Down Under

her site with all the photos.. including polar bears and Whales is http://www.fish-fairy.blogspot.com/

atherton tablelands
I am soo tired... had a fantastic 2 days tho.. on the atherton tablelands. Yesterday we drove up to 750m above sea and visited 2 different crater lakes - lake Borrine and lake Echam.. lake echam had little freshwater turtles which breath through their bottoms - exactly how I'm not too sure!! will have to look that one up! We also went to Mt. Hypipamee. Hypipamee crater is a diatreme formed by an explosive eruption of volcanic gases which blasted through solid granite. Angular blocks of granite as large as refrigerators can be found in the surrounding rainforest, giving testimony to the power of the explosion that hurled them there. The lake which has formed in the crater has not been mapped completely by divers...
Lake Barrine ( Echam) was formed around 10,000 years ago when a large volcano erupted, leaving a crater that over time filled up with water to create a lake. The crater was formed around 95,000 years ago as a result of a series of volcanic explosions. These explosions were caused by the hot molten rock coming into contact with groundwater. This caused a buildup of steam, gases and pressure which blasted the central core from the volcano. This massive explosion left a huge crater, which filled with rain water to create Lake Barrine.
The lake is 730m above sea level, on average it is 65m deep, it is 2km wide at its widest point and has a circumfrence of 6km is the largest of the natural volcanic lakes in the area. No streams or springs feed the crystal clear lake; it is filled only by rainwater.
There are some huge fig trees which have grown from seeds which were deposited high up in another tree. they grow roots to the ground, and grow around the host tree which eventually dies. There are 2 huge ones in the Atherton Tablelands, the curtain and cathedral fig trees. We visited both, and they were a fantastic sight!
There was a chance to swim at lake Echam, but I didnt take it, the lake didnt look that attractive but apparantley it was warm (ish)!
We then headed to Millaa Millaa Falls - named by the aborigines - 'water water' The waterfall is beautiful, absolutley breath taking, and then I had to get in the water and swim beneath them... the water is SO cold it completely took my breath away & only managed a couple of shallow breaths on my swim out to the rocks behind the falls! Looking up from underneath was well worth the pain though!
We stayed in a little village on the atherton tablelands in a logde run by the tour company ' On The Wallaby' which was great...!! The lodge is run by a couple of very friendly young men. Before dinner we went on a walk along the creek looking for Platypus. It took a while, but we eventually spotted one on the surface of the river, and then it dived down to get some food from the bottom of the river and returned to the surface. They are amazing animals.. so much smaller than I expected!! It was a great sight watching them feeding.
We would have like to have gone night canoeing, but they need a minimum of 4 people and we couldnt convince any of the other guests to spend 25$ to come and spot all the nocturnal wildlife on the lake. Instead we took out a couple of spotlights and walked along the road towards the curtain fig tree. The main noctural animal we were looking for was the Tree Kangaroos. But not far up the path to the fig tree we heard a dog barking on the farm nearbly, and a huge dog was running down the road straight towards us. we didnt know if he was friendly or not...!! It turned out he was! But the problem was he was running into the rainforest before we got there, scaring off any potential wildlife we might have spotted!! There was also a full moon though, and animals tend to be scarce as its a lot easier for predators to see them!
In the end I was scared off by a tree that made a strange growl-croak sound everytime i shone the torch near it!!
Today we had a fantastic time walking around Lake Echam with our guide Matt, and in the afternoon we went in a canoe on lake timaroo spotting Pelicans, Comoronts, Kingfishers - SO beautiful!) We also saw an eastern water dragon, and a tree kangaroo sleeping high up in the branches. It was an amazing day, and we had a personal tour for the full day. I ended the afternoon playing with a snake which the guys rescued from lake timaroo last year. It had been attaked by a kookaburra and had a wound on its head. they think it might have brain damage as it takes no interest when they try & set it free!!
posted by Rach at Tuesday, August 08, 2006 0 comments

Sunday, August 06, 2006
it's been a while....
i haven't written here for what seems like ages!! Mainly because we've been very busy and it's hard to find internet that doesnt cost the earth! There's loads to tell, I'm not sure where to start...
We arrived in Cairns after a long flight from Perth via Melborne, only to be one case short, which was dissapointing as it had to be the one with our dive gear in, so we couldnt plan our dives until it showed up. Luckily it was the day after, and then the following day we headed out on the Rum Runner which is a sailing boat, accommodating 16 people +crew, therefore not the biggest boat, and the swell on the way out was near to 2m, so it was a long jouney, a bit like a roller coaster lasting 3 hours! We were greeted however, by a humback whale! It was an awesome sight!!

The diving was fantastic we saw so many fish! there were Barracuda, anemone fish, wrasse, shrimps, loads more & beautiful coral! We did a night dive and there were hundreds of tiny bright red eyes illuminating the coral when we shone our torches, and a big Red Bass which was using our torch light to hunt. There were so many stars! I found it hard to sleep in a constantly rocking boat, and when we got back on dry land the next afternoon it took me a long time to get my land legs back!!

After a day off relaxing, we then went on a completely different boat to the Agingcourt Ribbon Reefs which are a lot further north from Cairns, we left from Port Douglas. The boat was huge! The diving was very organised with a strict 40 min dive time (Rum Runner had been very flexible, the only thing limiting our dive time was the fact that we got cold!). The dive sites were different, there was so much beautiful coral and loads of life. The highlight of the day was the shark on the last dive, which was about 10m below us on the sandy bottom, and was at least 2 metres long... We'd seen a couple of reef sharks, but this one seemed considerably larger, escpecially wider, than the comparably skinny black and white tip reef sharks. I couldnt get a clear photo as it was so far below us, but the dive guide was ushering us back to the reef and away from the shark, which dissappeared and came around again for a second look. Back on the boat the skipper had a closer look at the hazy photos I'd taken & identified the shark as a Lemon Shark... which aren't very friendly!! It can't be fun being a dive guide and spotting an unusually large shark when you're responsible for a group of divers!!

After a night in Port Douglas... which is a town for rich tourists.. it has a population of 3500 but has over 30000 hotel beds& 80 restaurants & many exclusive villas, we headed on a day trip to Cape Tribulation, named by Captain Cook when his boat hit a reef a way out from the headland, and he was stuck there for several days. We went to a wildlife park and saw a couple of big saltwater crocs, the biggest the guide has seen was 11m+....

To be continued........