Tuesday, Nov 13 - Cassowaries and Swiss Ice Cream

We got up at six and walked around the grounds between intermittent showers. The weather system doesn’t show any sign of changing, “The Wet”, the rainy season the usually runs from January to April, has come early this year and everyone is wondering where to be to be able to see the eclipse: the coast or up inland on the Tablelands??

We had our usual good breakfast of cheeses, cereal and some fresh small pastries filled with cherries or vanilla cream. The owners, Christophe and Rosy who are married and bought the Cedar Park Rainforest Resort eight years ago when the building was a wreck. They fixed it up as a lovely B&B with five rooms and bar and outdoor restaurant. A stream runs by two sides of the hotel with pools perfect for platypuses, but we haven’t managed to see one yet.



Cassowary chick

We took off in the direction of Cairns and turned off onto Black Mountain Road where another B&B, Cassowary House, is located. It is owned by Phil Gregory, who is scheduled to be our guide when we go to Ghana next April, so we thought it might be nice to meet him. Cassowary House is in dense rainforest with the trees coming right up to the building, and it was pouring rain when we arrived. Phil is in Madagascar right now his wife informed us, but as we are birders she invited us onto the porch which overlooks a fruit tray and tub of water, and there was a huge male Cassowary with three chicks! The Cassowary rather resembles an ostrich, but about 4-5’ tall with bright blue and pink bare skin around the face, pink wattles, powerful legs and back covered with coarse black plumage.
The female deserts the nest as soon as the eggs are laid and the male hatches the eggs and takes care of the young. We had run into a female when we were last in northern Queensland in 2005, but had never seen the male or young. That was very exciting!!



Barron Falls

 

We drove into the tourist town of Kuranda and found it full of shopping tourists, which didn’t particularly appeal to us, but then spotted a sign for a boardwalk at the Barron Falls Gorge. We parked and set off on a wonderful boardwalk, as only Australians can build them, that wound through lower elevation rainforest with strangler figs and huge vines. We ended up at an overlook with a view of a very high falls. Since the dry season is just ending, the water cascaded down in ribbons to a deep pool hundreds of feet below. In a few months it will be gushing!

Hil drove us down to the flat coastal plain and before we reached Cairns, we pulled into the Cattana Wetlands which used to be a sugar cane plantation, but was amazingly restored to lowland rainforest. We set off on yet another boardwalk, past more “Achtung!” signs for crocodiles. Soon the swamp will be covered with water, but now it is too dry for the crocs - we figured. We found beautiful Paper Bark Eucs, shedding shaggy membranous bark, and coastal birds.

We drove into Cairns and took a walk along the Esplenade. The tide was out so the birding wasn’t very good, but we saw a few lovely birds.. We were famished by then and finally found a café where we ate shrimp and avocado salads. Next door was a Swiss Ice Cream shop where we bought Total Eclipse Biscuits, wonderful freshly-made wafers filled with ice cream and rolled in nuts! Great!



Black-fronted Dotterel

 

Northern Queensland has suffered greatly since Cyclone Yasi two years ago. Agriculture, wildlife and tourism were hit hard, and everyone is thrilled that the eclipse has brought so many tourists back! This is such a lovely exotic area that I hope their recovery continues.

We got back to the hotel at 4:30 and had a little time to relax. It poured rain for a bit. I think we will head up to the inland Tablelands for the eclipse tomorrow, but we’ll have to wait and see what RRZ thinks! He’ll check the sky at 3 AM and we’ll decide at 4:30 when we all meet.