Been there done that?

[Michele] Coming back to far north Queensland I wondered if exploring the region would have lost some of its fun since we've seen a lot of the landscapes and critters before.  Yeah, yeah, another cassowary.. whatever.

On the bus home from school last week Robin saw a dad cassowary and his chick and exclaimed "Cool!".  Robin's friend responded "Did you just say 'cool' about seeing a cassowary?  I see one every week."

Well sure, if you see things a lot you can get blase. Certainly, none of us are charmed by wallabies anymore.  So would tidepooling here just be dull because we've seen all these creatures before?  Would we yawn our way though rainforest walks?



Um, no!  At a super low tide a few weeks ago I saw an octopus crawl into a hole under a rock. Cool! Note to self: bring camera on tide pool trips!

Today Robin, Gavin and I walked up Bicton Hill on a track that we hadn't explored before.  It was awesome and at the top of the hill we were rewarded with this amazing view. Can a place this beautiful ever seem commonplace?

Mid-winter view of Mission Beach from Bicton Hill

On the way back down, some other astute hikers spotted an Echidna. We had never seen one of these in the wild and even in zoos they are tricky to see because they are typically nocturnal.  This one was just 1 m from the trail and happily snuffing around for bugs under the dead leaves.

echidna snuffing for bugs

Echidna in photogenic pose

Australia continues to charm us!