The next day we got up at the usual time (read: early) and headed out for day full of waterfalls.
There were seven waterfalls on our schedule, two of which were off on their own leaving the last five on what they called their “waterfall circuit.” It was mostly driving over the mountains and through the country to get to these falls, but there wasn’t much walking involved at all. Most of them where close to the parking areas, so it was pull up, get out, take pictures, get back in, repeat as necessary.
Beautiful waterfalls. Every one of them was fantastic.
In order to break up the waterfalls, we also stopped to see two big “touristy” sites. One was the Cathedral Tree, and the other was the Curtain Tree. They are both Strangler Fig, which I’d never seen before, and both were really neat.
Also on this day, was something we didn’t intend. Passing through the small town of Yungaburra, we saw a platform labelled, “Platypus viewing.” There were a couple of people there, and it was next to a wood shop we wanted to look through, so we decided to stop and see what this was all about. The young couple there said that the platypus was there and was coming up every minute or so, so we sat and watched. Sure enough, we saw him up close and personal, several times, took several pictures, and thought it was great! Platypus in the wild. He was funny!
Later on, at one of the waterfalls, we saw a couple of people standing at the base. They had been swimming in the splash pool when the lady realized that “something” was in the water with them. Fearing that it was a small crocodile (indicating that LARGER crocodiles could also be about), they swam back to the rocks a short distance away. Looking back into the water for a few minutes, they realized it was another Platypus. This was miles away from our first platypus sighting of the day, but we looked around. Less than a minute or two later, there her was. A small, but unmistakable platypus swimming around in the waterfall splash pool. Jacoby went wading into the water, just so he could say he went “swimming with the platypi.” Not a bad idea, I suppose. How many people can say they did that??!? Roughly the same number of people that have seen two platypi in the same day from two different locations, both “in the wild” I would guess...
