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November 12th: The amazing flora and fauna in Cairns

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Guna writes:
This is the first day in Cairns. We have spent night in our hosts’ – Andrejs and Zita, garden. After breakfast Andrejs offers us to show the mangrove forest, which is quite unique as one of the few wild mangrove groves in the world that is protected bio reserve. The groves are so out-of-this-world and nothing like even Gunta has ever seen. We take some… ok, many pictures of crabs and weird fish with big eyes able to move outside water – the mudskipper fish. The mangroves are a real jungle and a bit scary. If there was no broad walk to guide us through the grove, one would definitely get lost in there. Andrejs shows us the black-widow-style spider who eats it’s male partners after they have stopped being useful. Despite occasional warm drizzle interchanging with scorching sun filtering through the vividly green canopy we have a great time in this weird place.

Afterwards Andrejs takes us to the city library which is not so boring as it sounds. As we realize this as soon as we get out of our cars. The noise is constant and the source is the main object that we have come to see – the flying foxes or the big fruit bats have besieged the nearby trees around the library. Although it’s daytime and theoretically the bats are supposed to be sleeping, it is a very noisy sleeping. There are thousands of them. It sounds like they argue and chat and love each other at the same time making quite a noise. Now I understand where the legends of vampires and batmen come from, because they really look like batmen silhouetted against Cairn’s cloudy sky.

Interestingly the parking areas under these trees are free of charge not like the surrounding parking places. Still by parking your car under these trees you are is risking getting your car pretty dirty. We also have a quick step in the library to check out Zita’s fabulous picture of the bats – a present to the library.

Afterwards we take a walk down the beach which is lovely but the public pool just beside it looks much more inviting. The latter lets you feel like being in some kind of exotic beach with white sand and clear turquoise water. We observe some more local birds which Andrejs is very familiar with and of which, I believe, Anders understands much more.
The day goes by quickly but on our way home we just have a run in the local botanical gardens where I first see in real life a pond of lotus flowers. No wonder the flower has a fame, it s really beautiful.

We return home to grab some quick lunch before heading for the local zoo suggested by our hosts. We arrive at the zoo just in time to see the end of the crocodiles feeding show. In one house the local workers are in the process of making the koalas mate but I guess none of the two koala boys was going to get lucky today as the koala girl was screaming something fierce every time any one of them tried their moves on her. Agnese and I battle our inner battles and quickly lose to quite expensive koala holding sessions, but how can one come to Australia and not hold a koala – the incarnation of peace and all the cuddly things one can imagine! Our lovely koala girl Keyla is patient and bears with us the brief photo session.

Afterwards we catch the bird show which reminds me a bit of a circus of trained birds, still impressive and we get to see the really big blue butterflies just flying around in their home habitat.
It’s time to visit and feed some kangaroos and wallabies. This is the first time in Australia that we get actually close to these creatures as in the wild you just get to watch them gracefully hopping away.
The zoo is just about to close so a quick peek at the pelicans and we are off.

On our way home we stop by the Palm Grove beach. The water here near the shore is not the clear blue we would expect, rather it is muddy light brown and the waves just make the water more like Baltic Sea beach. Well, ok… the waves probably are bigger and the water is definitely warmer. Here you are only allowed to swim in the area enclosed by nets, and a lifeguard on duty. Only Ilgonis and Emīls are going for a swim, but I opt for walking down the beach and taking in the wonderful scenery.

Since we started our road trip this is the first evening in a long time that we eat our dinner actually before the sunset. It is wonderful, we are sitting outside in our hosts’ garden and enjoying ourselves for some time before some of us go and meet Mr Aleksandrs Gārša – an honorary consul for Latvia and a lawyer. Anders and Rūdolfs opt for staying at home.
Glass of wine with Mr Gārša and his wife is very cordial. We have some Tasmanian wine and cheese as well as Australian strawberries.
After coffee which comes from highlands just outside of Cairns and a group photo we head back home.

Turns out that during day the rain has got inside our tent, it is wet and really not a good place to sleep in. So Agnese and I take up on hosts’ generous offer to stay in Zita’s studio. And that’s when I find out that this day was supposed to be written about by me. So here I am sitting down on the floor of Zita’s studio and frantically trying to remember another day full of new impressions. Need for sleep is overwhelming so I will let others to take over from here to write about next day and new adventures that, no doubt, await us.

November 9th – On the way to Mt Isa

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Rūdolfs writes:
We woke up at six o’clock, a half hour later than usual. For breakfast we had a fried egg with sausage slices, tomatoes and cucumbers. Collected and stacked all of our stuff and went back to the Devils Marbles. That was around 20km back, but the distance is not that big. Emils is driving. We went as usual and then suddenly there is a big bang. Something hit the windscreen. Turns out that it was a hawk whom Anderss was trying to find out to which species the it belonged to, but realized that didn’t have enough visual details. For Emil this is the first time when something like this happens. Concluded that the glass is intact and the hawk is not noticeable we continued on with our journey.

