Atherton Tablelands (Australia Part 2)

From today onwards, we were three people traveling together: Another person from Germany joined us to explore Australia.

An hour after their arrival, we were picked up by a staff member from 'waitawhile' right outside our hotel to participate in the 'Day and Night Wildlife Tour'. It turned out that he was not only a trained biologist but also from Berlin, so we could ask for the German names of some animals again.

Right at the parking lot of our first main stop, we saw a Boyd's Forest Dragon sitting on a tree at eye level, undisturbed by our presence. We could observe and photograph it in peace.

Boyd's Forest Dragon

At the end of the photo session, the guide tickled its tail to make it climb higher in the tree. He told us that these reptiles are sometimes captured and kept as pets illegally. Unfortunately, the dragons usually do not survive captivity...

We then went on a little exploration into the rainforest until we reached a huge Strangler Fig Tree. These trees are formed when a fruit-eating animal brings a seed onto a tree. A young fig then grows, developing aerial roots that move towards the ground. Some of these roots wrap around the host tree and eventually strangle it once the Strangler Fig has grown large enough. Its roots can then support themselves, and inside there is the trunk of the dead host tree.

Strangler Fig Tree

This specimen was particularly large and impressive, so there was even a boardwalk around it. There we also saw a musky rat kangaroo, which belongs to the most underdeveloped of its kind - but not the slowest: It disappeared before I could take a picture of it...

Our next stop was at a crater lake, next to which a hiking trail led through the rainforest. There we saw giant trees called bull kauris (Agathis microstachya), which can reach heights of up to 50 meters and can live for several thousand years.