Day 359 | Ray's Place: exercise of the on foot variety
rest day
Yesterday I just crashed out.
I found it hard to move, that magnificent verandah and its serene jungle view and noises was just too compelling. Then again I was just completely pooped.
Made up for my slackness today can’t stop my restless spirit for long, an exciting race around the Barron Fall NP, the park is more or less contiguous with the dense vegetation around my current accommodations.
After half an hour of walking on one of the old logging trails, Smiths Track, I had a curious case of deja vue, the track, the topography, the yellow clay surface occasionally exposed between the fallen leaves all reminded me of my many youthful traipses up the Dun Mountain Track behind Nelson in NZ. Different species of tree and shrubbery but all with the same feel: tree ferns, broadleaf, the taller trees, the hanging epiphytes, if that isn’t a tautology, the orchids, bush lawyer, liverworts, quite spooky.
The first lookout, Toby’s Lookout, gave slim glimpses of the Pacific through the greenery so I scurried around to Glacier Rock where a humungous vista awaited, a cliched azure Pacific on the left, around to the right the high rise of Cairns, way below the historic tourist railway to Kuranda, I’d heard clanking as one of the trains struggled its way up the steep slope earlier in the day. Now I was surprised to have more noises as a 4WD cruised down the rails, these bloody things go everywhere.
Overall a 6 hour wander, I’d set off in the morning, err, late morning, in my shorts and sandals and it wasn’t long before I was wondering if it was appropriate Tropical attire out in the jungle, don’t they have the world’s most venomous snake, the Taipan, around here, grows to 3m in length, but fortunately like those oversized Great Danes, timid.
I’d seen an Orb style spider outside Ray’s toilet window, outside being the important word there, their abdomen is about the size of a single, large, make that largest joint on my fingers, and span about the size of my palm. The next day there were two and today there was a third. Hope they don’t continue their proliferation. I wrapped my face in a few gigantically strong webs today but thought: where exactly were the occupants. A few moments were spent searching so I wasn’t giving them any free ride.
Actually more worrying for bare legs is the local Stinging Tree, a nettle that zapped me last time I was here, agony for hours, painful for weeks, still able to be felt when I put my hand in warm water months later.
As it turned out it was the leeches that got me this time around, my feet were itchy when I made it to Glacier Rock, took the sandals off and it was a massacre down there, blood dripping, two now greatly enlarged leeches dropped out with blood oozing from 3 other points.
Leeches, pheet.
Is that the best they can do? I had real specimens on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea when my boots filled with blood at the end of the day.
Paradise is OK for a visit but the dampness I reckon would eventually get to me.