Wildlife of FNQ

By Jen.

We had sufficiently explored north of the Cairns area, so it was time to start our journey south again through Far North Queensland (FNQ). This was another turning point; we will no longer be heading north on our circuit around Australia. First on the list was the Babinda Boulders. This is a section of Wooroonooran National Park that centers on a river that cuts through granite. While calm that day, it can turn into a vicious torrent of swirling water, which has claimed many lives. In aboriginal folk lore, a woman who lost her husband died there and her vengeful spirit calls young men to her to drown them. Despite its negative history, it is a beautiful place.

A colorful pigeon that was acting injured in front of us (probably to lure us away from a nest).

When Jonathan was researching a place to stay the night before, he came across a comment about a tea plantation “across the way” that had tree kangaroos in its trees. Well, of course, I had to look into that! Turns out, this tea plantation is the only reliable place you can see tree kangaroos. Ironically, it was very near a place we had been earlier, so I was upset we had missed. I thought about just heading on south, but decided I didn’t want to regret missing the tree kangaroos, so I had Jonathan drive us back around the mountain range (for probably the 8th time) on the winding road to Nerada Tea estate. Sure enough, when we arrived, there was a group of tourists who had already spotted the tree kangaroo.

They only look slightly like kangaroos, and are the only ones in the kangaroo family that can move its back feet separately.

Cutey, isn’t it? This is a Lumholtz tree kangaroo (there is a Bennett’s tree kangaroo that is even more elusive).

To make the trip across the mountain ranges even more worthwhile, we picked up a few more points of interest along the way. Malanda Falls Conservation Park was a pleasant surprise. The falls themselves weren’t that interesting, but the park was peaceful and full of wildlife.

The river before the falls was full of turtles of all sizes.

We must have seen at least 20.

Mother and nursing baby! There were tons of these miniscule wallabies. I think these are called swamp wallabies, but that is just me taking a guess. They were maybe a foot tall.

We eventually crossed back over to the coast and renewed our hunt for cassowaries, largely classified as the most dangerous bird in the world!

While we were at the beach in search of a cassowary, this kookaburra landed between me and the van. I managed to get really close!

After the stroll down the beach, with no success, we decided to head back up the road and onto our next destination. However, on the way out, we saw one! He was walking alongside the road.

A beauty, isn’t he?

He walked back into the rainforest right by the van!

They are massive 90kg birds and can stand (leaning back) to 2 meters tall. They are normally pretty chill, but if you get between it and its chicks, or if it finds you as a menace, it will act like it will attack with its beak, then jump up and slice at your neck and/or stomach with its massive claws. We were observing it safely from the comfort of the van.

Great Barrier Reef

Arguably, the most famous tourist attraction in Australia is the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Varying from 5 to 75 miles off Australia’s east coast, it extends thousands of miles from Cairns to near Sydney. Really a collection of reefs, this massive organic superstructure is easily visible from space. (Jen Note: Until coming here, I imagined the reef as one big underwater wall, which is definitely not the case.) It is called a barrier reef because it blocks the majority of the surf coming from the Pacific Ocean. This creates the long stretches of calm beach, which are present all down the east coast.
The basis for the GBR is the coral. These colonial organisms build skeletons of calcium carbonate in their pursuit of sunlight. These skeletons, both living and dead, provide the base upon which an enormous interconnected ecosystem rests. The GBR is so large that is has a very real impact on the coastal weather. For example, the Daintree rainforest gets over 30% of its rainfall from cloud systems generated by the GBR.  During hot days, the coral in the GBR releases sulphur-gas compounds into the water.  These create low-lying cloud cover, protecting the coral from overheating in the shallow warm seas. So the rainforests on the mainland may not exist without the living coral reefs!

We took a day cruise to snorkel a few sites near Port Douglas, Queensland. Before I get to the cool wildlife pics, I need to get a few things out of the way.

First, I have a terrible farmer's tan. No, I don’t sit out on beaches trying to crisp my skin.  The UV here is ridiculous.
  

Second, Everyone (and I really mean everyone) looks ridiculous in a snorkel and mask. 


Third, It is hard to get a feel for the scale of things with underwater photos.  Many of these corals are hundreds (if not nearly a thousand) years old.  The large coral in the photo behind Jen is almost 10 feet across. 


Fourth, the GBR is dying.  Corals are very sensitive to water temperature. The aggressive and never-before-seen warming of the planet due to greenhouse gas emissions has pushed many of these reefs to the limit.  Just two degrees Fahrenheit increase in water temperature causes mass bleaching events.  If the temps don’t go back down in a week, the coral will die.  It can takes decades, or hundreds of years, for reefs to recover.

