It was a rough night for us, there were dogs that barked all night, some nocturnal critters that kept jumping on things and making them crash to the ground, and a neighbor who was up all night talking loud on his cell phone. It was one of those nights that make you just want to cry. At 4:50am the alarm went off, but it was still way to dark to see anything so we rested for another 20min for dawn to arrive before we went to the river. It was a nice morning with a beautiful sunrise and we were hoping that after a sleepless night we would at least be able to see the shy platypus, and hopefully a tree kangaroo too.
We went under the bridge a waited a few minutes before we went back down the trail to Paul's spot, at his spot we saw a shadow under the water close to the other side of the bank from us, at first we thought it was another turtle, but once it swam closer to us we could see it was a platypus! He was so cute, just a little guy swimming then he surfaced and continued to swim downstream. It was hard to get a picture of him because he swam pretty fast and the lighting was not the best. Most of our still shots turned out blurry, so we tried to get video, but once we switched to video we stepped on a branch and the little guy dove under water and could not find him again. They are such shy little guys. It sucks that we did not get good footage but we were so excited to have seen one in the wild it was defiantly worth getting up extremely early.
It was about 6am by time we were done viewing and we drove to curtain fig and walked along the main road trying to spot a tree kangaroo, this is where Damien suggested we go to see one. We must have used up all of our luck for the day on our platypus sighting as we did not see any tree Kangaroos, but it is such a pretty area that it was a nice morning walk regardless. We returned to our hostel and ate some breckie and showered before we rolled up the tent, we contemplated staying another night since the place was so nice, but as far as activities go we had done much of what Yungaburra had to offer and the day trips you could take were on the way to our next destination.
We said our good bye's and hit the open road, first on our list was Wallaa Wallaa falls the most photographed falls in Aussie they say. Coming from Oregon we have seen our fair share of waterfalls and they are always beautiful but we never get that excited or linger very long, and with Wallaa Wallaa falls we felt the same but it was slightly more exciting because it was surrounded by rain forest and exotic flowers, very pretty setting. We found that there were two other falls along this drive and decided that since we were there we might as well complete the drive and see the other two. I don't even remember the other falls names, they were not as pretty as Wallaa Wallaa so did a quick look and left.
We hit the road again heading to Paronella Park dodging big dark thunderstorms all around when we spotted a park that Damien told us about that had a cool rainforest walk to a waterfall so we stopped to eat our lunch and check out the hike. I was wearing a sundress but put on my boots so no more leaches would suck my blood and snakes could not bite through my boots, Paul was brave(or just really hot) and kept his teva's on and shirt off. The walk started off ok, but as we started to climb there was more and more debris on the trail that snakes could be hiding in, and the bush was so thick around us that it was hard to see in past 3 feet so any sort of rustle in the bush made us jump. We crossed a steam and right after the steam the trail became very bad, there were trees laying on the trail, branches ready to fall off any second, and the humidity was making the air thicker with every step. We saw some dropping with seeds in it on the trail and were convinced it was Cassowary (they have ancient stomach that lets the seeds pass through them unharmed and they then scatter the seeds throughout the forest and help the forest grow if the Cassowary becomes extinct the forest will change dramatically in Queensland). Paul really want s to see a Cassowary but I'm not sure I want to run into one on this trail, we also saw some holes that had been dun iin the ground but could not tell if it was Cassowary or wild pigs or who knows what other crazy animal it could have been. Soon after crawling over and through a bunch of insect infested trees across the trail it was too much, and feeling vulnerable and soaking wet from humidity we made our way back to the car. Luckily our only wild encounter was Paul walking through a spider web that had a HUGE spider on it and was sitting on his head, he moved the fastest I have ever seen with arms waiving around the air and making cuts that would have the NFL trying to draft him as a running back. One advantage of the spider being so big was I was able to see him fall to the ground in the blur that was Paul, that and I was pretty sure I felt the ground vibrated when the spider hit it!
