The next day, we went to Magnetic Island to see koalas 🐨 🐨 🐨. At first, we didn't see any, but then we had a surprise...

We even saw one with a baby!!!! (Picture 1) When we went to the ferry, we also saw some rock wallabies.

Onwards with fun and another island........🏝🏝😁😁😁😁😁

Next up are some islands....😃😃😎😎🐨🐨

When we arrived, we learned that there are crocodiles in the sea! Unfortunately, we couldn't go swimming. 😢

On our first full day, we went snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. It looked so beautiful!! We even saw a turtle 🐢 🐢!!! She was so cute... We named her Linda.

The next day we played games by the sea and went swimming in a pool. It was freezing cold. We continued our journey the following morning. Onward to the next campsite! 🏕🏕🇦🇺🇦🇺

A short summary of our visit to Sydney:

On the first day, we were exhausted from the overnight journey. 🥱 We went to a harbor near our hotel. There was also a water playground that was very cool. The harbor was beautiful as well. When we could finally go to our room, we were very amazed 😲. The apartment was well-furnished and very spacious. My sister and I naturally picked the better room 😁. That was already a good start in Sydney.

On the second day, we had a tour of the Sydney Opera House!!!!!!! Although it was in English, it was still very cool.

We discovered quite a few things. After a small walk through the adjacent park, we visited the

It was a long day at the 'Kakadu National Park'. At 6:25 AM, we took the bus to the boat dock, as we had booked the 'Yellow Water Sunrise Cruise' for today. Yellow Water is an inland billabong and part of the wetlands. It is a vast area featuring mangroves, small islands, many lotus flowers, and of course, fish, water birds, and crocodiles. The sunrise through the mangrove thicket was very atmospheric, and the many birds, including hundreds of juvenile ducks, sea eagles, and numerous crocodiles, all out on their 'breakfast tour', offered many beautiful photo opportunities. We were very close to the animals, and on the 'river arms', only the sounds of the animals could be heard. The boat's engine was very quiet! After two hours, we returned to land and continued into the park, without a long break, to view ancient Aboriginal paintings at two sites in their original setting. Some were up to 20,000 years old. They were primarily under rock overhangs, and it was necessary to not only navigate rocky paths but also look closely to see where they 'hid'. What was depicted? Naturally, many fish, turtles, people at work, and we also interpreted horses. Exploring the various sites was really exhausting at 34°C. One must not forget the filled water bottle here under any circumstances. Water was also available on the road; we had to cross through at two points. At the edge of these dips are measuring rods so that drivers can decide whether to continue. At 15 cm, we could confidently take the risk! However, the river crossing was not meant for us. After accomplishing this, we returned in the afternoon. And now, the restaurant continues to fill for the aforementioned reasons.

Since today is Children's Day, and we are all children and have children, there is also a video with an Australian reference.

Start, skip the ads, and turn your phone horizontally so that the attached ad does not interfere:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5bmpuAjI3xE&feature=shared

In the morning, at 7 AM, it's always fresh - it was 11°C today, but the temperatures rose very quickly again. Change of location, our penultimate station here in Australia. First, we headed to the gas station. Finally, a gasoline station again, giving one the feeling of saving. We wanted to head back to the Outback, as gas stations are rare and you never know how much you will drive in the wilderness. Initially, we traveled within the 'Nitmiluk National Park' to the 'Edith Falls', which were 60 km away. The road - as always - was sparsely traveled. Thus, it was astonishing that we counted nine dead wallabies on the first 13 km. No wonder we see so few living ones! The waterfall flowed into a lake where swimming is currently prohibited due to crocodiles. The area was very idyllic, and there was also a snack bar and campsite. A powerful noise came from two large trees, where hundreds of flying foxes were probably sharing experiences from the previous night. From there, we returned to the highway, towards our destination today - the 'Kakadu National Park'. The name is misleading, as there are not masses of cacti here, but it comes from one of the tribal languages of the local Aborigines. We used our turn signal in Pine Creek once more - time to fill up the tank again! There we passed the railway and mining museum and explored the area! Later we read that it is even a UNESCO World Heritage site. Here, around 1880, gold and copper discoveries were made. Over 1000 Chinese sought their fortune here, and a 'Chinatown' emerged as well. The railway was built in 1889 to transport the rock. But business soon came to a halt, and thus the railway was no longer needed. With a lot of money, they surely established this open-air museum, which now 'slumbers' in the sun. We visited and read everything with interest. Further stops along the main road were not possible, as side roads were blocked. The last rainy season, which ended a month ago, probably left many damages. One kilometer before our destination today, there was indeed a highlight: the 'Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Center', which presents the life and development of the local Aborigines in a very successful exhibition. For the first time on our long journey, we saw something like this. It was well-attended and presented modernly. A recommendation! In the afternoon, after about 350 km, we arrived at the 'Cooinda Lodge Kakadu'. A beautiful facility, everything very clean and spacious! A room in this yellow bungalow was reserved for us, with a quiet air conditioner and, as always, a large refrigerator!

However, during the 3km walk, we did see a huge python again. And it’s not, as initially suspected, the common carpet python, but an amethyst python, a specialist of tropical rainforests. The species Australian amethyst python (Simalia kinghorni) was only classified as a separate species from the actual amethyst python from Papua New Guinea in the year 2000. These animals can grow up to 5 meters long, making them significantly longer than the common carpet python. Today, the snake was seen looped around a tree trunk. It was surely over 2 meters long, but probably not 3 meters. We also saw a musky rat-kangaroo and some flying foxes.

Then around 10:20, we took the ferry across the Daintree River. On the other side, we had another, our last, river trip from 11:00 to 12:00. In contrast to yesterday, it wasn’t through narrow channels of the mangroves, but up and down the wide Daintree River, which is more than 100 meters wide. This last river trip was rewarding: we saw a nearly 3-meter-long female and a over 70-year-old male measuring 5 meters, who had only one tooth left in its mouth. More impressive to us were the small crocodiles, a one-year-old saltwater crocodile about 50cm long, and a hatchling from this year approximately 30cm long. Both were basking in different spots on a branch extending into the river from a fallen tree, at 2 distant locations. Finding these young crocodiles is significantly more challenging than finding the older ones.

After the boat tour, we took a shower in the camper, put on fresh clothes, and drove back to Cairns, where we returned it without any issues at 14:30, and then took an Uber to the nearby airport. The international terminal is very small, everything was still closed, but the Singapore Airlines counter soon opened. Everything was relaxed; the flight to Singapore departed as planned at 18:15 and lasted 6 hours. It became stressful there because the next flight was only an hour later, leading many Germans to run through the airport. However, the connecting flight was also easy to catch. At 12 hours, it was quite long. We landed in Frankfurt at 6:30, immigration and luggage were no problem, and we took the train to Kehl at 7:51. The trains were initially empty, then full from Baden Baden, overcrowded from Appenweier, but at least we managed to squeeze in. We were home by 10:45, and by 17:00 German time (1:00 AM Cairns time), we were so tired that we could barely keep our eyes open.

An impressive journey thus came to an end, a trip we will always look back on fondly.

However, the weather was significantly better today, mostly blue skies and sunshine. Back at camp, we did see a large, about 1.5-meter-long monitor lizard. The break was short, then we drove 20 minutes back through the rainforest to a tour through the mangroves at low tide. We saw three saltwater crocodiles on the shore, and they were quite visible, but barely any birds. I am still amazed why there are so many fewer birds in these wetlands than on other continents.

Other tourists on the boat had just seen a cassowary at the Mangroves Board Walk, which is a 10-minute drive away. Very frustrating, as we had wanted to stop there before our boat tour. So after the boat tour, we went there, then the 30 minutes to the walks at the Discovery Centre, and on the way back, we tried the Board Walk again, but all without success. No helmeted cassowary for us today!

At 14:45 back at camp, we took advantage of the good weather to take a walk on the beach. Then we started cleaning up the camper and packing our things, because tomorrow we head back. The rest of the day was correspondingly uneventful.

If anyone is wondering how the animals are actually found, they will find the answer below.                   --> Always follow this pattern: 

Spotting Planes: Most operators use small light aircraft that search the Ningaloo Marine Park coastline early in the morning. From a bird's eye view, the huge, bright shadows of the whale sharks in the shallow water are easy to see.

Coordinates Announcement: Once the pilots have located a whale shark, they pass the exact GPS coordinates to the boats.

Spotter Swimmers: A so-called 'spotter swimmer' often enters the water before the main group to confirm the exact location and swimming direction of the shark.

We set off early, at 6:30, because it only takes 1.5 hours from Cairns to reach the beginning of the Daintree, and then another hour to Cape Tribulation, where most of the lodges and such are located. Therefore, it is somewhat overrun by tourists and holidaymakers from Cairns.