We were at the Devil Marble billboard, or in the local language Karlu Karlu. I started to video record surroundings and went to the information board. On the information board were written details of how many stones were rounded up to the present day. As well as local inhabitant stories about this area. The locals come here and told each other about their dreams.

There also is a story of a mother and daughter who had settled down near this area. It says that the daughter had been taking a walk across the Devils Marbles and the spirit of the earth that lived under the stones had started to play together with her. The daughter had not been able to stop playing and escape until the mother had pulled her out from between the stones and ever since hadn’t stayed here.

Meanwhile, everyone had went on their own to explore the area. Ilgonis was headed to the top. Agnese was not far behind him and I decided to tag along. We got to the highest accessible point. Top view is spectacular, though several locations were just as high or even higher, but apparently there was some kind of fence around few. After surveying the view I posed for few pictures and filmed 360-degree view with Go Pro Hero camera. I stayed there a bit longer, but when I turned around both of my friends were gone. After that I went to explore more rocks and walk around. I figured out that I needed to attach the camera to my head and change my sneakers to hiking boots. Went back to our car and get ready for a proper walk across the rocks. Adjusted camera and started to run along stones. I was running around and looking where it is harder and where easier to put my feet. I found myself in a place between two rocks where it looked awesome to climb up between them like you see Jackie Chan do in his movies. When I got to the top I saw that from the other rock the view is much better. I got on the other rock by jumping over and found myself to be on the highest place in this rocky ground. The 360 degree view was beautiful, albeit mostly there were burnt down grass and small trees, but on the other hand the running on these fields is easier without the grass, although mostly I run across the rocks. Enjoyed the surrounding views and jumped back, carefully where I needed to jump, because the ground was not so good, but soon enough I found an easier way to do it. Got to the other side and kept on running. Up and down, through gaps, so cool! Had enough of running, I walked outside of the track to see more, because I have run through to the other side of rocks.

I noticed a plate and went closer to see what was written on it. There was written about one crab species and frogs that lives in the area. Although it is mostly rather dry, but both during drought lives in self-excavated burrows, which are humid and then wait for the rain. A surprise on this, because once as a kid I watched a broadcasting about something similar, but never thought that someday I would be there. I went down the trail and the view on sides was not less impressive.

On another plate was written that chemical processes cause the surface of the blocks to expand and/or shrink. Thin layers of rock come off the boulder. This rounds the granite block, because the chemical processes have more effect on areas with edges. These processes cause the rock to look like it is made of layers like an onion. A bit further down the trail I encountered Anders next to a stone that looked like the ones in Stonehenge. Further I notice a stone that looks like a sausage and has inscriptions. I looked back and saw that some of our group were taking pictures of ants anthill. The area looked like a desert, although every now and then you can see bushes and small trees.

We arrived at Tennant Creek and there filled tanks with gasoline. Along roadside and beyond what your eyes can see where termite hills like towers even up to one meter. They were more than enough and to put up a tent in a place like that would not have been wise. Suddenly Ilgonis sharply stopped the car, put in reverse and then I noticed the reason for such action. Nearby road was huge termite hill, 2 meters high at least and the diameter of it was not small either. Ilgonis already with his camera was approaching it and I decided to go as well pick up my camera and went to look around the termite hill. I must say that the view was just spectacular. In one place a small fragment had fallen off and there one could see the cells. They were so huge and hardly any of us wanted to see the residents, even though it looked like it to be abandoned or hiding more deeply under the ground. We took some photos and both of us headed back to the car through the fields of termites watching where we put our feet.

Then ahead of us was a long straight road and it seemed that it would be much easier if we blocked the steering wheel and put a brick on the gas pedal. Wherever we looked all we could see were large clearings. In 360 degrees you could see the horizon. Afar only a few trees and herds of cows.

The dusk was approaching and I was behind the steering wheel. Then I noticed a pair of kangaroos next to the road, so I rapidly slowed down so that others could look at them and take photos. Nowadays it is a rare chance to see kangaroos in wild. They quickly disappeared from our eyesight. Then we continued with our journey and not long after we noticed another pair of kangaroos and again we slowed down to take a look at them. Overall, so far we had seen six kangaroos a day. Including today seen kangaroos it’s 10 now. During the heat of day they are hiding in shadows, but comes out usually when the weather is cooler. This day we got lucky because we managed to see so many. It is unfortunate that often would not notice. Maybe this way it is even better, than to hit them accidentally with car when they out of nowhere jump on a road.

We continued our journey to Mount Isa, it was a black night outside, but afar were visible lights indicating that we were not far from reaching Mount Isa. The closer we got to Mount Isa the more sight on the right side reminded of lit out power plant. The city during night looked magnificent and lively, after all the industrial work was active there. Found our hostel, parked our car, entered and the receptionist divided us in two rooms. Ilgonis, Anders and I were in one room and others in the second room. Our rooms were far from each other. Agnese put me to writing an article, some were making dinner, some were swimming in the pool or taking a shower. We all ate dinner together and discussed our events of this day.

Now that I have finished my article I can go to bed and have a good
night’s sleep. Goodnight. :)