The literal Rainforest

Day four of our Yes we Cairns vacation was our first free form day. Rather than a set excursion, we had a car rental booked for both days 4 and 5. Our plan was to head southwest, towards a hiking trail called Windin Falls. It was an out-and-back hike to the falls, 6 km each way. On the way to the trailhead, we stopped at a grocery store for snacks and water, and saw another person just out and about without shoes on. We weren't even at a grocery store in a beach town, it was on the side of the highway. Apparently people here just hate shoes.

On the way out to the trailhead, we drove through the Gillies forest Highway Reserve. You know how sometimes in Canada they route highways through national parks (think Algonquin park, or the Cape Breton Highlands national park)? This was the same idea. Except instead of the deciduous forests that we were used to, this highway was routed through the rainforest. The route was very winding, with lots of switchbacks and tight corners as we climbed the mountains of the rainforest. It was raining a bit, and the twists of the road meant that we couldn't go very fast. But it was a fun drive. As we headed towards the trail head, the roads got noticeably smaller, until we inevitably turned onto a dirt road. Now official in a rural community, Justin was delighted to discover that rural Australians give each other the same top-of-the-steering-wheel driving wave that Canadians do.

Finally we made it to the trail head. We had hoped that the weather was going to clear up, but so far we had no such luck. We decided to do the hike anyways, as the weather in Cairns tends to change quickly and often. Plus, even though it was raining, it wasn't cold at all. In fact, all of the rain we encountered on the vacation to date was warm rain, which I still find to be rather disconcerting. So, we laced up our boots, donned our rain gear, and headed down the trail. Unfortunately, the weather did not let up. At some points the rain got lighter. At other times, the rain got heavier. There was even a brief period when it was actually both sunny & still raining. But it rained the whole 3 hour hike.

As you might expect, 3 hours of rain softened the trail significantly. There were multiple spots that were either giant puddles or very squelchy mud. When you are hiking in conditions like that, you eventually resign yourself to just being wet. Even the best gear hits saturation. We both had shorts on, so the rain that soaked our legs and socks eventually seeped into our boots. At some point we stopped being concerned about trying to find the driest parts of the path to step on, and we just walked right through. By the time we finished the hike, our boots were coated in thick red mud, and we had mud splatter up our legs and onto our jackets. When we changed back into sandals after the hike, not only were my socks so wet I was able to wring the water out of them, but we both had clear dirt lines on our ankles from where our socks were. But it was a beautiful hike! And to our credit, neither of us lost our footing or fell on the trail. The same could not be said for another hiker we met along the way. He was only a few kms behind us. While we were cleaning off at the car, we saw him coming off the trail. He told us he slipped about 1 km from the end of the trail. The poor soul must have fallen backwards because the entire back half of him - legs, butt, backpack, neck, head - was coated in mud.

The trail itself was actually quite lovely! The rainforest is more lush and dense than any other wooded are we have seen. There were parts where the woods were so dense it was downright dark. A lot of the mud and dirt on the trail was very red and thick, similar to what you see on the Fundy shores, or in PEI. It was also quite noisy - there was clearly all kinds of bird and insect activity happening all around us, including Australian brush turkeys and cassowaries. I had never heard of a cassowary until I got to Australia, and saw one in a zoo. If you have never heard of one either, they sort of look like more dinosaur-y versions of emus. They are birds with tall thin legs, fat bodies, and long necks. They are immediately distinguishable from emus by their mohawk-esque crowns and blue heads. They are known as a rather cantankerous species, that will attack humans with their very sharp toenails (up to 12 cm long) and very hard beaks. At the wildlife zoo we visited over Easter, they had both emus and cassowaries. The emus were friendly enough that they weren't penned in, and you could feed them. In contrast, the cassowary was penned in, and could only be fed through the wire fence.

During our first few days on vacation, we learned that the particular stretch of highway Cairns is located on is on was called the cassowary coast because its the natural cassowary habitat (similar to the fiddlehead trail or Evangeline trail at home). We had also come across the Queensland government briefing on cassowary safety, delightfully titled 'Be Cass-o-wary', and had read about how you should never feed them human food, because they will come to expect it and get aggressive. We also read the trail head placard at the start of our hike, that included information about what to do if you see a cassowary in the wild. The instructions were a touch ominous, but manageable: don't run, don't turn your back, slowly move to put a large stationary object between you and the cassowary. Of course, we read the placard not because we thought we would run into a cassowary, but because we like reading placards. So imagine our surprise when we turn a corner on our hike and see a giant cassowary about 15 meters ahead of us on the trail. Justin spotted it right away and we both stop dead in our tracks. Just to put it into perspective, cassowaries are between 4 and 6 feet tall, and about 120 to 150 lbs. They look more like dinosaurs than birds, and they make a nasty kind of squawk.

