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Published: October 25th 2009
Be O Wary Cassowary
Not the best of pictures but photographic evidence that we saw this one in the wilderness while we were driving.DAY 351
Well, today is a good day, we have been hoping for a day like this since we came into FNQ (Far North Queensland) or maybe just being in the Wet Tropics to see a particular animal in the wilderness that is endangered. Put it this way we have seen enough warning signs, but we have only seen the animal in question in a zoo, but that does not count, it has to be in the wilderness for it to be a proper sighting.
The more we stay at these Big 4’s the less I like them, the one in Mission beach, was the usual set up, but the sites were really small and it was a noisy site. The only good thing were that the showers were excellent and we had some power, oh and Caroline liked the swimming pool.
I was up early again and watched the morning seeing the campsite gradually come to life, the sailing regatta was on and loads of people walked past in wet suits or carrying sail boats of varying sizes and shapes.
We had a quickish light breakfast and Caroline started to potter around I was typing some
Spotted
Black against the lush green. of the blog and set about helping to pack up when I finished what I was doing.
Again as we had to be out by 10.00am we agreed that Caroline should go and get her shower and I would carry on packing away, then when Caroline came back I would go and have my shower and by then most of the packing away would be done.
Caroline wandered off with her wet bag and towel and I started talking to a lady from Cairns who’s name was Beatrice, she was there with her husband Bill and a lot of their family was sailing in the Regatta so they had come to watch.
In no time at all Caroline was walking back and I had hardly done anything, I personally blame Beatrice, well that was my excuse, Bill came along and said he was going down to see the grandchildren get ready and Beatrice thanked us for the conversation and went with her husband.
We had to get a hustle on, and set to packing the trailer, all ready to hitch to the patrol, it was all done by about 9.50, just in time for me to
Elusive?
This Cassowary wanted to avoid us go and get a quick shower.
At about 10.03 we were pulling off the site all smug that we had achieved what we had set out to do, with a quick check of the map we were off, leaving Mission Beach for somewhere further South, we may even get to Townsville should we so wished.
Our first stop was onto South Mission Beach to take some photographs of the boats in the Regatta, it was good so see it in full swing, after all the boats had been set up. Another fascinating thing that we have seen many times before are these tiny balls of sand made by what we think are the crabs.
At each hole in the sand there could possibly be 200 - 300 tiny, perfect balls of sand, and if you consider a garden pea being about 10mm in diameter then the sand balls would be about 4-6mm (Caroline reckons the size of a petit pois!), at my very best guess.
Now reading this from the comforts of your cosy homes all over the world, that might not seem very interesting, but there was a strip down the beach that was as
long as the beach which could have been about a mile and about 20ft deep front to back, it was an amazing sight.
It would be easy to assume the amount of these perfect little sand balls would run in to billions on the beach, amazingly they will only be there until the tide comes back in and washes them all away and the circle will start all over again when the crab digs his hole.
Pulling out of Mission Beach, we had come up with a saying “Be O Wary, Cassowary” there are so many road signs advising you to slow down and be cautious for Cassowary’s it is amazing yet we have been in the Far North Queensland (FNQ) for well over 2 months now, we have been out in the bush, hiked through rainforests and never seen one of these elusive flightless birds and just like the Wallaby Wanderers we were now considering that these birds don’t really exist, they are just a fable for tourists to get excited about and spend all their time looking for them.
Everyone we have spoken to had said you might see one at Mission Beach or Etty
Drive Carefully
you dont want this to happen! Beach, we hear rumours of the Cassowary walking through caravan parks, but sadly not for us. They are a shy creature and not small probably the size of an Emu, so you would think we may have seen one.
Back when we first arrive in Cairns, if you remember we brought Sydney with a ‘Y’ from Cairns, for Darryl and Sarah, the Wallaby Wanderers they had come through some of FNQ (Far North Queensland) and never saw one of these birds. Its not like we wanted to do one any harm, all we wanted to do was see one, that is it, oh and have a picture of it to prove we have actually seen one. Of course we have seen one in a zoo, but that does not count, it has to be in the wild to be considered as a sighting.
Driving out heading out towards Tully with our campsite now about 2k’s behind us, disappointed that again we had not seen one, you will never guess what happened next, in fact we both once again remarked at the same time “What’s that?”
A dark blob moving slowly against a lush green backdrop, Yep, A
Wildlife Crossing
We guess that as long as it resides in trees and can climb then it can safely cross the road! CASSOWARY WAS JUST WALKING ALONG THE GRASS VERGE TO OUR RIGHT. These graceful birds look like they are wearing a huge feather boa, with each feather rising and falling gracefully at each step
He (or she) was on a track that went 45 degree’s to the road, I slowed down a bit and he started to run or more like trot, he knew we were there and wanted to avoid us, they are shy creatures, however lets not forget that they can be aggressive and of course can do serious injury with their sharp claws.
