Day 23, May 17, Big Crystal Creek (Paluma Range NP)

In the morning, we admired the platypuses by the river once again, and at 8:00 we set off through the misty rainforest, down into the sunny valley. Here, we could still admire some birds, the Australian bustard, pheasant coucal, and the currawong from the family of butcherbirds, which looks like a mix between a jackdaw and a magpie, but has a very pleasant melodic song.

Then we headed back north, past Townsville and took a left after 70km, back into the rainforest. After about 6 hours of driving and 500km, we arrived at the Paluma Range National Park, at the Big Crystal Creek Campground, beautifully situated under tall eucalyptus trees. We heard many birds, but didn't actually see anything.

The Crystal Creek invites for a swim here. We saw many large fish that went wild when we fed them white bread. So wild, in fact, that one of them bit me on the nipple, which hurt a bit and bled slightly afterwards. But the laughter about the mishap was louder than the little pain.