One Year to Give: Finally...a platypus!!

Pioneer Valley - bordered on three sides by the Clarke Range. The bright green
throughout the valley is sugar cane. There are hectares and hectares of it between
Rockhampton, Mackay and Proserpine and Airlie Beach

Flowering sugar cane - we hadn't seen this before!

From Finch Hatton, towards the end of the Pioneer Valley, we drove out to the Finch Hatton Gorge and then did the steep windy drive up to the Eungella National Park. Picturesque scenery!

Eungella (pronounced young-gulla), roughly translates to "land in the clouds". However, we had a fantastic clear and sunny day to see the sights.

I'm sure these two weren't the first, and won't be the last, to play gymnast on this thick vine hanging across the path, on a rain forest walk!

After briefly glimpsing a platypus at the bush campground in the morning, I was determined that we would get a photo of one at the viewing site at Broken River, in the Eungella NP, where it was reportedly 'easy' to see them. On arrival, the kids rushed ahead and managed to see one a few times, playing in the water. However, by the time Jon & I got there it had disappeared! Several times during the day we spent some time checking this bit of the river to see if they were around - interspersed with a bit of walking, eating etc. But no...the little critters were hiding, sleeping, or whatever it is they do in the middle of the day!

We did see other wildlife tho' - plenty of turtles, goannas, lizards, brush turkeys, kookaburras, cockatoos, a leech (on my ankle!), and a ...snake! Rockhopping up the edge of a river and Jed pulled up short when he encountered the following:

Jon assured us it was a harmless python!?! Whatever,
the stupid thing was "sunning" itself in the shade on a
lump of cold rock, so probably wasn't going to move very fast!
Not like us....we moved pretty quickly!

Turtle, sunning itself

Finally, the sun started to go down a bit and we headed back to the platypus platform, where I was prepared to sit it out and wait! Which I did for an hour, but it was worth it...

Hooray! At last my playing platypus. It was very exciting.

Finch Hatton Gorge was a nice walk, not too long for once, which the kids were pleased about. And again, it would have been good to have been a few degrees warmer, as at the base of the Araluen Falls was a fabulous swimming hole, but the water was freeeeezing!