After finding some time to rest up in Cairns I was eager to explore the areas around the city. The rain forest is so dense in this part of Australia and there are so many waterfalls to see (and swim in). There is a mountain range to the west of Cairns and this is where most of the waterfalls can be found.
My German friend Anna had heard about a waterfall that almost functioned like an infinity pool. It wasn’t specifically listed on Google Maps like the other waterfalls around Cairns but her friend had been there before so we had the coordinates to get there.
The way there wasn’t as straightforward as we were hoping they would be. But we finally got to the entrance of the trail that led to the waterfall. Quickly the trail turned into a thick rain forest. There were points during the trail where we could see that a large fire had raged. It was pretty crazy to see how the forest had burned and the remnants of what remained. A lot of trees survived the fire and that was surprising to see. I wonder if the fire was naturally started or man made.
About halfway through the trail I heard someone scream towards me, “Hey, watch out!”. I quickly jumped out to the left and looked down to where I had been previously standing. Lying there, barely visible among the leaves and the sticks, was this brown snake. Had I stepped six more inches to the right I would have definitely stepped on it! If you don’t know brown snakes are the bad kind of snakes in Australia.
I felt extremely lucky and I was definitely more careful on the rest of the trail. Looking ahead and making sure that I wasn’t in the path of any more snakes.
About an hour and a half into the walk we made it to the waterfall and it definitely didn’t disappoint. The trail was pretty difficult, especially the last five-hundred meters or so. All the way up a hill and then all the way down a hill. The climb was quite steep.
The pool wasn’t nearly as big as I was expecting. The pictures online always look a bit better. But the views from the top were amazing. We were sitting on top of the cliff the waterfall flowed down. The drop was fairly large. It was hard to gauge the distance from the position we were in but I would imagine it was about one-hundred meters.
We got there a bit late in the day and that was a mistake because the waterfall was on the eastern side of the mountain. We were in the shade most of the time. It was quite windy so we were unexpectedly cold. Not a great day to forget a jumper at home.
Of course, I had to go into the water. But I didn’t last very long. The water was so cold! Everyone took turns getting in and getting some pictures and then we made our way out of there towards the car. We knew we had a long hike back and we didn’t want to drive through the mountains after the sunset.
When we got back to the car we were all hungry so we decided to make a big pot of noodles before we hit the road. We didn’t have enough bowls so we were all eating out of the pot placed on the ground. Then something extremely unexpected happened.
My friend Phil started to freak out. I looked to my right and this large bird had approached us. It must have been hungry because it was trying to eat the noodles we had placed on the floor. The girls started freaking out too and at first I wasn’t really sure what to do. Obviously we had to get the bird away from the car so we could at least pack everything up and leave the car park.
So I start intimidating the bird as best as I could. I started lunging at it like I was going to attack it. The bird seemed frightened and it started moving away from the car. I began to chase it and eventually it ran into the forest.
It came back several times though. And I had to repeat the process each time. I can’t lie, I was a little frightened myself. I remember looking at its beak and talons and thinking to myself “Wow, this thing could really fuck me up if it wanted to.”. But at this point I couldn’t show any fear so I stood my ground.
It wasn’t until after the fact that I found out that cassowarries are one of the most dangerous birds in the world. It’s talons are extremely sharp and it can jump and kick it’s legs at its enemies and do some serious damage. My intuition was right. But it wasn’t an especially large cassowary so I imgaine I got a bit lucky that day.
Sorry Mom!