I surprised myself by sleeping in this morning (8am) which was nice, though I had sort of intended to see the sunrise, oh well.

Today was a Monday, hurray! That meant shops were open again, at least in places that actually had shops. Not that there were any near me, but for the moment all I wanted was Diesel and that could be obtained from a roadhouse just up the road (albeit I had to go to the Roadtrain pump and my tiny weeny little 4x4 looked somewhat dwarfed in that huge space designed for vehicles 20m long). Mackay was a mere hour or so from Bowen along the same featureless roads I've described before, but the town itself was as unedifying as I expected it to be (the Lonely Planet was struggling for things to say about it other than 'compact town centre'). All the breakfast places looked quite shabby too so I ended up sampling a Happy Jack's burger out of curiosity. It's logo looked suspiciously like that of Wimpy but when I studied the wrapping of my bacon double cheese burger it turned out that Happy Jack's was actually a part of Burger King Inc. It still tasted like a Wimpy though, and the bacon in it was really cold sliced ham which was wierd and unexpected. At least there was no beetroot. Oh, something else I read in the (very) small print:- 'Hungry Jack's Vegie Supreme may contain traces of Dairy and/or animal products'. Heh.

Mackay lacked any sort of easily accessible beach or marina to linger on, so I set off for Eungella immediately after my brurgerfast. Eungella rainforest, or at least the bits that are open to the public, is on the top of a mountain range (and indeed Eungella means land of the clouds). Said mountain is visible for miles around and to get to it you pretty much locate it visually and point your car at it, it's as simple as that. And being on a mountain, it means that the temperature is somewhat cooler than down at the coast, the flora and fauna is subtly different, and that the road getting up to it is evil.

I'm really glad I wasn't taking the camper 4WD up to Eungella, I'm not sure it would have made it. Indeed just before the final ascent to the summit, the road was lined with huge warnings:- Do NOT take vehicles long than X metres beyond this point, Road ahead not suitable for caravans - turn back or proceed with caution etc etc. I must admit, it had been a bit of a bitch getting up some of the hills nr Daintree and Kuranda but this one won hands down for sheer incline and windingness. Thankfully my present hire vehicle had a bit of poke and the automaticability of the car coped better than I expected it would, it did more or less what I would have done and at about the speed I would have tried - clever. It gobbled fuel though, then again spending a solid half hour over revving probably does that.

I clumb through lovely sunlit forest with huge cyclads and palms overhead and those blue Emperor butterflies flittering around, juddering on the ocassional grid, skidding on the odd bit of road subsidence, and scaring myself on one or two near vertical 180 degree turns with sheer drops down the mountain face along the side. Then, all of a sudden, the crest of the hill was reached and...it was Derbyshire! I mean it! There were rolling green fields a cows and a dairy farm and dry stone wall - it was bizarre. How? I thought. Why? Perhaps it was just that this place that had the happy coincidence of rain and cool temperatures which permitted a dairy farm, or perhaps I was just hallucinating because I had been away from home too long. Either way, I passed through a brief patch of rural Britain landscape, then plunged back into the forest and to the Broken River Retreat.

What had attracted me to this place (apart from the mod cons) was its very grand claim that it was sited on *the* most reliable place on the planet to view wild platypuses. I'd arrived a little too early for check-in so I went hunting for this legendary site to kill time, and sure enough there were two platypii viewing platforms within minutes of the retreat: one under Broken River Bridge which is just outside the Retreat's front door, and one a further 200m along just down river. I paused for a while at each, half hoping for a basking platypus to dive off a rock for me and do its thing, but I saw nothing and wasn't too concerned as the quoted prime times for platypus activity are apparently the hours before dusk and the hours before sunrise - and this was dinnertime. It was interesting to view quality platypus real estate though - they seem to like similar things to voles actually i.e. soft banks, slow running water, and a nice silty bottom. Okay voles eat reeds and platypus eat worms that they find under rocks, but apart from that they are alarmingly similar. I knew I had some sort of affinity with these creatures...

