Kate is a desert person; I'm a forest dweller at heart; and we both love the sea. So far, it had all been sea and forest. Kate had harbored a secret fantasy of trekking far inland, to the red center of Australia near Alice Springs (her given name is Alice). I was thinking of wandering back down the coast. After a long talk, Kate realized she would kick herself if we left Australia without going to the central desert and seeing the Big Red Rock. It was her dream.
There wasn't time to drive that far, unless we wanted to spend the entire week driving hard every day. We could take a bus, but even that would be a long grind. We bit the bullet and booked another flight. We would end our trip in the desert.
But first, a last few days in the rainforest. We drove inland and south the next day, into the coastal mountains, through the rainforest and into dry country studded with giant termite mounds, then beyond, into the Atherton tablelands, rich in birdlife, more rainforest, and waterfalls.
We stayed in the town of Atherton, a community of perhaps 5,000 people with only its location to recommend it—but that's a substantial recommendation. At sunrise the next morning we drove to Hasty Swamp on the outskirts of town, where it was our pleasure to see hundreds of rare Sarus cranes in flight.
In the late morning we continued into the rainforest at Malanga falls, a trip that included a guided walk with another aboriginal teacher. Not quite as overwhelming an experience as the walk through Mossman Gorge, but still beautiful and enlightening. Our guide's last name was Raymond, but as he explained, he isn't necessarily related to other Raymonds you might meet, except by an accident of history. In his grandfather's day, black aboriginal workers were given the name of their employers. It's as if you and I and all our friends woke up one day to find ourselves named Ford, Hewlett-Packard, or Mitsubishi. Disturbing...
Of course, something vaguely similar happened in English history, leaving many of us to carry the name of a forebear's profession: Fisher, Cooper, Farmer, Smith. For the first few generations, the various Smiths were likewise unrelated.
But I digress. Again.
After lunch, we backtracked about 50 km to Mareeba, where we took a tour of the Mareeba wetlands (four tourists, two naturalist guides). We saw some fascinating birds, including one named the Jacara that has toes almost as long as its body; they act like snow shoes to spread the bird's weight, allowing it to walk, and even run, across lily pads. We also encountered kangaroos and wallabies in the wild. Sunset was beautiful. Venus and Jupiter were up, as was the southern cross.
We started the our last forest day with another sunrise at Hasty Swamp, then a series of short dayhikes along the "waterfall circuit," a loop road that takes you by trailheads to half a dozen waterfalls, all different, all beautiful. Spectacular scenery. Good swimming, too.
On the way back to Cairns, we stopped at a pond and saw duck-billed platypus in the wild. Very few visitors to Australia ever see wild platypus (only about 2%); in fact, not many Australians have seen them, except in a zoo. It's a lot like dolphin-watching or whale-watching; Platypus live underwater, and you only catch a glimpse of them when they surface for air, which they do for a few seconds every 2-5 minutes.
Unlike dolphins, they're solitary and have no striking dorsal fins; unlike whales, they don't spout. Consequently, you spend most of your time anxiously scanning an empty pond for a bubble or a ripple, hopefully followed by a brief glimpse a dark shape before it dives again. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, it was a thrill to see them.
We found a motel on the outskirts of Cairns as the sun was setting.
Next: Uluru