After breakfast at
our restaurant across the road, I walked down to the centre and hired
a mountain bike. I was desperate to get back out into the rainforest
somehow and this seemed like my best option. There's a large
satellite map of the local area in the visitor centre and it looked
as though I could take the road that we walk down to get to our
bungalow to get out into an area with extensive forest cover. This
isn't where the centre staff suggest that you ride, but I had been
out where they point people on my walk back from the 'trek' and
there's no forest left there.
The road took me out
past the village's secondary school and then into some very
attractive countryside – mostly melaleuca woodland. As I rode
along, I wondered why the centre staff didn't send people out here
instead of up the main road towards the other village. And then I got
my answer (part one), as I came to a very narrow bridge – just two
planks of wood wide. I briefly considered riding over it, but the
consequences of failure to stay on the planks were too high, so I
carefully pushed the bike across.
Continuing on, the
scenery was even more attractive and again, I wondered why this
wasn't the preferred option for bike riders. And then I got my answer
(part two), as I reached a spot where the road had been completely
washed away. A small creek can just cut straight through where the
road had been, leaving a huge, unbridged gap. The only way across was
to just walk through the stream, so I picked up the bike and waded
in. Unfortunately, the bottom of the stream was very soft, and I was
soon up to ankles in mud, and up to my thighs in water, but I made it
across and was soon on my way again. And then the road just ended. I
stopped and considered my options. I could turn back or I could take
one of the little sandy tracks that radiated out from the end of the
road. Sandy track it was.
It was pretty hot by
now and when I had left the bungalow, I had grabbed a bottle of water
without looking too closely at it. Looking at it now, I discovered
that it was less than half full. I was already parched, but I was
going to have to ration myself if I was going to ride much further,
so I just took a couple of sips and rode on. The track took me
through more grassy melaleuca woodland and then past a small patch of
rainforest and into an extensive melaleuca swamp. I wasn't convinced
that I could follow the track through the swamp, so I turned back and
investigated the rainforest patch. As soon as I got off the bike, I
spotted some movement in the trees ahead – a small, striped mammal
was running around the branches of a large tree. Looking closer, I
saw a small chipmunk – and then another. I followed them deeper
into the forest and then saw more movement in the trees – a flash
of orange – and suddenly I was looking at a lovely big squirrel
that was looking back at me. It obviously found me just as
fascinating as I found it because it ran over and down a liana and
sat staring at me for some time. It was soon joined by another that
also came down to check me out, and then they both scampered off.
This was only a
small patch of forest, so I hopped back on the bike and backtracked
to the end of the road, and then chose another sandy track to follow.
This one took me into a big grassy area where cattle were grazing. I
rode on and then, finally, I came over a slight rise and saw what I
had been looking for – a seemingly impenetrable dark green wall
rising from the pasture ahead. And impenetrable it was – the
regrowth at the edge of the forest patch was too think for me to get
through, so I rode on a bit further until I found a spot that looked
less overgrown. There, I hid the bike in some long grass and stepped
beneath the canopy. This forest seemed healthier and I was able to
pass more easily between the trees. Without a trail to follow, I was
slightly nervous about heading too far in, but thanks to my years in
the rainforests of north Queensland, I was able to safely navigate my
way in and out a few times in different sections of forest. I didn't
really see a great deal though – some birds and fungi and some
lovely trees and epiphytes, but no more mammals and not even any
lizards. Perhaps my most interesting find was a strange funnel
emerging from the trunk of a big tree, which, on closer inspection,
turned out to be the entrance/exit of a wasp nest.
By now I was getting
properly dehydrated – a bit dizzy and a bit headachey – so I
turned around and headed back. When I finally made it back to the
bungalow Kate had half of our clothes out drying in the sun – as
did most of the village (it didn't rain all day – a rarity here at
the moment – and there was washing everywhere, even hanging from
the net on the volleyball court), while the girls did some school
work. I went straight to the room and drank my way through several
bottles of water, before heading back into town and dropping of the
bike and grabbing some beef-skewer rolls.
When it got to the
evening and it still hadn't rained, Kate and I started to get a bit
nervous. We're due to get the boat out tomorrow, and after our very
moist arrival, we would rather not make the journey back in the
pouring rain – so we're hoping that the clouds aren't saving it all
up for tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment