Score! Last night we stayed in a cabin near Lake Eacham. The man there gave us a tip on where to spot platypuses (platypi?) in nearby Yungaburra. So we hopped in the car and hightailed it down there, as light was running out. Sure enough, right where he directed us -- well, I don't know who was more startled, the platypus or us. Marjorie even got pictures and a video, which I will post soon.

Our quest on this trip was to spot a Victoria's Riflebird, doing its mating dance. (What can I say, we like the birds.) We did spot one on our birdwatching tour, but no dance. We tried again this morning, and managed to spot another in the carpark of Lake Barrine, but again no dance. This was a better viewing, though, and we got some more footage of him as well.

We're at an internet cafe in Cairns now, killing time until our flight home...

Two amazing days so far up here in northern Queensland.

Sunday we took a birdwatching tour and ended up seeing 76 different species of birds! Probably more, actually, but we didn't count the common ones that we have down in Melbourne. We also spent a fair bit of time trying to track down a Victoria'a Riflebird, which, if you're ever seen David Attenborough's "Life of Birds" "Trials of Life", you know has the craziest dance in the animal kingdom. We did manage to spot one, but didn't catch the dance.

Today we took a tour out to the Great Barrier Reef. A beautiful day, weather-wise, and more than a few interesting sightings. I remain kind of bummed, though, because by now I've had to have been snorkeling at least 100 times, and still have yet to see a shark. I think I exude some sort of natural repellent.

Tomorrow: well, life is pretty good if all you have planned for the day is "massage". They'll have to be careful, though, since we both got a fair sunburn...

Yesterday was Marjorie's birthday, which we spent pretty much in transit up here to Port Douglas on the northeast coast of Australia. Portents were bad when:

We found out the day before that our dog sitter we had arranged months in advance through Top Dog had no idea we were coming, and we had to find someone else

We received an email from Virgin Blue the day before asking us to confirm our flight to a different city, at a different time

Mark went to get money from the ATM, and ended up leaving the money in the machine and just taking his card. D'oh! Still trying to work out whether the money got sucked back in or I made someone's night.
But we're here now, and it's lovely. We were awoken this morning by huge flocks of (some sort of) parrots flying over our bungalow. We ended up taking a stroll down the street at 6 am a scoring about five new species, including a satin bowerbird (we think (update: this one was actually a black butcherbird)). Tomorrow we're doing a major bird tour, then snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef later in the week.