We've worked our way south, slowly, and had quite a few interesting "encounters". This area here is called "The Wet Tropics" and there is rainforest everywhere. We both figured hiking (aka bushwalking) was in order and set out on a rainforest walk. No one had warned us of the vicious plants and off we went in the fast pace we developed during hours of walking into work in Calgary. All I heard was a scream and turning around I see Jason with a vine virtually stuck to his forehead. I had to basically pull the thorns out - that harmless looking thing had drawn blood and almost caused a whiplash kind of injury stopping him dead in his tracks. We decided to take it a bit slower after and watch out for what was "hanging around". Our second rainforest hike was to a pretty waterfall not far from our campsite. We decided to take the official extra 3.5km loop on our way back - figuring this shouldn't take us long. WRONG! At some point Jason turned around with an alarmed look on his face "did you see this?". A black tail disappearing into the bushes. No - must have been some sort of gecko. A few meters later Jason recoiled - and there it was, a black snake crossing our path. Equipped with sticks, stomping our feet, we kept on walking, super-slowly. We ended up seeing a total of five red-bellied black snakes crossing our path. We were totally creeped out - even more so when we read the snake description in the safety of the Wet Tropics Infocenter "venomous snake - high danger". We have since swapped the rainforest walks for long walks along the beach .

Besides this rather scary adventure we've had some great days. The countryside is gorgeous, we have already spent three nights in the same area and are planning to stay another one. The beaches are again spectacular, we've eaten coconut and papaya picked freshly off wild trees. Jason's 40$ chest of tools came in handy and it only took 2 screwdrivers, a hammer and a Swiss army knife to get into the coconut.

On our beach walk yesterday we ran into a local who recommended the lookout walk - should be no problem in flip-flops - so we were told. What we didn't realize, was that this was another "rainforest walk" with narrow paths and this area here is prime habitat of the Cassowary - a flightless bird that can get to 60kg and 1.5m tall. A sign at the entry to the walk tells you to be "wary" of the Cassowary - they can be aggressive and attack with their feet (read: claws) trying to disembowel the intruder. Great. Check out the picture in the new album to see how Jason approached this rather tense walk. We ended up only seeing small birds but every time we heard a noise we both jumped - in fear of snake and/or cassowary . Today is going to be a beach day again.