We awoke this morning to the call of the crows that were sitting above the van. Getting up at 6:30am we were packed up and on the road by 7:30am rejoining the highway and heading north, saying goodbye to our peaceful beachside setting.
We stopped first at a town called Sarina, famous for its ‘big thing’ – this time a giant cane toad (as the creatures are prolific in this area, and we were overrun with them last night at the campsite). After a quick stop to refuel and grab directions to Eungella National Park we continued north.
A bit of a de-tour was involved before we got to our turn off to head inland to Eungella, as Ben wanted to go and see the Hay Point Coal Handling Port, one of the biggest coal ports in the world. Once we had wiggled our way up the steep road the views from the lookout were impressive, the 2 ports (Hay Point and Dalrymple) were huge, extending out to the sea by approx 1.5kms and 3kms).
A short drive north when we got back on the Bruce Highway brought us to our turning; we travelled through fields of sugar cane, and went past several huge sugar mills. Then the fields gave way to steep mountain ranges, which we climbed slowly and steadily. The views from the top as we looked back down the Pioneer Valley were spectacular.
We took the road to Broken River and pulled in to see if there were any vacancies at the Broken River Mountain Resort, famous as it is right next to a large platypus colony. We were in luck and we were allowed to check in early, so lunch today was on our balcony overlooking the rainforest!! As the resort is an eco resort we were smack bang in the middle of the rainforest, next to Broken River, and sharing our surroundings with many different species of animal, birds and creepy crawlies!
Although we were advised that the platypus do not come out until dawn or dusk we decided to wander over and see if we were in luck…and we were very much in luck, at 3pm 2 platypus had appeared for an early snack.
They were so much smaller than what we thought they would be; the male is approx 50cm, and the female 40cm, and they were possibly the strangest looking animal we had seen on our trip in Australia so far.
With a tail like a beaver, bill like a duck, webbed feet like an otter, poison spur on its legs like a snake’s fang, shuffling walk like a crocodile, fur like a mammal, and lays eggs like a reptile…it is not surprising that when first discovered in the 1700s people thought it was a hoax!
After having a lot of time there watching them feeding we went for a walk on one of the hiking trails, alongside Broken River Unfortunately due to cyclone Ului 5 weeks ago many of the longer trails were closed. Our favourite tree by far was the strangler tree (photographed below).
After our walk we went back to out lodge and had dinner, and at 8pm put our walking clothes on and headed out with our guide on our night walk. We were lucky enough to see a feather tailed glider, huntsman spider, velvet gecko, tawny frogmouth (owl), sugar glider and horseshoe bat.
No comments:
Post a Comment