DEC 3, 2004

We've been hiking around and swimming in Lake Eacham. We're off to do some more hikes in a minute.

We cycled out to Lake Barrine and did the 5 km hike around it. The rainforests are quite interesting - lots of different trees than what I'm used to, although I'm certain the early settlers were familiar only with oaks and ashes because that's what they named every other tree even though the oaks and ashes here bear no resemblance to the oaks and ashes I'm familiar with. There are also lots of fascinating vines and palms and ferns and things. Lake Barrine and Eacham are volcanic lakes and so are probably quite deep.

From there we cycled into Yungaburra to see a curtain fig tree. It was a massive tree. The figs around here are strangler figs. They wrap themselves around a host tree and eventually after many years strangle it to death, then it falls over and the fig establishes itself as a tree and a tree that looks hollow. It's quite interesting to see these things. In the case of the curtain fig, the host tree falls into another tree and the fig drops roots so that the whole thing looks like a curtain.

Curtain Fig Tree
map of the area
And then Rob wanted to go and see a large red cedar. He is fascinated with botany and especially trees. We have looked at more vegetation over here!! All I wanted to do was to return to Lake Eacham, take another swim, and then relax for the evening, but off we went to see this cedar. At first, the road was paved and not bad ... then it turned to gravel. I hate gravel. I might have mentioned that earlier. I survived the trip out, did the hike to see this tree, hiked back to the road again and set off. By this time it was getting late and so I told Rob to go on ahead so he could make it back to the campsite to buy us food before the store closed.

Moments after he disappeared around the bend, I was on a descent, I hit a patch of deep, loose gravel, I lost control of the bicycle ... and I went down. I have this very consistant way of falling - left knee and left hand.

Injury list:
  • Left hand - bruised palm (I wasn't wearing gloves, but I've got callouses on the heels of my hands now so that the gravel only scratched my slightly); sprained baby finger.
  • Left leg - a couple layers of skin scraped off from just below the knee cap about halfway down my leg, and the worst part of the injuries came to my knee - it's pretty badly torn up.
    • I got up and started to walk and after a km or so, I saw Rob coming back for me. I guess he had waited at the top of a hill and when I didn't appear he decided to check on me. I walked out of the gravel area (I may never ride gravel again - did I mention that I hate gravel roads?), and then with a great deal of difficulty, I rode the remaining 7 or 8 kms to the campsite. Darkness fell before we got there and a couple of kms from the end bats came out and were darting between the bicycles. One hit Rob in the helmet!

    I was so relieved to finally get back to the campsite and fortunately the couple that ran the place allowed us to buy some food even though they were closed.

    It took me quite a while and I was in so much pain that I was acutally convulsing, but I managed to clean out most of the gravel from my knee. However, I didn't sleep that night at all - the pain was too much.

         
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