The first thing I will say about this area is that it's HOT. Julie promised to save some cool weather for me, but she didn't. The driver said it was 46C according to the sensor on the roof of the bus, but that probably took into account some reflection back from the metal roof of the bus. I think I heard it was 38 degrees, and man was it humid!
We drove for what seemed like hours past dry woodland and forests - how different this area is from the rainforest we just left. The trees were sparser and just a little underbrush - we learned later that all this area floods whenever the monsoons come - so it's mostly eucalypt forest which can withstand the flooding and then months of dry weather.
We took a brief stop at the Howard Springs weir to feed the fish - you dangle a small fish just touching the surface of the water and watch the fish get ready to take it from you - then faster than you can blink, the fish grabs it with a great splash. Also saw an absolutely huge spider!
All together today we saw three different water falls, the Florence Falls, the Tolmer Falls and the Wangi Falls. We had a chance to take a dip in the Wangi Falls, and it sure felt good because it sure was hot. There's never a 100% certainty that there are no crocodiles in these pools because the area floods and the crocs manage to float or swim in to areas of fresh water - salt water or esturine crocs also live in fresh water.
One of the oddest things we saw was huge - and I mean HUGE termite mounds. The most impressive kind are called cathedral mounds, but the magnetic mounds were interesting in that they are built along the north/south magnetic pole line. Wonder who taught the termites to read a compass?
Along the way, on one of our rest breaks I had a chance to talk to a young aborigine woman who was painting - one of their traditional dot paintings. I had a really nice chat with her and found out that her favourite paint is JoSonja, and she paints all her designs, no matter what size with a round brush. One of her paintings was huge! I can't imagine painting dots (sometimes dots on top of dots) with a round brush on something that large.
1 comment:
I think it was while we were in Florida early this year that we also saw termite mounds and I agree...they are strange looking! I wouldn't have liked to run into that spider! That thing was big! :-)
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