Getting the last of the web out of Paul's hair he discovered that a leach had found him as well, but he caught it before it could start feasting on his foot. We had made it to the car right when the thunder started to rumble and the rain came pouring down, and we were grateful to have A/C in the car. The drive to Paronella was cool we were leaving the rain forest and heading into sugar cane fields, banana groves, and tea fields, but before we left the bush we saw a few places that had a small rope latter high across the road, this was for tree kangaroos to cross, how cool! The rain was hit and miss for most of the drive, but when we pulled into Paronella Park it started to down pour so we went to the covered cafe, got a snack and waited for the rain to pass. The staff was running around with umbrellas helping guests get to and from their cars in the downpour.
The story of the park is about a man from Spain came and fell in love with Queensland and wanted to build a castle, along with the castle he built a gravity fed irrigation system and the first hydro electric dam in Aussie to power his place. It was much more that I was expecting (Paul did not care to stop, but he ended up being impressed too) the old building looked so cool with stone building surrounded by jungle and it gave the feeling that we were in the jungle book. The grounds and walking paths that he made were so beautiful with plants I had never seen before, there were little streams and he even made a mud spa, it is not in use now but we did go into it and saw tiny minky bats that now live there! It was a beautiful place and full of history and we were glad we stopped. Once done with the tour we were exhausted so we drove to straight to mission beach our next overnight stop.
Mission beach brought us back into the tropical rain forest and once we turned off the main hwy toward mission beach we started seeing signs about Cassowary crossings every few hundred feet. Our Aussie book told us Mission Beach is home to a Cassowary conservation park and they have taken the Cassowary on as the official town mascot (there are large statues of the bird everywhere) so we slowed down and kept our eyes peeled. We did not see any birds but the town was the perfect beach town. We loved it, but we since it was still raining and there were puddles everywhere we were looking for cabins to stay in for the night, and every place had cabins were out of our budget so we found a hostel with a private room for half the cost of a cabin. Absolute Backpackers was a very nice big white hostel with a large dining/common area in the middle of the bottom floor, a nice private room for us and there was not too many people staying there. We had A/C in our room, and there was a nice swimming pool too, we made some dinner and fell asleep quickly.
We went under the bridge a waited a few minutes before we went back down the trail to Paul's spot, at his spot we saw a shadow under the water close to the other side of the bank from us, at first we thought it was another turtle, but once it swam closer to us we could see it was a platypus! He was so cute, just a little guy swimming then he surfaced and continued to swim downstream. It was hard to get a picture of him because he swam pretty fast and the lighting was not the best. Most of our still shots turned out blurry, so we tried to get video, but once we switched to video we stepped on a branch and the little guy dove under water and could not find him again. They are such shy little guys. It sucks that we did not get good footage but we were so excited to have seen one in the wild it was defiantly worth getting up extremely early.
It was about 6am by time we were done viewing and we drove to curtain fig and walked along the main road trying to spot a tree kangaroo, this is where Damien suggested we go to see one. We must have used up all of our luck for the day on our platypus sighting as we did not see any tree Kangaroos, but it is such a pretty area that it was a nice morning walk regardless. We returned to our hostel and ate some breckie and showered before we rolled up the tent, we contemplated staying another night since the place was so nice, but as far as activities go we had done much of what Yungaburra had to offer and the day trips you could take were on the way to our next destination.
We said our good bye's and hit the open road, first on our list was Wallaa Wallaa falls the most photographed falls in Aussie they say. Coming from Oregon we have seen our fair share of waterfalls and they are always beautiful but we never get that excited or linger very long, and with Wallaa Wallaa falls we felt the same but it was slightly more exciting because it was surrounded by rain forest and exotic flowers, very pretty setting. We found that there were two other falls along this drive and decided that since we were there we might as well complete the drive and see the other two. I don't even remember the other falls names, they were not as pretty as Wallaa Wallaa so did a quick look and left.
