We managed to get away for a week in the middle of January, between student intakes for both Wanda and Alistair. Gloucester Tops was our first destination – beautiful Gondwana remnant forest clinging to the slope of the Barrington Tops mountain range. These forests create their own microclimate – damp, cool air and cloud cover that encourages amazing mosses, epiphytes and fungi to grow under a rainforest-like canopy. We enjoyed walks alongside the young Gloucester River and by Staples Creek, marvelling at a lyrebird’s amazing repertoire of sounds and spectacular feather display. We also saw a number of other beautiful birds at the campground – iridescent blue superb fairywrens, the noisy green catbird and the rare rufous scrubbird, among others.
We were less impressed by the number of leeches we encountered – Alistair won the ‘attachment race’ with eleven across the few days (Wanda got one!) … and the prize was a bacterial infection in his left arm (the leech had hidden under his watch strap!). We have since found out that salt on a leech causes them to regurgitate their feast back into the host … and this shares whatever extra nasties that were in their gut prior to their human drink.
Next stop was Stuarts Point, a very quiet village on a tidal lagoon (the Macleay Arm) that used to be the port at the mouth of the Macleay River before it changed course after a massive flood. We had a terrific time kayaking up and down the lagoon, ensuring we timed it so we worked with the tidal flow. We got some great drone footage, showing the beauty of this quiet place. An early departure back home was required, to avoid what turned out to be a massive storm with accompanying flooding. We escaped that experience by half a day!
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