Dirk and Joke doing the Half-lap: Day 39: From Wet to Wetter (10/07/12)

We emerged from our shelters on Tuesday morning, Renske mostly dry, and surveyed the rainforest around us with a new understanding: it is made up of forest AND rain! Although the rain part was supposed to be concentrated in the opposite end of the year so as not to inconvenience the tourists.

Mud, wet mud, lots of mud, even through our nice new floor cover!

Renske surveys the damp scene: "Is this what I came all the way from Albany for?"

Well, we had to pack up, rain or no rain. We did it as quickly as possible, and were soon on our way to Babinda, some 70km south of Cairns, where there was a free camp called The Boulders. This camp was situated between Queensland’s highest and second-highest mountains: Bartle Frere and Bellenden Ker. After some to-ing and fro-ing we got there at an early hour to find that there were only 10 spots. We grabbed one, and the rest were filled before we had finished setting up. The toilet block was decorated by an enormous Hercules Moth of some 22cm in length.

22 cm Hercules Moth, still alive, but only just

The rain had eased off to a robust drizzle, but there was no wind, so we remained fairly dry under the awning. The funny thing about all this wet weather was that it was warm enough for t-shirt and shorts, and wearing a raincoat soon got you all hot and sweaty.

We went to have a look at the Josephine Falls on the slopes of Bartle Frere. We had heard that during the previous night this area had received 220mm and more of rain. This meant that the Josephine Creek (I think that was what it was called) was running strongly and the falls were in full spate.