Sunday, 12 July 2015

Tree huggers in the gorge

The beautifully run Daintree National Park (hectic with tourists being dropped off by the busload every ten to fifteen minutes) is a cool, refreshing change of pace from the traffic and tight roads. The beautiful walks to Mossman Gorge are lush, green and gorgeous, and the crowds disperse among the different walking tracks.    

Giant epiphytes hang from trunks that soar to find the sun. 

Fig seeds dropped by birds land high in many of these tall trees then send down roots seeking out moisture: hugging the trunk tight.  Enclosing it in a death grip.  We saw strangler figs wrapped around trunks that were once one and half metres in circumference.  Hollowed out now as the fig has sapped all its nutrition.  And you can see right through the hollowed interiors of what once were magnificent trees.   

The sound of water gushing is constant.  The flow powerful even now, and this is ‘the dry’.  In the wet season the strength and force of the running water is such that it is able to lift giant boulders, completely dislodging them, moving them further downstream, as if they were mere pebbles.  

The power of water never ceases to amaze us.  The older we get the more we are in awe of it. 

Tree huggers of one kind



Tree huggers of another: Strangler fig
hollowing out the trunk of the host
tree



Boulders moved like pebbles by rushing water from
the mountains







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