We don't Give a Fig

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DAY 315


It rained in the night, very hard, the noise of the rain on the roof woke us both up, but we both managed to get back to sleep again. It seemed to rain on and off throughout the night, and continued for a short while once we got up. It was not enough to deter us from what we wanted to do today.

We prepared ourselves for a walk today, we wanted to do the track that we needed the permit for, the Clohesy River Road, however until Wednesday this week it had been closed due to the work to remove the redundant pylons.

We do seem to be getting up later these mornings, although some late nights have played a part in that, we just seem to want to sleep so much, but then I am sure we would not if we didn’t need it.

Once we were up we made our sandwiches for lunch, packed the camelbak and headed off once again through Cairns along the Western Arterial and up the mountains towards Kuranda.

This time we drive past Kuranda, continue along the Kennedy Highway, past the turn off for Speewah and continue heading towards Mareeba, some way down here we see the left hand turn for Clohesy River Road.

We follow the road until the bitumen turns into a dirt track and then continue along the dirt track, taking each creek crossing in our stride, even though we have had rain this morning there will not be enough to make these creeks too deep.

We are still hoping to see a Cassowary in the wild, so the plan was to drive down to the very end of the track then drive back some way, park and then walk back to the end of the track, but sometimes things just never work out quite the way you plan them.

We drive about 9 kilometres through dry open forest, lots of termite mounds are dotted around the landscape, however gradually the scenery changes into rain forest, crossing several creeks and then stop at the Clohesy River Fig, this quite stunning fig tree, which is huge, no scratch that, it is an absolute monster of a Fig. There is a great boardwalk which takes you on a 20 minute walk into the rainforest and finally finishes at this monster fig.

I would not even like to hazard a guess at the age of this fig, its host tree has long since died and rotted away leaving a substantial hollow for this fig to now “standalone” in this magnificent rain forest.

We look at what appears to be just a huge mound of forest litter, however we find that this has been made by a couple of native birds to help incubate their eggs., it is the Orange Footed Scrub fowl
We see them rustling around the forest floor, however one of them chases the other away, we are not sure if they are pushed away from the incubator area, but quite a scuffle breaks out while one chases the other through the bush.

We get back in the truck and continue through the next creek along the Clohesy River Road, this is the part of the track that you need the permit for, though we see plenty of signs on the sidetracks not allowing vehicles at all.

Every now and again we stop to read signs detailing information about the area, we drive up some fairly steep slops, but nothing too challenging and finally we find ourselves at a bright yellow gate, which prevents people from driving and walking onto the land behind it. We knew we would not be able to drive any further, but what did surprise me was that you were unable to walk beyond the gate, information on the internet actually says that you can walk to Lake Morris and the picnic area.

It is past lunchtime now so we park up near a pylon which gives us a magnificent view over the rain forest, and we break in to the sandwicjes that we have made and stop for a half an hour and admire the view.
It is my turn to drive, so we make our way back the way we came, unfortunately by now the enthusiasm to do a long walk seems to have gone from both of us. Not because we could not be bothered but really because as we drove down the track we felt that it was not a track that was going to make a good walk (even though the brochure says you often see Cassowaries along here) as it was more of a track to drive on.

I continued along the track, we counted 8 creek crossings so that means we have done 16 today! Each creek negotiated with care and eventually we find ourselves back at the bitumen.

We had thought about visiting the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Visitors Centre) in Cairns this afternoon, but it was late afternoon by the time we got back in Cairns, so we decided to leave that for another day.

Back at home, the kettle is on for a cup of tea and we both sit down for a relax, however this is not for long as we have not done a decent walk today we have to walk up the hill, which we promised that we would do every day that we don’t walk.

Our walk up to the top of the road seems to get easier and takes us about 22 minutes there and back, passing the usual guard dog chorus on the way.

We have nothing exciting planned for this evening, Andy watched a documentary on Robert J Oppenheimer (father of the atomic bomb) after that we spoke to Wallaby Wanderers on Skype, always good to speak to Darryl and Sarah find out what they have been up to, we compare notes as we are now in the area that they have been through and they are just about to leave Darwin and head South before heading West over to Western Australia and plenty of isolation. After a while the conversation always seems to get a bit on the crazy side, but we are half hour ahead of them and it is soon our bed time.

We bid goodnight to the Wallaby Wanderers, wish them a safe onward journey and hope to catch up with them soon, but we know once you leave Northern Territory, internet availability can be infrequent.

Exhausted from another exciting day we fall into bed.

Goodnight bloggers and keep your fingers crossed that one day soon we will see that illusive wild Cassowary.

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Photos

A river crossing
Heading towards the Clohsey River

Checking out another
We talk a stroll down to check another water crossing out before we committed ourselves

Not just a pile of Litter
The Incubator mound made by the Orange Footed Scrub Fowl

Incubator Mound
Made by the Orange Footed Scrub Fowl

Host and Fig
The host is dead in the centre, and the Strangler Fig thrives

Its Massive
It was something from Jack and the Bean Stalk

Nuts
We found these nuts on the forest Floor

Comments

[Darryl and Sarah]

Don't give up
on finding Sydney with a Y from Cairns' relatives, he's looking forward to news!!! We're back in Katherine now and there's definately no Cassowaries here!! love from the Wallaby Wanderers and the crew x x