Around 8:00, we arrived at the ferry across the Daintree River. Since none of the toll booths were operating, we crossed for free for the first time. 15km later, we reached the Daintree Discovery Centre, the private information center, which was still closed. No matter, 1km later we found a Day Use Area where we parked and did two hikes: a short 700m hike on a so-called boardwalk, a sort of platform through the forest, and 3km on root paths through the jungle, partly climbing over fallen tree trunks.

And here we also saw the main attraction of the Daintree: there was heavy rustling in the bushes, I saw something black that I initially thought was a wild boar. But Lindelani spotted it correctly, and I finally saw the blue neck and head, with a red helmet: a cassowary! The view was not good and did not last long, so we could not take photos.

There are said to be about 3000 cassowaries left in Queensland, meaning Mission Beach, Tablelands, and Daintree, but due to the density of the rainforest, there are no reliable counts. Sightings are an impressive sensation for tourists, but only a few have the luck to see one stepping out of the forest onto the road or during a hike. Therefore, we were satisfied with our sighting. It would be the only one.

When we arrived, we were the only car. When we came out of the forest, the parking lot was full, even at the information center where we were kindly informed.

At 10:00, we were at the headquarters of the Rainforest Conservation Foundation. Two days ago, we had met Ron Baldwin, one of the directors; he had heard our presentation and invited us to visit here. The manager Golly was there and took a lot of time for us.

Golly is 70 years old, very fit, and had double braids of hair that reached down to his knees. He told us wild stories about the “locals” in the Daintree, aged hippies with fried brains, people hiding here from the police. When one of the crocodile cruise safari providers died in a traffic accident, it turned out that he was one of “America’s most wanted,” sought by the FBI for drug-related issues.

In the past, the Daintree was not yet protected, and the rainy area, with over 3000ml of rain per year, was unpopular, the real estate expensive. Many funny characters bought here, and there were also cattle farms and sugarcane plantations. For this, the ancient rainforest was deforested.

The conservation organization has purchased private properties and reforested them. To do this, Ronny grows seedlings of about 70 (of 900) tree species, which are then planted by him, volunteers, and students. He showed us on a neighboring private property how that looks. We saw newly growing rainforest in different stages. The trees grow quickly here, and after just 20 years, you have a healthy secondary forest with tree giants.

Since the forest is so old, there are also primeval tree species that no longer exist anywhere else, living fossils. Among them is Idiospermum, known as the dinosaur tree. 70 million years ago, its fruits were eaten by dinosaurs, and the seeds were thus spread. After the extinction of the dinosaurs, no other species took over this function, as the fruits are toxic to mammals. The tangerine-shaped hard fruits simply fall to the ground and roll somewhere, where they may germinate. This explains the very small distribution area of the species. Meanwhile, Golly has now planted them almost throughout the entire Daintree.

After three very interesting hours, we said goodbye to Golly. We went to the famous ice cream factory that everyone in Cairns recommended to us; however, the ice cream in Kehl tastes better. After 14:00, we arrived at our campsite in Cape Tribulation, almost right on the beach, with only a few trees as windbreaks between the parking space and the ocean.

James Cook named Cape Tribulation on his first South Sea voyage in June 1770 because that was where the 'tribulations began' at the Great Barrier Reef. The HMS Endeavour ran aground on a reef, and the crew had to repair the ship in present-day Cooktown for weeks.

The weather was not particularly great; the sky was overcast, but we walked a bit along the beach and a nearby boardwalk of 1.2km. At night, we walked the route again and after about 20 minutes reached a nearby lodge for a two-hour night walk into the forest along the boardwalk. We did not see any mammals, but there were spiders and insects. The whole thing was rather tedious and boring for us. But there were highlights: glowing scorpions under the bark of dead trees, UV glowing mushrooms, an eel in the river.

I primarily went snorkeling. The underwater life was impressive, as were the corals. However, there were also many dead corals. The reef was not as beautiful as I had seen in the Red Sea in Egypt, where it is significantly cheaper. For us, the day cost a hefty 200 euros per person!

However, while snorkeling, I did see a Green Sea Turtle twice. It was for quite a long time and very close, as the creature is used to people. It was difficult for me not to touch the animal, as it was so close and kept coming nearer. An absolute highlight.

The ride on the submersible, a ship where you sit in the belly and can look out through glass, was disappointing.

Lindelani also snorkeled, but just a little bit. She cannot swim, and although she couldn't go under with the equipped life jacket, it was still not very comfortable for her.

But then she did go down, walking on a platform below the ship with a kind of diving helmet that was directly supplied with oxygen like an astronaut's helmet, where it was teeming with fish drawn in by food.

All in all, an unforgettable day at the reef!

