Next stop Mackay....

The reason I came to Mackay, other than because I needed somewhere to break up the 24 hour drive from Cairns was for Forest Flying - where they strap you to a zip cord and you fly through the canopy of the forest, allowing you to see much more than you would from walking through on the ground. As I found out there really isn't anything else at all in Mackay, except the attraction of the surrounding rainforest. Unfortunately I couldn't do the forest flying in the end, for various reasons out of my control, so I booked myself on "Jungle Johno's Forest Tours", and absolutely didn't regret it at all.

We left at 5am so that we could get to the forest at Eungella for our morning of platypus spotting before it got too hot for the Platypus to come out. Now the platypus are never really out of the water for you to see for more than about 20 seconds, but when they do come out it is definitely a sight worth seeing. They are the cutest, most bizarre looking animals ever - with their giant bills and their big beaver tails! At first we only got a couple of second glimpses here and there - they disappear into the water so fast, and are very sensitive to any sound or movement. But as we learnt to shut up and sit still we saw them more for what they are - very funny things! They seemed to have a fondness for coming to the surface, floating on their backs and having a good scratch of their heads, which was hilarious to watch. We also saw what cheeky and playful little things they are - for about 20 minutes on and off a young male was chasing a female around the river. But the funniest thing by far was when a platypus swam up to a turtle twice his size (of which there were many in the river), bashed him on the nose and then quickly swam off!

After watching the platypus we (only 4 of us plus a guide) walked through the rainforest. We found high up looking points from which we could see for miles and miles over the rainforest, over farmland, over the small surrounding towns and all the way to the sea. The guide showed us as we walked along all the crazy plants in the rainforest and how they all live off each other. Half way along we stopped at a beautiful waterfall, with a pool you could swim in below - 2 of our group did, but I hadn't quite recovered from being wet on Fraser Island for swimming yet! However, the water did look gorgeous. And finally on the way back we stopped off in a famous pie shop. I had chips.

There isn't really words that can describe the rainforest (unless I want to write an entire book on it!) so I took a lot of photos!

I would also like to say something about the place I stayed - Larrikin Lodge. It was quite a small hostel, if you can call it that, run by a couple - Bob and Wonda, who were absolutely lovely. So incredibly helpful and accomodating. They tried to sort out forest flying for me and when they couldn't they sorted out my rainforest tour instead, gave me a lift to the bus stop, let me stay all day in the hostel for free after I'd checked out (when normally there's a day rate of $10) and where just generally lovely, chatty people.

Oh yes, and Mackay was so hot that I did in fact melt. Twice.