That's the Way the Cookie Shatters – Erich

It's been a hard week. Don't misunderstand, the week has had its highlights. And we will certainly want to blog about the amazing qualities of Singapore as an example. But it has been a couple of low points that have really colored our perception of recent days.

We had planned a short excursion into China. China offers a transit visa exemption. Basically the rules are these: If you are landing in certain airports (Beijing is one of them) and you are staying less than 72 hours in China before flying out to another international destination, then U.S. citizens (and many other nations) can come in without a visa. You cannot leave the Beijing province, but that Beijing province is large. We had reserved a hotel and were planning to fly from Sydney, Australia, land in Beijing, and see the Forbidden City, Tiananman Square, and the Great Wall. Then we would leave just over 48 hours later and fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

But the airline wouldn't let us do it. Of course, we didn't know this until we were checking into the flight. The airline clerks check some database that tells them visa requirements. And their database says nothing about this visa exemption. So they refused to let us check in to the flight. If we had a letter from a Chinese consulate, they would have considered that. But even bringing up the Chinese Embassy's website that lists the rules, it was a no go.

So we were stuck in Sydney. I'm not dissing Australia. It's a lovely country. But we had plans to be back in Asia. We had to get to Malaysia at some point, right?

So it wasn't our best day. We (and by we, I naturally mean Alrica) found a flight for the next day to Singapore, found a place to stay that night in Sydney, and arranged a place to stay for two nights in Singapore.

Good news: The hotel in Beijing, a Hilton, gave us a refund for everything. They were most understanding. The unknown news: We are still in process of asking for a refund from the airline that wouldn't let us go to Beijing. (We had also scheduled our flight out of China on that same airline, so we are hoping to get refunds on both.) The bad news: It all costs money. A new flight. A place to stay in Sydney. A place to stay in Singapore. It is all money we hadn't expected to spend.

Singapore is a lovely city. Actually an amazing city. And I or another member of my family really needs to blog about it. But this blog post is a rant, so we need to ignore the wonders of Singapore.

Now if the whole transit to (or not to) China was frustrating, heading from Singapore to KL was infuriating.

We decided to take the bus. Now the bus itself was very nice. Huge seats, like sitting in your own personal recliner. The ride is about 5 hours, maybe a bit more. Though the time at immigration leaving Singapore and entering Malaysia adds another hour at least.

The bus would be fine, even great, if only someone were willing to be helpful. By this I mean the driver.

See, we were the only Westerners on the bus. Everyone else must be used to this trip. They all knew what to do at immigration in Singapore. We did not. But we followed the crowd, got in huge lines, presented our passports, and returned to the bus.

Everyone but us knew what to do at immigration and customs in Malaysia (which you arrive at only minutes after leaving immigration in Singapore.) We did not. Our following the crowd didn't go quite as well. See we discovered that the luggage under the bus must be brought out to be scanned. If someone would have just told us what was expected, it would have gone more smoothly. Instead it didn't. We had left some things on the bus, not knowing we needed our belongings until after we left the bus. Syarra, without telling any of the rest of us, ran back onto the bus to get them. But the driver was not paying any attention to that. So he drove the bus forward toward where he would pick us up, before realizing halfway there that he still had a stowaway.

Even that wasn't a huge problem. We got through immigration and customs with no other incidents. The big frustration was our arrival in KL.

When we left Singapore, a man from the bus company came on-board the bus and announced that there would be two stops in KL. The second stop would be ours. But when we arrived at KL, apparently the driver hit the stop we wanted first. Though he didn't bother to announce that we had switched the order. He didn't bother to announce where we were. And then he was annoyed with us later when we asked why we were driving out of the center of the city. Like we had messed up. How were we to know?

So we ended up (after about another 45 minutes on the bus) at some big bus terminal with madhouse craziness. Okay, no problem. We took a taxi from there. But the taxi driver must have decided to make a few extra ringgits on us. So he took us on a "shortcut" to avoid bad traffic. But said "shortcut" must have doubled the distance. And since the meter is based on the distance, I ended up having to pay more for the trip than I should have. (This was still only about eight U.S. dollars, so it didn't break me.) But it also added time.

So we ended up at the hotel a good two hours later than intended. And we were all in foul moods. It was all I could do to keep from snapping at the kids for most anything they did, even breathing badly. (Don't ask me how one assesses the quality of breathing, I was just in that sort of frame of mind.)

