Look Out! They Could Kill You

Woke up to another gale this morning; a stiff cool breeze from the south east again. Mike, the project coordinator, decided the white caps formed by the wind would make it too difficult to see whales. Missing whales would skew the daily count to a lower than realistic number, altering the results of the census. Therefore, we get our first full day off in 6 days...hurray. There is a lot of the island that we haven’t seen yet since we’ve been restricted to staying within walking distance of Point Lookout; we only get a 2 hour break between shifts. So today we’ve decided to take a bus to Dunwich and check out the interior of the island. If you look up North Stradbroke in Google Earth, you can see that there are several inland lakes fringed in gum tree forest, along with an endless expanse of dunes along the eastern coast. There should be some good birds to be had near the lakes, and we stand a good chance of spotting a koala.

Speaking of animal sightings, I finally saw my first Roo yesterday. There were two large once and a small Joey grazing on a lawn near Norm’s Seat at sunrise. I’ve never seen an animal move in such a way, it looks a lot like their moon walking. They were fairly tame; I sat on the lawn next to them for about 15 minutes. They eventually grew tired of my presence and hopped back into the woods, but they past within a meter of where I was sitting. One of the big ones was caressing the tail of the other in a very sensual way, which made me a little concerned about my well being. I’ve seen those videos on Youtube and didn’t want to become another roo molestation statistic.

Yesterday during a lull of passing humpbacks, I was told about a terrifying marsupial that lurks around the gum trees called a Drop Bear. It’s a carnivore that sits on out hanging limbs, and waits for its prey to pass below. It then drops down unto its unsuspecting prey, and bites into their jugular. Lou tells me they have enlarged index fingers with sharp claws that enable them to grasp onto the neck of their victim. They only hunt at night using oversized red or yellow eyes (depending on the species) and their completely silent. Not too many photos of them exist, since they usually kill you before you see them. What a horrific yet unique form of evolution, an image of the chupocabre comes to mind when trying to describe them. Needless to say as we were walking to Fish’s Restaurant for Tai night last night, I stayed well away from over hanging limbs. I was pretty startled by one of the fruit bats though, they are freaking huge. It was as big as a crow.

Oh yeah, and there’s also the Hoop Snake (another species to add to the list of things that will kill you down here). They lower a section of their body down from a limb (in the shape of a hoop) and coat hanger you as you walk by. They then strangle you to death. I don’t even think Bill Bryson would want to “Walk in These Woods”. Even the Laughing Kookaburra, the bird in the photo, gives you a weird look if you get too close. We had two on the fence outside out house this morning, and I’m fairly confident that one of them was giving me the evil eye.