We hit the road again heading to Paronella Park dodging big dark thunderstorms all around when we spotted a park that Damien told us about that had a cool rainforest walk to a waterfall so we stopped to eat our lunch and check out the hike. I was wearing a sundress but put on my boots so no more leaches would suck my blood and snakes could not bite through my boots, Paul was brave(or just really hot) and kept his teva's on and shirt off. The walk started off ok, but as we started to climb there was more and more debris on the trail that snakes could be hiding in, and the bush was so thick around us that it was hard to see in past 3 feet so any sort of rustle in the bush made us jump. We crossed a steam and right after the steam the trail became very bad, there were trees laying on the trail, branches ready to fall off any second, and the humidity was making the air thicker with every step. We saw some dropping with seeds in it on the trail and were convinced it was Cassowary (they have ancient stomach that lets the seeds pass through them unharmed and they then scatter the seeds throughout the forest and help the forest grow if the Cassowary becomes extinct the forest will change dramatically in Queensland). Paul really want s to see a Cassowary but I'm not sure I want to run into one on this trail, we also saw some holes that had been dun iin the ground but could not tell if it was Cassowary or wild pigs or who knows what other crazy animal it could have been. Soon after crawling over and through a bunch of insect infested trees across the trail it was too much, and feeling vulnerable and soaking wet from humidity we made our way back to the car. Luckily our only wild encounter was Paul walking through a spider web that had a HUGE spider on it and was sitting on his head, he moved the fastest I have ever seen with arms waiving around the air and making cuts that would have the NFL trying to draft him as a running back. One advantage of the spider being so big was I was able to see him fall to the ground in the blur that was Paul, that and I was pretty sure I felt the ground vibrated when the spider hit it!
Getting the last of the web out of Paul's hair he discovered that a leach had found him as well, but he caught it before it could start feasting on his foot. We had made it to the car right when the thunder started to rumble and the rain came pouring down, and we were grateful to have A/C in the car. The drive to Paronella was cool we were leaving the rain forest and heading into sugar cane fields, banana groves, and tea fields, but before we left the bush we saw a few places that had a small rope latter high across the road, this was for tree kangaroos to cross, how cool! The rain was hit and miss for most of the drive, but when we pulled into Paronella Park it started to down pour so we went to the covered cafe, got a snack and waited for the rain to pass. The staff was running around with umbrellas helping guests get to and from their cars in the downpour.
The story of the park is about a man from Spain came and fell in love with Queensland and wanted to build a castle, along with the castle he built a gravity fed irrigation system and the first hydro electric dam in Aussie to power his place. It was much more that I was expecting (Paul did not care to stop, but he ended up being impressed too) the old building looked so cool with stone building surrounded by jungle and it gave the feeling that we were in the jungle book. The grounds and walking paths that he made were so beautiful with plants I had never seen before, there were little streams and he even made a mud spa, it is not in use now but we did go into it and saw tiny minky bats that now live there! It was a beautiful place and full of history and we were glad we stopped. Once done with the tour we were exhausted so we drove to straight to mission beach our next overnight stop.
Mission beach brought us back into the tropical rain forest and once we turned off the main hwy toward mission beach we started seeing signs about Cassowary crossings every few hundred feet. Our Aussie book told us Mission Beach is home to a Cassowary conservation park and they have taken the Cassowary on as the official town mascot (there are large statues of the bird everywhere) so we slowed down and kept our eyes peeled. We did not see any birds but the town was the perfect beach town. We loved it, but we since it was still raining and there were puddles everywhere we were looking for cabins to stay in for the night, and every place had cabins were out of our budget so we found a hostel with a private room for half the cost of a cabin. Absolute Backpackers was a very nice big white hostel with a large dining/common area in the middle of the bottom floor, a nice private room for us and there was not too many people staying there. We had A/C in our room, and there was a nice swimming pool too, we made some dinner and fell asleep quickly.
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