After a late-ish
breakfast at the café, we headed out on today's walk, taking the
boardwalk through the mangroves (where it was low tide and the mud
was crawling with hundreds of brightly coloured fiddler crabs, waving
their single oversized claw at each other) then following the loop
trail back the way we had come in yesterday afternoon before taking a
side trail off to the left. Before we started the climb we passed
through a boggy area where a group of frogs was calling excitedly.
The trail took us
through the same mix of vegetation as yesterday – a bit of
rainforest, a bit of heathland – before we arrived at our
destination: a builders-tea-coloured creek with a few deep pools in
it and a few small waterfalls up- and downstream. We quickly stripped
off and jumped into the cool water; the main pool was quite deep –
at least a metre and a half – and was alive with some
interesting-looking fish.
Suitably refreshed,
we climbed out and made and ate some lunch. Not long after, we were
joined by two young Italian couples were returning from the end of
the trail we had followed to get to the swimming area. They agreed
with our decision not to continue on to the end – the tide was out
a long way, the haze killed any views and the walk back up from the
beach was pretty arduous. So instead, we just hung around by the
creek and swam some more, chatting to the Italians.
By mid-afternoon we
were ready to head back, hitting the shower as soon as we made it to
the room. Sarah went out to give some apple cores to a bearded pig
that was hanging around and was soon calling out that she had seen a
snake. I ran out to see, but it had already disappeared into the
undergrowth. On my way back to the room I spotted some movement that
turned out to be another snake – a long, thin, striped colubrid. I
quickly grabbed it by the tail, but when I picked it up, it thrashed
around a little alarmingly, so I released it and watched it, too,
disappear into the undergrowth. We all sat down on some seats on the
walkway outside the room and the pigs came over to see us. One of
them started chasing something in the grass and sure enough, it was
another of the striped snakes. This time I managed to get into a
position to take a few photos, although the snake was moving so
quickly that few of them turned out.
After dinner at the
café, we went out for another night walk, finding the usual
assortment of frogs and geckos, as well as a small, brightly coloured
snake.
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