Australian Adventure

So my Australian adventure draws to a close.

It's incredible to look back six and a half months ago, and consider that all this time, I've been living in a rainforest.

In the past, when I would hear the word "rainforest", I pictured Discovery Channel's footage of the rainforest canopy shot from a helicopter. Large tracts of unbroken, dense, lush, thick, dark, viney foliage full of climbing and creeping creatures hidden below the living ceiling.

But that's really all it was. It was something on television; you could see the foliage on TV, and some of the animals in the zoo. You could look at pictures in books, listen to the sounds on CD.

But then you'd forget about it.

When you watch it on TV, all set up and timed well, the show host finding animals left and right, and you sitting there in the comfort of your couch eating popcorn and drinking soda...at best, it's cool. Just as cool as the desert that you watch in the next episode.

But...how about living in the rainforest, day in and day out. I've crept through this rainforest at night under a clear sky of twinkling stars, when everything is dry and calm, with a single beam of my headlamp, a bright moon dappling the trees with silver light and outlining shadowy pockets of dense undergrowth ahead. Wispy spiderwebs dust across my face as I step forward. The wind rustles the skinny leaves of hanging vines and epiphytes that crackle and flutter as I peer over the illuminated sections of brown leaf litter and rotting logs on the forest floor. Spider eyes twinkle blue and silver all over the ground like a sparkling shower of gems. A bat suddenly swoops down out of nowhere toward my headlamp and instantly disappears. The hoarse whistling of a lesser sooty owl sounds like a falling bomb somewhere out in the distance. Two red eyes stare at me from the black abyss above, and I know that it can see me staring back.

I've jogged around Lake Barrine in the early morning as the rising sun and dawn light create a misty haze over the lake. Long hanging vines and trunks of giant fig trees are silhouetted against the bright morning light and the birds begin their throaty chatter. Musky rat kangaroos shoot out from the undergrowth and scamper across the path to the other side, rustling in the thicket of ferns and saplings. I come upon a brush turkey that begins strutting forward, quickening its pace to get away from me as I approach nearer...then beginning to quickly trot forward, bobbing and weaving across the path in front of me, until I shout at it to get out of my way and it flaps itself up sharply into the bushes beside the path. The flaming blue wings of a Ulysses butterfly blink about in the trees ahead and are gone.

I've hiked through Mabi rainforest on a field lecture, seeing the various layers of canopy that stack above each other up to the vibrant blue sky. The sun sparkles on the shiny green lobed leaves of a giant rainforest plant on the ground, and heats up the brown and green feathery basket ferns wrapped high around enormous cedar trees. I've heard the sky suddenly explode with the release of a roaring waterfall of rain that drums down in thick misty sheets. I've lain in bed and listened to the croaking of frogs that chorus outside the window. I've walked up to the Centre in the morning, sending pademelons bouncing off into the brush and catbirds screaming as I walk by.

I've snorkeled over the vast wonder of the Great Barrier Reef. I slip off the boat into the choppy waves and chilly waters of the wide blue ocean, the salt water splashing into my mouth as I struggle to adjust the snorkel bit in my mouth. Then it's face into the water, staring down into the cloudy blue mysterious abyss below me, below the waves, and under the endless sunny sky. The water chills me a little as I paddle on toward the reef. Below me is a desert of sand, spotted occasionally with lumps of coral and seaweed. I hug myself and paddle with just my legs, rocking back and forth as I propel forward. As I get closer, out of the hazy blue gloom, the coral cliffs of the Great Barrier Reef suddenly morph into shape and in an instant I'm swimming over a busy, bustling explosion of color, shapes, movements, and surprises. Coral is spread out like lichens, clumps of seaweed, colorful anemones bristling and shivering as the currents toss their billowing fronds about. Bright green, blue, and yellow parrotfish lazily drift over to the coral, abruptly knocking against it and rebounding with a click of their beaks. A myriad of spotted, speckled, striped, jeweled, beaded, and prickly fish dart and spin, bob and weave, drift and sway, shoot out and disappear as the current whisks everything around in constant motion. Nothing stops, everything is always on the go. Suddenly a school of tiny blue and yellow fish rises over the edge of the reef, spreading out like a huge living net enveloping everything in their path. Giant clams embedded in the coral, their shells covered with colorful lichen and other tiny ocean plants and animals, poke out their supple siphons from creased mouths bejeweled with vivid dazzling blue eyes on velvety purple lips. Bubbles, tiny blue cleaner wrasse, sea cucumbers, Christmans tree worms, flutefish, all on the go. Over the edge of the reef, huge gardens of what looks like staghorn coral cling to the base like giant boulders. On the shelf below lie the two halves of an oyster with a tiny pearl nestled in one of the halves.

The rainforest and the reef harbor an abundance of creatures, and one of their most important gifts to me is the realization that all the creatures living unseen in their depths are really there. And if you look for them, you can really find them. Not on TV. In real life, with your own eyes.

The powerful silence of an amethystine python lying motionlessly on the forest floor. The regal magnificence of a fluttering Ulysses butterfly weaving about an umbrella tree. The colorful crown of a tiny reef fish as it swims over the royal colors of a giant clam. The bizarre first look at a leaf-tailed gecko posing like a stiff piece of bark on a mottled white tree trunk. The reality of a wild striped possum peeking out from the thick leafy branches high in the dark forest canopy. The untouchable respect for the dangerous saltwater crocodile that lives in the Daintree River. The lazy but purposeful clambering octopus in the murky waters offshore from the island.

The Jurassic Park experience of seeing a wild cassowary emerge from the forest onto the path, emanating the warning of its wild and dangerous nature mixed with awe at its powerful presence.

These are the creatures that have lived in the rainforest for ages, that live here and exist regardless of whether we are looking for them or not. I like to think that seeing any of these things, regardless of how often, is always a gift. And that I will see them again.