Back at home 4:30am would more likely be a bedtime than a time to wake up but for the past week I have diligently pulled myself out of bed and gone out on early morning adventures. These mornings have primarily been to the river in hopes of seeing a platypus since I missed that opportunity at the aquarium. Happily I am reporting that after a few mornings of only seeing the ripple of a platypus, at 5:27 on Sunday, January 15th, 2012 I legitly saw my first platypus and in the wild even! I got a solid look from about seven feet away for about 20 seconds while it surfaced. The picture I hope to post soon is crummy but hey, a platy pic is a platy pic. The unsuccessful mornings prior to seeing the platypus were still delightful and so worth waking up “at a sparrows fart.” I am excited to say that I managed to wake up between 4:30 and 5:00 every morning during our stay and was usually able to rally some company. Yay!
There was a bamboo forest that was absolutely unreal at Crystal Waters. Had it not been pouring this morning, I would have liked to have adventured that way. The rain also put a damper on my morning roo watch. On sunny mornings it was nice to watch them grazing outside of the village center. One morning two were fittingly fighting out by the playground. Hopefully I can post that video at some point.
While morning light tended to make things a little extra magical, there were so many other great things to see:
A light rain beading up on the surface of the big lake that Emily, Preston and I daringly went swimming in.
View over the valley from the on top of the water container. This adventure was inspired by an attempt to see a koala. While that was unsuccessful, Preston, Emily and I had a jolly good time getting lost in the back woods. After ascending unending hills, crossing over some barbed wire fences and then making a steep descent we found ourselves back on the road but not in the place we intended to be at all. Luckily it was close to Max’s house and we were able to hitch to dinner on time. Seeing that Max was pleased with us taking the opportunity to explore the place was satisfying.
Seeing a spread of beautiful food. I will post pictures of some of our meals. They were so colorful!
Human waste composted into awesome dirt. (a product of Barry’s dry composting toilet).
Telephone booth windows recycled and used for a house. (Sustainability can be so creative and fun!)
Huge green tree frog (Grreeeeegggg) chilling in the toilet.
Max's garden was most impressive. Especially after our PLU team did some chores around the place. (Janet and I raked hay up like champions! Our pile of grass sure looked good.)
There was so much! Check facebook for more pictures so you can see for yourself.
No comments:
Post a Comment