Photos from the trip away as well as photos from the Pre-xmas party at Rose St - can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/27799227@N00/

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Ah, such a long time between blogs. A month’s holiday. So much to catch up on….

I have been away on an eye-opening holiday trip to North Queensland. Dense rainforest, blanketing coast down to the sea, warm water to swim in with fish and other sea life always around. Tableland rainforest with another assortment of animals and strangely coloured birds.

Smaller towns, larger than life characters, like the tall, quick, bearded ex-teacher Digby who runs the amazing tropical fruit farm in Cape Tribulation. For 15 years he has been growing over 200 varieties of fruit, nut, chili, just about anything. On many of the fruit trees, about 1-2 metres from the base, there are V branches which evidences the cyclone which decimated the area 5 years ago. Both the part of the tree that was flattened as well as the new growth pointing up re-grew. Digby showed us around his farm with Permaculture techniques everywhere, peanut grown as ground cover and mulch (not for the peanuts, they were dry and hard.) Snakefruit rows grown between mangosteen rows, natural insect repellents. We tried 9 varieties of fruit we had never tasted, and felt somewhere between savages and welcome guests to a new land.

Good food was everywhere, even from local bar and grills, which served a mean fish and chips, and always served a stubbie of beer in its own polystyrene esky beer cooler. Gourmet food, great pizza with the lot, at Texan serving sizes, local (thick and creamy) yoghurts and cheeses, from the myriad cows around the tablelands, and more.

Platypus, King Parrot, Emerald Dove, Tree Kangaroo, Guinea Pig, Brush Turkey, Possum, Frog, Poteroo, Red-breasted Finch, Spotted Catbird, Yellow Spotted Honeyeater, Wompoo Fruit Dove, Tortoise, Gecko. Apologies to any species I may have left out, yes you were cute too.

Spotting and interacting with these guys in the Atherton Tablelands was fine, meeting animals makes such a difference to a journey to new lands for me. The animals were generally timid, always there somewhere, and occasionally very friendly and trusting. The Parrots, Tortoises and Possums particularly so, eating out of our hands the special food supplied by the tree-house owners.

I spent my birthday up there, in an eco-treehouse 20 feet up in the rainforest. It was a great day, but was somewhat lonely towards the end of the day without being in touch with friends and family. I wouldn’t have thought it would bother me, there you go. I’m usually the sort that wouldn’t mind if not many people got in touch on the day, but when you are isolated, you have to stick to that.

Challenging, being in such a beautiful place with as much peace and natural setting as you can handle, and still feeling dissatisfied. First Noble Truth territory, definitely.

Still, it was seeing a platypus hunting for food in the local creek the next day which really made a difference. They come up for air for maybe 15 seconds and then dive down for a minute or so underwater. After a patient hour of meditative stillness in a stunning setting, where it was possible to apply the cocktail-party technique* to 20 or 30 different passages of water between stones, the little guy finally trusted us enough to show himself. Next to the rock I was perched on in the creek, there was occasionally a cloud of mud stirred up from the bottom, but no platypus visible. They are obviously skilled camouflagers and swimmers.

More coming soon when written. Actually I will set up a separate little blog for the holiday with photos.



* - It has been noted that when in the midst of a noisy cocktail party, it is possible still to focus in on one particular voice to the exclusion of others, and maintain concentration of what that voice is saying. Probably due to resonant poles of frequency which denotes a particular voice. The brain can do fourier analysis in real time, it seems. Sorry to get geeky there for a moment.