As we were observing the roos, we were lucky enough to spot a wild dingo running across a plateau behind the field. Unfortunately he was out of range for photos, but it was an amazing scene to witness in the wild. Another thing that struck us was how peacefully quiet we found the scene. The kangaroos seemed entirely at ease, munching on grass and laying about, as if they were having one big family picnic.
From Mossman Gorge, the four of us made our way back to Cairns on some beautiful coastal roads, then on through the Atherton Tablelands once more. After showing off the Curtain & Cathedral Fig trees to Dev and Em, we headed southwest to Undara National Park for our first glimpse of Outback Queensland. I'm sure many Aussies would argue that Undara is not "true" Outback, since you don't have to ford any rivers or scale entire boulders with your turbo diesel Landcruiser to get there, but the scenery and wildlife were still incredible to see. The camping area for Undara is located in a vast forest, surprisingly thriving in a dry, dusty desert landscape. Though the park is most famous for its underground lava tubes, we were not willing to pay the $45 price for a short tour, but were content to enjoy the beautiful scenery and bush walks around the park. Itching for a good hike, we created our own trekking itinerary from the handful of relatively short, interconnected trails. For the most part, we found ourselves blissfully alone out on the trail, which allowed us to have some of our first real encounters with wildlife out in the bush. The first was a small wallaby some distance from us in the tall grass, quickly followed by a single, very large, male kangaroo who seemed to have little interest in us, so much so that Ben was able to sneak fairly close to get some amazing photographs National Geographic style! We were really excited about the kangaroo, but we were blown away shortly after when we entered the nearby wetlands to find a field teeming with kangaroos. There must have been close to a hundred within eyesight and most payed us no mind. There were kangaroos of every color, joeys, adults, and one particularly crusty looking fellow who, for several minutes, stood up and vigorously scratched his side like a crotchety man in a kangaroo suit. Stuff of gold. If only we had gotten it on video. As we were observing the roos, we were lucky enough to spot a wild dingo running across a plateau behind the field. Unfortunately he was out of range for photos, but it was an amazing scene to witness in the wild. Another thing that struck us was how peacefully quiet we found the scene. The kangaroos seemed entirely at ease, munching on grass and laying about, as if they were having one big family picnic. Earlier in the day we had purchased a meat pack from the main office and, after listening in on a session of poetry around a communal bonfire, we set up our own pyrotechnics for some caveman-style feasting under the desert stars. While Ben worked his grill magic on steaks, bangers, and some lamb (jumbuck) chops, I marveled at the full scale planetarium above us and spotted no less than 7 shooting stars and 3 satellites. Pure awesomeness. The meat was of course beyond delicious and the only element of our bush meal that night. Hooray for carnivores. That evening was also our first (but not last) encounter with yet another member of the kangaroo family - smaller than a wallaby but larger than a kangaroo rat - the Rufus Bettong! Potentially one of the cutest bush animals ever, one of these little guys hopped happily into our camp late that night and was completely oblivious to our existence, so much so that he practically jumped over our feet and into our laps while looking for food. We had no idea what this animal was called on this first sighting, so we gladly named him Alfonso or The Fonz for short. He visited us several times that night, much to our delight.
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Our first roos! Post Glass House Mountains, our journey took us to the Gold Coast/Brisbane areas to pick up Devin's younger brothers Corey and Erin for their family-time adventures in July. After regrouping and some personal grooming at Corey's dorm where he was studying abroad, we picked up Erin in Brisbane and headed to the small town of Nimbin, just across the Queensland border in New South Wales. En route to Nimbin, we had our first kangaroo spotting! Just off the roadway grazing in the fields we found a herd of small kangaroos. Unfortunately some passing traffic scared quite a few away but we did manage to sneak a few pictures of the less skittish ones. Nimbin itself is a very small, one-street town nestled in some beautiful forested hills. Famous for its hippie culture and in particular it's annual Mardi Grass Festival (no explanation needed I assume) which we had just missed, the town is lined with cafes, souvenir shops, a grocery, and a town hall. Of course each shop and cafe is full of psychedelic paraphernalia (tie-dye, hemp products, Bob Marley pictures, papier-mache bong sculptures, etc.) and one particular store had a proudly framed medicinal marijuana certificate from none other than our college town of Colorado Springs, CO! Next to it was a petition to make medical marijuana legal in Australia to follow in the example of our great state of Colorado. Giggles upon giggles that our small, mostly conservative college town would find us here, not only in Australia but in a tiny hippie shop in a tiny hippie town of all places. We've been fascinated by the coffee and tea culture in Australia. Unlike in the states, you can't find drip coffee to save your life, however, espresso coffee is widely available and you can even get a half-decent flat white at a gas station. Tea is a prominent part of daily life, everyone is always willing to "have a cuppa," but we found that chai tea is rarely done right. Often it's pre-mixed, watered-down and poorly spiced. However, at one of the small cafes in Nimbin, we found some of the best (and cheapest!) coffee and tea we've ever had. The chai was done traditionally and all cups of coffee or tea were only $2.50! Score. We ended up camping at an eco-friendly backpackers just outside of town, the Rainbow Retreat, which was situated on a hill back in the forest. All it's structures were made out of recycled materials and those who weren't camping could choose to sleep in a treehouse, a teepee, or an old gypsy caravan. It also had a very cool open air shared kitchen, and a little movie screening area. A trail extended out the back of the property down the hill to a small creek where we were told you could see platypus. We wandered down there that night with our headlamps and did manage to glimpse a large eel swimming in the murky water... creepy. Alas, no platypus but we did go down there at night. Afterwards, Erin wowed us with his advanced fire spinning talents. |
Marielle & BenWe're two people in the midst of severe quarter-life crises who decided to leave good jobs in a bad economy to travel to the other side of the world because, well, why not? Archives
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