Once I had checked in properly (under the watchful eye of the local Kookaburra), I had a quick drive around all the local viewing spots (all with extremely impressive views down the valley) and a quick look at our 'local shopping centre' (16km away at the bottom of the valley - Finch Hatton with it's single grocery store and place that sells petrol by the can). Then I rushed back to base and bagged myself a place on the platypus viewing platform. There was already a crowd gathering, some with sleeping bags and flasks, others had huge cameras set up who were testing the surroundings with light meters. This was twitcher country.

I knew the score though, I knew what I was up against. I had packed a wooly jumper, insect repellent, a book + head torch, my camera, and four beers + bottle opener. Thus I spent the first hour of non-platypus activity in a pleasant fug of DEET and alcohol fumes, and the crowd soon dwindled, first the families, then the parent and child couples, then the couples, until finally only the sad obsessive men with the expensive cameras remained (and me)...

As a plattyspotter you soon suss what to look out for, namely a telltale pocket of bubbles and ripples that are distinct from the bubbles produced by the very many terrapins that bob around the river, and distinct from the many ripples produced by the thousands of overfed water boatman that skitter about. As soon as you've figured it out, you start imparting the wisdom on your neighbours in an irritating condescending whisper, and they usual nod and thank you thinking 'what an irritating arsehole'...and then eventually go tell someone else what you told them. Thus the platypus inma is passed down through the generations...

Following this time honoured tradition, when the first platypus surfaced an elderly italian with a huge video camera on a tripod nudged me and shared with me The Knowledge. I thanked him, despite having figured out the Knowledge for myself by this time, and ended up pointed out the platty to a new-comer 10mins afterwards and telling him the very same Knowledge myself. They were grateful, I got to wink like I'd been platty spotting all my life, and everyone was happy. Funny old business.

Platypus are lovely. On Broken River it looks like about 4 platypii 'work' the stream, all with their own loosely overlapping patches. They bob up, have a quick breath of air (their legs moving fantically) then dive under and you can see them wiggling their head from side to side as they search under all the rocks for goodies. One bobbed up in front of our platform and then swum all around the edge of the bank we were on, looking under rocks. Everyone scrabbled for their cameras, and most realised milliseconds afterwards that it was too dark to get a decent picture plus the platty were moving too darn fast anyway, and gave up. For my own part, I have at least 5 very blurred, nearly black photos of a slow moving stream with a dark blodge in the middle that might have been a platypus. Some, I suspect, now have hours of video tape that is completely blank...

Personally though, I got a huge buzz out of seeing a real live wild duck billed platypus diving a foot away from me. It's a deeply silly and yet lovely little creature, otter-like in its behaviour. Also, unlike certain types of endangered species who almost seem to be making it deliberately difficult for themselves, the platypus does seem to be a nice honest practical creature that's just trying to do it's thing and not get endangered at all. I have a feeling all future Platypus protection charities has suddenly authomatically got my support...

When it finally got too dark to see anything, the crowd dispersed and I returned to my hotel/resort thing and a waiting evening meal in the restaurant. Just when I thought the evening couldn't get exciting enough they had one final trick up their sleeves, namely a possum feeding platform outside of the resturant window so we could sit eating our meals while wild possums ate kitchen scraps beside us.

What a brilliant place! I was so chuffed by the end of dinner...the only negative point about the whole place was that mobile phone reception cut just before the bizarre Derbyshire-like stretch on the plateau of the hill so I had to drive up the hill to send a blog entry. God it was wierd too, I set off up to the summit and suddenly the road was swathed in thick fog, or maybe it was cloud. Either way I parked in a deserted picnic spot in pitch black with swirling mist in my headlamps to send my blog, and I really got creeped out, half expected a werewolf to leap out at me at any second.

Mail sent, egg laying mammals spotted, I felt I had earned a rest. I headed back to my room and almost almost immediately hit the sack. It didn't fell too bad this time though, it had a noble purpose. After all, platypus are most active just after dawn they say, and no bugger is going to be stupid enough to get up pre-dawn except me are they...?