Oh our souls sang today – those words were in my head all day today as we witnessed once again the amazing wonders of God’s creation. We started with his creatures very early in the morning actually, around 2.30 am – we woke up to this flap, flap, flap, flap ……. Flap, flap, flap, flap …. I eventually decided to get up and see what it was and in the tree, right above our caravan, there was a bat clan, huge fruit bats, having a party. The tree is blossoming and the bats were absolutely loving it – I stood there in the starlight for quite some time, watching them – they would hang upside down on a branch and guzzle the flowers, and then let go and swoop down and around (the flap, flap noise) and back around the tree to find another bunch of flowers to guzzle down. Some of them had wingspans of about two meters and there would have been about a dozen of them feasting. It was just beautiful. Then, while we were having breakfast, the birds took over from the bats with the feasting – and the tree above us was absolutely alive with activity – Rich discovered a Greater Bower bird amongst them – he is a medium sized, greeny olive kind of bird but has this lovely pink ruff around his neck which he displays from time to time. Then we realized, clever bird that he is, he has built his bower on the roof of a shed that we are parked next to – I imagine that it has a multi-purpose – one it is safe from people perched on the roof, and two, he has a built in babysitter for the eggs - it would be an automatic incubating system with how warm it must get there!! Who could resist such a gorgeous and innovative male!? Anyway, will get a photo of his nest on the roof for you all tomorrow – it will entail Rich climbing a Coolabah tree for the shot and knowing how accident prone he is ………..
So the program for the day was Geikie Gorge for a boat tour and a walk. Even though our boat tour was at 8 am it was still jolly hot – but SO enjoyable. On the tour and then subsequent walk – we saw numerous crocs (all freshies so quite safe – for the overseas people, Aussie has two kinds of crocs – salties – they are the bad boys, and freshies – they are the okay ones), the gem of the gorge, (the Azure Kingfisher which is a tiny little bird that is a brilliant electric blue), numerous other birds, several different kinds of wallabies, amazing rock formations, cute little caterpillars, and my personal favourite, dragon flies with bright red bodies and shimmery wings. It was a naturalist feast!! Rich, never content to stay on the designated path, took several ‘side trips’ and got some amazing views of the various rock formations.
We returned to our spot in the lovely caravan park and had lunch and then I,… well now that I am actually on holiday at last … had a sleep … not that I needed it with all the sleep I have been getting, but it was the principle of the fact that I COULD! Rich disappeared off for some further exploration (that man should have been born a couple hundred years ago so he could find something no one else has found with all his exploration) and fishing – no luck with the elusive barramundi, but lots to see and do. I on the other hand, just flopped around in the shade at the van and read a book – again, something I have not really allowed myself to do for the last month. It was bliss!
Things we learnt today:
· Barramundi change sex during the course of their lives – wow … that must be a bit confronting for the creationists, and difficult to explain for the evolutionist, supremely confusing from a sociology point of view and from a psychology aspect so complex it isn’t worth thinking about – don’t you just love our ‘up-side-down’ God!
· The sex of crocodiles is determined by the temperature of the sand in which their eggs incubate - hmmm.
· Geiki Gorge is named after some old fart geologist from the 1800’s who thinks he discovered it – what an insult to the aboriginal people, who have been around the gorge for thousands of years, and who have sacred places in it – but thankfully the name of the Gorge is going to be changed in a year or so to an aboriginal name – that sociology that I am studying must be having a greater impact on my thinking than first thought but I was positively outraged by the knowledge that once again westerners have just moved in, taken over and assumed that everything should revolve around them! Worse still, our guide was a local aboriginal woman who had to tell us that the gorge was named after this outsider, when her family have lived in this area for at least a thousand years.
1 comment:
BURNT HIS BUM ON THE KETTLE!!!!!!! Oh, we'll have to add that to the pilates course. Love ya, Rich.
I had to laugh at having to walk all the piers and see all the big trees. With Steven, it's stop for every glacier and waterfall. Ohmigosh, how many waterfalls can we possibly admire? And when we lived in BC, there were a lot of them. I think that's why I was so keen to move to Alberta. Mind you, we found the glaciers here!
I remember towards the end of our last three week trip in the motorhome as I sat reading in bed one night, Steven asked me to put on the kettle. I duly did - without getting out of bed. In fact, I could make our entire cups of tea without leaving my bed. That's when I decided it was time to get home again!
It all sounds glorious, Kimmy. So glad the exams are over. Can't wait to see you all in September.
Love,
Wendz
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