So there we were, in a stand off with a cassowary (still in the rain). Normally when we have encountered animals while hiking, they have been very skittish. They run away pretty much as they see/hear humans. Not true of the mighty cassowary. We stood there, staring at the cassowary for an easy 30 seconds before anyone moved. Eventually, I turned to Justin and asked if we should start making noise. We decided to just start talking loudly. The cassowary still didn't flinch. It just kept starring at us. We started to talk (still loudly) about what our potential next steps should be. We knew we couldn't run or turn our backs, but neither of us really wanted to get any closer. Finally, the cassowary decided to move, and it slowly meandered off the trail, clearly still entirely unbothered and unthreatened by our presence.

And so we continued on our way to the waterfall (still in the rain). We had head that while most of the trail was quite easy going, there was a steep decline just at the end as you reach the waterfall. There were also warnings everywhere about the steep cliff and potential for high water. As we descended down to the cliff edge, we understood why there were warnings everywhere. The trail was positioned so that you essentially come out right beside the flow of water, maybe 5 meters away from the cliff edge. Then there were rocks you could scramble down if you wanted to actually look over the edge of the cliff. Because it had been raining literally all day (and still was), the water levels were high, and everything was wet. We decided not to do the rock scramble, and instead enjoyed the view of the massive valley and river below.

The way back to the car was much less eventful in terms of wildlife, however Justin did have a run in with a barbed plant that left him with some cuts on one of his fingers. We also encountered our first leeches. We had been warned by many that lots of the water ways contain leeches. The rainforest is so wet that even if you are just hiking through it, there is a good chance you are going to find some leeches on you by the end. We had so much mud and general forest debris on us that at first we didn't realize what was tree parts bs what was a leech. We kept checking ourselves periodically during the hike, until we finally found one on me. Again, luckily we had read up on how to remove a leech. Its very similar to how you remove a tick - you find something with a hard edge (knife, credit card, etc), pull the skin taught, and then slide the edge down your skin until the leech pops off. I know the idea of leeches sounds gross. And they are. But I will take leeches over ticks any day. They don't hurt, they don't cause disease, and if you don't notice them, they pop off naturally in about a half an hour (after they have had their fill). That said, I wasn't really interested in sharing my blood with anything. With the leech successfully removed, we continued back to the car.

As we were finishing the hike, the rain finally started to clear up a bit. The timing was kind of annoying, but it was also nice to have a chance to dry off a bit. I discovered another leech on my ankle that managed to get under my sock. We got him off, but he had definitely gotten his fill. Neither of us was expecting it to rain literally all day, so we didn't have a change of clothes in the care. Instead, we just dried ourselves off as best as possible and put towels on the seats for our drive home. The rain held off for most of the drive home, and the winding forest road was much more fun to drive when it was dry.

Once back in the hotel room, we both scraped the layer of mud off of our lower halves. We were both shocked to discover that under all that mud splatter we had tan lines from the day! Despite the fact that it rained for literally the whole hike, we got enough sun to give us tan lines on our legs where our shorts were (we both had hats & long sleeve rain jackets on, so we didn't get sun anywhere else). I texted one of my Queenslander friends about this, and she wasn't surprised. She said the sun is so strong in Queensland that its not uncommon to get sun from reflective surfaces while indoors, through car windows, and yes, in the rain.

De-leeched, de-mudded, and finally dry, we decided it was time to celebrate our anniversary with an actual night out. I'm suddenly realizing that I may not have mentioned this, but we actually planned this trip to celebrate our 5-year anniversary. Nothing says love like leeches in the rainforest. Of course on our way back from the trailhead we had cookies and snacks, but neither of us had really eaten anything substantial since breakfast. We went out to a fancy cocktail place, where we had some of the best drinks we've had since getting to Australia. When we are feeling fancy, I drink dirty martinis and Justin drinks rusty nails. Neither of these drinks are very population in Melbourne, so they are surprisingly hard to find. The first round was so good that we immediately ordered a second one. As it turns out, a day of hiking + an empty stomach + 4 shorts of gin (which is what 2 martinis essentially are) = a very drunk Laura. Justin quickly realized we needed to go get some food, so we headed over to a decidedly unpretentious pub for some of the biggest chicken parmas we have ever seen. I ate all of mine, including my fries and salad, and then some of Justin's fries and salad. Tired, full, and still a little drunk, we wandered home. I entertained myself along the way by collecting palm fronds that Justin would not let me bring into our hotel room. Overall, it was a fantastic end to a fantastic day.