To start out, the great fear of mean, sharks. Sharks are really not dangerous at all, even the great whites. Of course, Jaws would have you thinking differently. This is one of several species of reef shark, which is about 5 feet long. 
 









Hey, look, its Nemo….  One of a large variety of anemonefish.  The biggest one is the dominant female.  So Nemo’s dad, actually turned into his mom (they are hermaphroditic). They have also started being hunted agressively for aquariums since that movie came out.
























This is one of many species of parrotfish. They graze on algae which grows on corals, but also on the dead chunks of corals themselves. The leftover coral skeleton is excreted. Those beautiful white sand beaches in the Caribbean? Yep, they are fish poop.


Corals get most of their energy needs from symbiotic algae which they host inside their bodies.  This means a healthy coral is a dull brown/green color.  When corals are stressed they produce extra antioxidants to protect against the algae's oxygen production. This makes them a vibrant blue, orange, or purple color.  The early stages of bleaching also look this way, before fading to a chalky white, and finally a dead coral.  The coral in the photo below is recovering from a stress event, probably high water temps, or similar.


The variety of coral shapes and sizes is staggering.




These are younger giant clams.  Only about a foot across, they are anchored to the coral base, filtering water for food.  They never stop growing, and can exceed 4ft in diameter after a hundred years or more.


This is a sea cucumber.  The vacuum cleaner of the reef, they slowly crawl over the sandy bottom, sucking up the sand, and eating any organic material it contains.


This is one of the more common species of sea turtle, known as a Green Turtle.  Interestingly they are not green on the outside.  Instead it is their green fat which gives them this name.  Diving for over 30 minutes at time, they often migrate thousands of miles a year for feeding and breeding. This one is about 30 years old, and has a 30 inch long shell.



This is probably the smartest creature on the reef, the cuttlefish. A distant relative of the squid, they can change the color and texture of their skin at will, making them nearly invisible.  They can also swim forwards or backwards if they so desire.

Research and Rainforest

By Jen.

In Cairns, first on the list was to get me a new camera. I would really like to upgrade to something with higher dynamic range and more manual controls, but that pretty much means going to a dSLR, which is expensive. And, since I found out you can’t get cameras worked on in other countries, I decided I should just get a cheapo that should last me another 6 months (seems to be the about the max before they need repaired or cleaned), focusing on the major thing I need to take pictures on walks (good zoom). There weren’t a lot of options in Cairns, so I just bought the cheapest point-and-shoot they had decent zoom (above 20x). Turned out to be the Nikon B500 at the Camera House. I was really hesitant about it, mostly because it is such a big camera. I mean, it isn’t massive, but is about twice the depth than I am used to with the compact, superzoom point-and-shoot cameras that I normally own. I couldn’t go smaller without losing a lot of zoom or spending several hundred dollars more. As a plus, it has less moving parts, which should make it a bit more robust. This should also help me figure out whether I can actually handle a camera with a removable lens (as opposed to the retractable, built-in ones that I normally have), since, similarly, I won’t be able to put it in my purse or pocket. The plan was to see if I liked it during the next event (Skyrail), which was also in Cairns area, then if I didn’t like it, I could return it.

Next day was the Skyrail. It is a gondola ride above the canopy of the rainforest. It was really well-rated so we thought we would give it a try.

 

While we were passing over the river, we saw bird of prey swoop down and grab a snake off a dead tree. It was pretty cool.

We upgraded to the glass bottom for the first half.

At this point, I am just thankful to have that annoying purple smudge out of my photos!

While we were in the area, we decided to do research on how we were going to visit the Great Barrier Reef. We didn’t really feel like trying to learn how to dive, so we focused on finding a snorkeling tour. I had been kinda hoping to do it somewhere outside of Cairns, but I was having a hard time finding information on most of the tours. Then, the few that I found ended up being more expensive, or not as good a place to snorkel. By the end of research, I had narrowed it down to these three, based upon reviews, snorkeling location quality, and price: a Green Island visit ($93pp), Seastar Cruises ($195pp, visiting Michaelmas Cay and Hastings Reef), or Wavelength Reef Cruises ($239.50pp, visiting Opal Reef). We decided that since we really only wanted to do this once, we would go on one of the more expensive cruises and avoid the larger, not-directed crowds at Green Island. I checked both, but Seastar was already booked for the next day. Wavelength had only 2 spots available, so we took them! Time to knock that one off our bucket list.