We parked the truck where it was safe to do so and jumped out after grabbing our cameras in hot pursuit of our one and only Cassowary. Unlike mine they have very long legs, and it was about 200 yards down the track by now, fortunately he had gone back in to his meandering along phase obviously looking for food, but me only with my thongs on was in hot pursuit and trying to keep a safe distance so as not to aggravate it.
As there was very long grass the passengers side and she did not want to find a snake
Plenty of Poles
These help wildlife cross the road safely under her foot, Caroline had struggled out of the drivers side of the truck, as she was about 100 meters behind me and I had gone out of sight, I moved so she could see me and beckoned her as I had seen where the Cassowary had gone in to the bush. When we had re grouped the Cassowary had long gone.
Sadly we believe their numbers are only about 1500 left in Australia, they do so much good in the rain forests, they help propagate hundreds of species of plants, their biggest threat are traffic accidents, personally I don’t think they should be allowed to drive cars, and the other threat are wild pigs, who destroy their nests and eat the eggs.
Still the up side was this: “Cassowaries, they do exist!” So today a message to the Wallaby Wanderers, “we can confirm that they do exist we have got the photo to prove it and no, it isn’t a bush turkey with a Cassowary suite on either.”
We walked back to the truck and as a consolation we saw a big Goanna stuck to a tree as camouflage, hoping that we hadn’t seen him, but
it was too late we had so obviously had to get a picture of him.
Back in the truck we set off hoping that we may get another sight of the big bird but no chance.
We soon were out of the Mission Beach area and the terrain changed again, I felt disappointed inside as I knew the outback Australia that we had come to love was now behind us and it was going to get built up and more populated. It had crossed my mind several times that we should just turn around and set sail again for the peace and quiet of the bush.
We drove into a small town called Ingham, as there was a Woolworths we went and got some chillies and a few other provisions, as hopefully we would be using our camp oven for a curry tonight.
We had a quick sandwich in town then set off again we had only another 35k’s to go before we found Paluma Range National Park where we wanted to stay tonight. Only another 6k’s down a dirt track, crossing a couple of creeks and soon we were all set up and sorted.
Sand Balls
made by crabs? This National Park has a set of water falls called Jourama Falls, so we went and had a look but at this time in the afternoon when the sun was high we thought better of it and would walk in the cool of the morning tomorrow.
On the way back, I suddenly stomped on the brake as there was a snake in the road, it was about the same dimensions as the one we had recently seen at Lake Tineroo, about 3 ½ ft long and quite slender, fortunately I didn’t hurt it and it shot off in to the scrub.
It was soon late afternoon, so we took the camp oven out of the trailer along with our heat bead stove, I put a few Kerosene soaked tea bags on the heat beads and they were soon burning down.
With the chicken and all the other ingredients prepared it was soon placed on the heat and was cooking away nicely.
We had noticed a fella camping on his own, so I wandered over and asked if he would like to join us for some dinner, he said that he had just had a sandwich and
thanked us and said he would pop over and have a chat when his cup of tea was ready.
His name is Charlie Johnston from Townsville, an ex cattle farmer turned electrician he has come away for a couple of days peace and quiet his wife who is a school teacher has not been able to get the time to come away.
Charlie sat with us for most of the evening just talking about Australia, he told us a story that happened at their house in Townsville, his wife had got up in the night for the call of nature however she failed to notice a 5 metre python that had draped itself over the console table in the hallway, it was only noticed when they heard an ornament being knocked over off the table and turned to see it draped there, although they thought it was the dog making the noise and had heard some noises earlier in the night, we wondered if the python had eaten the dog, but Charlie said that the dog had run and hidden in fear of its life, that was one sensible dog.
We asked what they did about it
and Charlie said they just opened the front door and waited for him to leave. One can only imagine the drama in trying to ask a 5 metre python to leave, it reminded me of the time that Andy was standing in our trailer at 1.00 in the morning wrestling a packet of crisps and a loaf of bread off a rather tubby Possum and then pointing at the doorway asking it to leave, with the Possum sat there looking at Andy as if to say, “No way mate!”
With all these great stories it was soon it was time for bed, well it was 9.00 and we were all tired with this hit of fresh air.
It was a warm night, with out any light pollution we had a clear view of the stars, which was nice, all the flaps were open in the tent and we snuggled down in our bed the end of yet another busy day.
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cabochick
non-member comment
my favorite part about mission beach
I loved the little balls of sand rolled up! We looked for likenesses of Elvis or Jesus, but alas, none found. We also crashed around the jungle looking for cassowaries, but had no luck. I figured they had all been run over judging from the multi road signs.....glad to see there is at least one left! Great blog. your trip is bringing back lots of memories for me. ta