We woke to the song of the birds in Mt. Hypipamee. Well, I guess they had been singing for a while when we woke, but it sounds good. Anyway, soon afterwards another car arrived and parked next to us. In it were two men we saw the previous night – an eco-tour guide called Alan Gillander (“Alan’s Wildlife Tours”), and another man who was probably a photography-loving client. At night we saw them when they arrived and told them what we’ve seen, and now that they returned for a morning walk, they came to us to tell us what they’ve seen (importantly – Herbert River Ringtail which we would have loved to see). But their first reaction when I opened the door and they saw our entrance step was “Do you sell shoes”?
We watched some birds around the parking lot, then headed to Yungaburra for Pizza at Nick’s Pizzeria next to the platypus creek (a.k.a. Peterson Creek). Our hope was to have pizza and watch the platypus – a combined activity dubbed platypizza – but the platypus part didn’t materialize here this time either. The pizza, though, was excellent. We accompanied it by some good ale, at the picnic table next to the playground where the kids expended some energy. On the traffic isle nearby some nice Figbirds gave us an enjoyable show. Before leaving the tablelands, we had an unfinished business to take care of – we promised Daniel to buy him a dragon at the dragon mother’s little shop. I was hoping he forgot all about it in the 3 days that have passed, but when I mentioned leaving the area he quickly reminded me about our promise. Promises have to be kept, as we all know (a rule that generations of educators failed to generalize from parents to kids, regrettably), so we headed back to lake Eacham, and got the dragon alright. Since our previous two Tree Kangaroo encounters were lacking in terms of the viewing, end especially the photography, opportunities, I felt we must give Nerada Tea another chance, now that the weather was clearer. Indeed, this time we saw another member of the group – possibly a mom with a joey, given the swollen belly – on a short tree right next to the visitors center where we had our tea and cakes. She didn’t mind us and the other people standing next to her tree at all, as far as we could judge, and continued to munch slowly on the young leaves. At one point she misjudged the strength of a branch, which broke and fell heavily with her to the ground. A couple of hops, and she was up another tree. We decided that the proper name for this one was Tea Kangaroo. Our last stop before leaving the tableland was at the impressive Millaa Millaa falls.
We were hoping to spend the night in Etty Bay on the shore south of Cairns, where we heard there was a resident Cassowary female that can often be seen, but they had no availability to we decided to head back to Cairns, where we returned to the BIG4 park where we spent the next day doing some housekeeping activities and letting the kids enjoy the pools, waterpark and open air movie.
Family Trips 