Cape Tribulation-BatHouse

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Cape Tribulation was a dream come true. I worked at the Australian Tropical Research Station running the bathouse which was also an environmental education Centre, caring for the bats, assisting in research and doing general maintenance i.e. building electric fences, weed control and maintaining solar power etc to earn my keep.
I lived in a little cabin in the middle of the rainforest with all the weird and wonderful animals crashing about and making noises in the night!
The bats were very friendly and all had names sometimes me and Cassandra a German Girl would come back from the beach and they would climb on us give us a good sniff and lick all the salt off of our faces.
The beach was 5 mins walk down the driveway and seemed very tropical with palm trees etc. However Hugh the 70yr old eccentric researcher used to go hacking them down as they were not native and causing all the soil to become unstable. But I could see his point even if other tourists couldn’t as this was some of the oldest rainforest in the world he was trying to save!
When we lay on the beach by the campfire at night we would see millions of stars, lots of shooting ones and bats flying out to sea for a gulp of salt water. Mind you we did have to keep an eye out for crocs walking up the beach. I met a guy from Sweden named Tomi who I went biking along the gravel road to emmergen creek with, we definitely needed a swim by the time we got there though as we looked like ghosts due to the huge dust clouds when a 4wd drove past. Tomi was great at doing poi dancing I on the other hand ended up with lots of bruises.
One of the best days was when we went out on the boat to the great barrier reef. The water was crystal clear the fish were so bright and different and a turtle swam right next to me!

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