How good is this?

I thought you might like to see where we actually stayed on our little getaway to the tablelands.

It was very private, very tranquil, very beautiful. The only noise was the rainforest birds and even their calls were muffled by the hills and the trees. What more can I say?

Fascinating Fungi

Rainforests are good at doing fungi. Fungus is everywhere. That distinctive rainforest smell is from the breaking down of dead leaves, trees, insects, animals and shrubbery by the underestimated and overlooked little plants - the fungi. They come in all sorts of colours, even luminescent white which glows in the dark.

I would love to get a photo of one of them, but I'm definitely not about to start walking around in rainforests at night. Like I said yesterday, I'm an arachnophobe, and at night you can't see where the webs are. Give me deadly snakes any day, but harmless spiders. . . eeek! Mind you, I've overcome a lot of my irrational fear. Once upon a time I could not even look at a spider from a safe distance without breaking out in a sweat. I couldn't even touch a photograph of one. (Shudder. . . it's alright, I'm okay, really).
Anyway back to the fungi. They are very much NOT creepy, crawly. They perform a very necessary and useful role in the world and they are often very beautiful.

BUT, sometimes I'm in awe of the amazing mimicry in nature. You know, the trick of one organism to look like something completely different. The beautiful lacy fellow below is a member of the stinkhorn family of fungi (genus - Phallus, snicker, snicker) also known as maiden veil fungi. Mr Sunshine spotted it and probably wondered why I got so excited about it. They hardly last any time at all. So to find one so fresh and in pristine condition, not beginning to rot yet, was serendipitous to say the least.

Queen Stuss, I hope you enjoy my fungi. Fungi lovers are a rare breed!

Our Getaway

We had been planning a weekend away since early January, but every time we decided that this would be it, the rain would come down. You know the rest. North Queensland had floods. Western Queensland had floods. Southern Queensland had floods. So we decided that we owed it to the rest of the country to stop planning a holiday and then the rain might lay off for a while. It worked. Mr Sunshine and I decided to give up and stay home and the sun came out and the floods abated. That is until Easter.

There had been very little rain for weeks, so, we thought - now is the time! We booked our getaway at Chambers Wildlife Rainforest Lodges up on the Atherton Tableland, west of Cairns. It was great . . . but . . . of course, it rained.

Every time we got into the car the sun came out. Every time we got out of the car to do some bushwalking the clouds came back and it rained. I took very few spectacular photos because the weather was so hazy, but I did get one or two that I'm pleased with. The scenery was breathtaking. The wildlife was (mostly)more cute than wild and I'll share some photos of them next time.

These pics are just a little teaser to start with. For those who don't know, much of the tablelands is listed as World Heritage Area and we feel very fortunate to have it only a few hours drive from home.
Even though the air temperature hovered around 25 Centigrade, that water is icy cold because it comes from mountain streams. I swam in the heated pool back at the lodge.