Our last day on the Australian west coast: a day at sea and a sea day - watching or swimming with whale sharks was booked. We were optimistic because they are around here from March to July outside the reef. This meant getting up early again, first a 45-minute bus ride to the boat dock and then a shuttle to the ship. Then it was time to get dressed, as the black wetsuits were supposed to prevent even bigger 'jellyfish injuries' today. Next was trying on fins along with masks and snorkels and the briefings/instructions.

How does such an observation tour go? Two fixed groups of 8 and 9 people were formed, with one crew member for instructions for each group. The captain signaled when a whale shark was nearby. Then everyone had to put on their gear and line up in several rows, group 1 followed by group 2. When we were close enough, the photographer jumped into the water first. The photographer signaled from the water, then the skipper shouted: 'Go, go, go!' and the groups had to rush quickly from the back of the ship into the water, led by the 'leader'. There, everyone formed a line and off we went. In a line, so everyone could see the swimming fish well. After that, the group split up and accompanied it a little further. Rules: do not swim in front of, above, or below it, and maintain about 4 meters distance. The 'practice snorkeling' back in the reef revealed many colorful fish, just like in a big aquarium! Then we went over the reef into the ocean. Surprise! A humpback whale showed itself multiple times, blowing, with its mouth open and diving repeatedly. Completely new for us was the sound when it 'blew', as the exhaled air is released explosively at high pressure. This release produces a loud, hissing, whistling or bubbling noise, somewhat like the launch of some New Year's rockets. Actually, these creatures don't come until July. It was a spectacle! Then dolphins accompanied us, seemingly racing with the boat. Finally: whale sharks nearby, feeding on plankton and small fish. During several snorkeling trips, we got to admire some of these giants. The photographer said the largest one was 9 meters long. The animals were not disturbed by the snorkelers either. Everything had to be done quickly, because the shark does not wait. On the last run, there was a 'mass attack' of jellyfish, and the little creatures always find uncovered spots. After that, the boat strongly smelled of vinegar, as this alleviates itching. This is also part of the underwater world! We are really looking forward to all the pictures that will be sent later. It wasn't just the snorkeling that brought joy and satisfaction; the supply of cakes, vegetables, fruits, and tasty wrap or burger ingredients did too. Drinks shortened the long return trip! We really saw a lot and were taken care of by a great team! It wasn't as hot today, and there were even a few raindrops, which are actually insignificant on a day at sea, but for us, they were the first drops here on the west side!

To finish, we stocked up a bit - our car was particularly 'hungry' since the day after tomorrow, we have a longer stretch without a gas station. The last picture shows the shell haul from our neighbors. They must know particular spots, surely 'underwater', because you can't usually find such things on the beach.

After a wonderful 45 minutes, we headed back towards Atherton, but before that, we turned left to Peterson Creek, which is famous for its platypuses. However, we were looking for the colony of the Spectacled Flying Fox, which is the third largest species of flying fox in Australia. We soon found them, smaller than the colonies of the Black Flying Fox, but still a few hundred individuals, and they were in less dense trees than their larger relatives, making them easier to photograph. Their eyes are surrounded by blonde fur, and their heads are otherwise brown to black, giving the appearance that they are wearing glasses. Hence the name Spectacled Flying Fox.

This species is threatened in an unusual way by an invasive plant, a wild tobacco that grows a few meters high but has very popular flowers with good nectar for the flying foxes. This nectar is also healthy for the animals, but on the low-growing plant, there are ticks that transmit a deadly virus to them. The ticks do not occur on their natural, much taller food plants.

At 11:00 AM, we were then in Cairns, a city very popular with tourists in tropical Queensland, known for its sand and the Great Barrier Reef but otherwise not particularly special. We freshened up and then met at 2:00 PM at James Cook University with our colleague Tasmin Rymer, who was doing her doctorate at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg when I was there as a postdoc. That was already over 20 years ago! Now she is a lecturer here.

The university is beautiful, small, and clean, well-equipped. We met Tasmin's four international doctoral students who are working on freshwater snails, birds, social spiders, and platypuses. Cairns, with only 220,000 inhabitants in the humid-hot tropics, is not popular among Australian students; most prefer Sydney or Melbourne. However, it has a very good reputation among international students.

At 4:00 PM, both of us gave a talk, each lasting about 20 minutes, to an interested audience of about 30 people. Great contacts were also made here, with a conservation organization in Daintree that we plan to visit on Friday, and with John Endler, a famous behavioral researcher who has studied bowerbirds. After that, we went out to dinner with Tasmin. All in all, it was a very successful day today.