Unwelcome U.S. import: Cane Toads

After a rainy afternoon in the camper, we had a night on the town in Port Douglas – which started at the local Cane Toad races. Hosted by a Steve Irwin-esque bloke, the races consisted of 6 toads that were placed on a table. The jockeys, randomly selected from the audience, had to coax their toads off the table by blowing party blowers at them, making the toad jump into their hands and placing the toad in the victory bucket. Overall, very amusing. Sadly, our tickets did not get called to be jockeys and I resisted the competitive urge to pay $40 for one in the last “auction” race. We did, however, get to play with them afterwards. We learned that they were an ill-advised import from the U.S. The sugar cane famer who introduced them (to get rid of the destructive cane beetle) brought 100 to Queensland. They did not in fact get rid of the beetle and with no natural predators in Australia, have multiplied population figures that exceed that of the human race. Yikes.


The Roster

Jockeys trying their best to get the stubborn toads to move

Sarah has had to kiss a lot of toads in her day...now it was Jonathan's turn. He chose the most petite one.

Port Douglas

As we wind down our trip we are taking it a bit easy. We grabbed sushi and ate on the beach one day, and followed that up with a long drive deep into the rainforest (4WD track of course). When Sarah finally yelled UNCLE!! (actually, she just looked really barfy) we turned back and headed to our standby camping spot. The only friend we met this night was related to Kermit (see below). Jonathan harassed him during a photo shoot and he still just sat there. In fact, he was still there the next morning.
We spent another morning shopping in Port Douglas, explored some coastline and giant fig trees near town and grabbed a bite to eat on the main drag before some rain came in. If the rain stops, we plan to participate in some Cane Toad races at a local pub this evening…we’ll let you know how we fare.

Sarah & the giant curtain fig, which Jonathan clearly had to climb

Digeridoos in a local aboriginal art shop

Kermit was about 6" long (a GIANT green tree frog, literally)

Wild Maggie

We got an early start today and were the first customers to Townsville’s information center this morning. Estelle and Gaila – two lovely elderly ladies wearing bright pink lipstick who volunteer at the tourist info center – stocked us with books, warned us to be croc wise, told us some funny stories and sent us on our way.
After a quick stop at McDonald’s for our WiFi fix we hopped yet another ferry to Magnetic Island, or “Maggie” as it is known by the locals. Twenty minutes later, armed with sandwiches and our snorkeling gear, we were on the shores Maggie ready for our day’s adventure. Yet again our camper had to stay on the mainland (only a few lonely hours this time) so we were at the mercy of public transport (gasp!) and our feet to get us around the island. We hopped off the bus at a lovely swimming beach, but decided to start our walk before getting wet. We crossed a well manicured field by the beach and came upon an echidna – nature’s cross between a porcupine and an anteater. About the size of a bowling ball, this spiny critter was shoving his long nose into the ground searching for (we think) bugs or ants or some such deliciousness. We were able to get pretty close and he seemed wholly unaware that he was the subject of our photo shoot. (We may have been the equivalent of crazy foreign tourists who take pictures of squirrels, but we didn’t care – the little fella’ was so neat!) 80 photos later, we commenced our walk up the island’s hills. We followed a walking trail that was for sure ridden with Death Adders and other scary things that could kill us, and ended up on a cool path where we spotted wild koalas in the trees. They are so interesting! Frankly, they don’t do very much other than look cute, and their furry grey bums are quite hard to spot, but we enjoyed the search nonetheless. We eventually made it down to Arthur Bay – beautiful blue waters emerging from giant boulder fields on the side of the protected cove. There was great snorkeling in the fringing reef just offshore. We saw lots of corals and colorful fish and snorkeled till it was too cold to do anymore. We hoofed it back up a serious hill, spotting a rock wallaby (like a mini kangaroo) en route and caught a bus to the ferry back to the mainland. A great day!

The brave wildlife photographer frames his subject

Not-so-cuddly echidna (E-Kid-Na)

Check out his weird little snout - he kept digging it into the ground!

"eagle-eye" Sarah spots another one

sleepy koala

A different kind of wild creature - this one came right out of the sea!

Crikey! What a ‘beaut! (Our homage to Steve Irwin)

Today was possibly the coolest day EVER (second to the wedding). We headed out early to visit the Australia Zoo. This, as our guidebook had promised, was NOT your average zoo. The place is designed in a way so that visitors can have interactive experiences with animals. The Croc’ Hunter believed that giving people an opportunity to interact and have good experiences with wildlife would help them want to save it. It worked for us!! This is truly the Croc’ Hunters zoo, unless an animal was dangerous (venomous snakes, crocs, tigers) you were able to interact with it. Animals in cages this was not! We brought our new binoculars but never needed them. Pathways wound through habitats where the animals flew over you, slept in the gum tree above you, or hopped right by you. We “gave a cuddle” to koalas, hung out in “Roo Heaven” where the kangaroos and wallabies roamed freely among the zoo visitors. Even a momma ‘roo with a joey in her pouch allowed us to give her a pet (and some roo food!). We had a chat with one of the zookeepers who explained that these roos were bred in captivity and therefore comfortable with humans…wild roos are obviously much more skittish. Grandpa S. – we found one who has you beat – one of the zoo residents celebrated her 178th birthday (we bet you can figure out which picture she’s in). The highly animated and crowd-involved show at the “Crocoseum” was informative and entertaining - crazy tropical birds buzzed around the arena inches from our heads! The show had a very strong conservation message about how people can live along side of wildlife. (Note: The croc participating – Shaka – wasn’t really cooperating with the zookeeper…so we think his “tail walk” was not as high as normal. In the wild he’d go after the bats pictured in our earlier post). Jonathan begrudgingly put his head in the mouth of the model croc – based on a real life Salt Water Croc. If you can imagine a place that exudes the enthusiasm that the Croc Hunter had – where you were encouraged to walk off the trails and experience wildlife – you can imagine this place. We were (are) amazed – one man was able to have such an effect on people and make such a difference. Walls full of Irwin’s signature khaki shirts signed with messages and tributes to him were exhibited by the Crocoseum. We routed back to Brisbane via the unique looking Glass House Mountains where Jonathan longed for his ropes & harness. But alas, we had a full day and have to get ready for a night on the town in Brisbane, and picking up the 4WD camper tomorrow!