Warning, man killing birds
Prior to our family vacation, Mimi and I had flown to far North tropical Queensland to Cairns, the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. We immediately drove North of Cairns to the resort town of Port Douglas. The ride was about 2 hours on a winding road along the beach. It was outstanding. We stayed at a 5 star resort hotel in this small coastal town.
That night Mimi was unable to bend her leg due to some massive swelling that caused quite a bit of concern to us. I had to rent a wheelchair for her and get an appointment at the local doctor where he drained a substantial amount of fluid from her knee and sent it off to a pathology lab in Cairns for analysis.
Photo courtesy Google
Meanwhile, she was well enough to travel so we packed up the wheelchair and headed North to a well known place called the Daintree National Park. We put the car on a ferry boat that went over a crocodile invested river and then drove through the park and stopped at a tourist area near the beach. I put Mimi in the wheelchair and pushed her along the well maintained and wheel chair access trail towards the beach where we were confronted by a very large sign that read: WARNING, do not walk on the beach due to crocodiles.
As we weren’ t going to do this anyway due to the wheelchair, we kept on the path that lead up and over the rocks looking over the ocean. There were stairs that lead to the water and above the stairs was a sign that read: WARNING: Do not swim in the ocean due to Irukandji Jellyfish. These are tiny, virtually invisible and extremely venomous jellyfish that could easily kill people in a short period of time. These jellyfish appear during several months of the year that coincided with our trip.
Cassowary, Photo courtesy Google
So, we turned back on the trail that forked into the rainforest. We looked up to see the backlit leaves of these exotic trees. I was actually laying on the ground taking photos of these leaves and totally enjoying the moment for the first time since driving to this remote park. We walked about 10 minutes along the trail to see yet another big sign that read: WARNING: Be aware of dangerous Cassowary’ s. The sign went on to explain that these are large flightless birds that are between 5-6 feet tall, weigh around 130 pounds and that although they are shy they are capable of inflicting serious or fatal injuries to people.
BARRY STEVEN EPSTEIN- PhotoAutobiography DRAFT 97 of 156