled on ours a bit, but B devoured the entire thing.

Oh, and here's a croc.

Driving around looking at the most amazing scenery. I was grateful Peter was driving, so I could just look.

Our next stop was a place called Milla Milla Falls.

Now this place was Jackson Lake cold! We walked around behind the falls, then I jumped off the rocks into the pool, trying to, you know, be brave and everything. And, once my lungs got over the shock of the completely frigid water, it was rather nice! For about five minutes...

After Milla Milla, we stopped for lunch at the Tree Kangaroo Cafe in the town of Malanda. They were out of kangaroo pies (the meat pie is Australia's favorite food- which is great with me, except none of them know that meat pies are supposed to be slathered in ketchup (tomato sauce in Australia). My Dad would be appalled. There was also a nice visitor center and more lovely trails.

This was one of the most magical places I've ever been...

Yes, I'm a tree-hugger. Especially when the tree in question is a black bean tree (Castanospermum australe) that was as big around as a car.

Love the canopy...

I had the worst problem with this. B saved me many times by pulling me back before a car ran me over...

A brush turkey...

An ent hand. No big deal.

K and B.

Next Peter took us to a billabong where we watched platypuses! Hard to see, but we watched two of them dive all over this little pond.

Our next stop was at Mecham Lake, a volcanic crater.

B had his dive computer on, and tried to see the bottom but couldn't.

I started to walk the path that encircles the lake. Seriously, I am in love with this forest. Here is a basket fern (Drynaria rigidula).

I didn't have time to go all the way around, but hopefully I'll get back there someday!

Next we went to the Cathedral Tree, a strangler fig (Ficus watkinsiana) that is just enormous. My book says this species gets 40 meters plus...

Here's Peter. He doesn't wear shoes...

Spot the lizard?

And here? It's a Boyd's Forest Dragon, or Boydies. So cute! I'll put a picture from the web so you can see his cute face...

Here is a link to wikipedia for him: Boydies

We were VERY quiet while visiting the Cathedral Tree, so that we might possibly get a chance of spotting this very rare creature. Did you know there is carnivorous kangaroo? Me neither. But this is it! The musky rat kangaroo. Again, I'll put a picture from the web since my camera was just lucky to catch the blur of him running away...