Now, we were staying in a Doubletree Suites and they gave us each a chocolate chip cookie as we checked in. The check in took longer than we would have liked, and we weren't really hungry for our cookies. So when we were finally checked in, we wanted to go to our rooms and go to sleep.

But they were going to have the bellboy bring up our luggage. Oh no! We weren't waiting for a bellboy. We were taking our luggage with us.

Then we couldn't find the elevators (or the lifts as they would say.) But we did. And on the way there, Carver dropped his chocolate chip cookie. (In his defense, he was carrying a big stack of stuff.) And it shattered like glass, spewing all over the floor. And Carver felt that this was a perfect metaphor for our recent travel experiences.

Even then, before sleep could be had, venting was required. Both Syarra and I were regaled by our respective counterparts with their fury at the events of the evening before we could settle in for some much needed slumber. (Maybe I should ask to share a bed with Syarra instead, you know, when you're really frustrated but actually want to sleep.)

Today, having slept, we are all in a much better state. We are taking a more philosophical view of the whole situation. After all, that's the way the cookie shatters.

Australian Wildlife Part 1 - Syarra

When we came to Australia I was excited to see marsupials and monotremes and just different animals such as: Koala, Emu, Kangaroo, Wombat, Echidna, Wallaby, Tasmanian Devil, and Platypuses. This is in order of when we saw them.

We saw koala in Raymond island which you can read about here: Koala sits in an old gum tree - Alrica

 


Since we arrived we have seen kangaroo and emu in Wilsons Promontory, which you can read about in My Second Marsupial - Syarra.

With a Joey

We saw wombats along the road. We also saw some echidna!

Looking away

The ants are crawling on the echidna

That is a short beaked echidna!

And saw a wallaby just recently as we went hiking in Freycinet National Park. I will talk about this later in the blog post.

We have maybe not yet seen Tasmanian Devils or platypuses and definitely not up close. Back in Sale we were walking on a boardwalk over a swamp when we saw something splashing around, but we could not see what, so we had to guess. In wishful thinking I said it was a platypus. For some reason that caught on because now everyone is saying that, though there was a lot of skepticism at the time. Here, in Tasmania, I saw a small fleeting glance at something that might have been a Tasmanian Devil, it was small and furry, and the coloration was brown with white spots.

Now lets talk about Tasmania! We arrived at Freycenne national park at about 10:30 and we started walking down the hiking trail. To our surprise huge mosquitoes (Which the Australians call mozzies) swarmed the trail in full daylight! We had to go to the local store and get mosquito repellent. Overall we have enjoyed Tasmania and I will continue to write about wildlife in Australian Wildlife 2.

Penal Port Arthur - Carver

On Thursday, we went to a place called Port Arthur. We had finished our time in Hobart. Hobart was fun. Unfortunately we didn't get to do much there. We arrived late Wednesday night. We went grocery shopping and went to bed. On Thursday morning, we went to Mount Wellington, a mountain west of Hobart. We drove to the top and enjoyed the rocks. The wind was so strong that I almost lost my jacket. It was stronger than the gale force winds we had one day in Sale. After that we went to a restaurant and ate very good fish and chips and ice cream. Then it was time to go.

We drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove... and drove all the way to Port Arthur (actually we stopped to pick strawberries and to look at the Richmond Bridge, the oldest still used bridge in Australia.) Once at Port Arthur, we stopped at the Tesselated Pavement. It was a beach but the ground had been carved into different shapes, the loaf and the pan formation, by the Earth's pressure and then carved further by the waves.

The Loaf Formation

The Pan Formation

Then we saw the Blowhole, a cave formation with a broken-in roof that blows out water when the seas are rough (the seas were very calm that day so we didn't see much.) After that we went to see the Tasman Arch, another cave formation that is now just a gigantic arch. Then we saw the Devil's Kitchen, another cave formation.

The Devil's Kitchen!

The Devil's Kitchen again!

The Devil's Kitchen another time!

All right, this is the last one. I hope I didn't bore you too much.

Oh, look at that! Another picture of the Devil's Kitchen.

Look at the water going over the rock through the arch...

Whoosh!

The Blowhole from the left.

The Blowhole from the right.

The Blowhole from the right again (but also in action.

)

However, it turns out that the three are all formed by the same thing and that their shape depends on their age. The Blowhole is the youngest and hasn't had its roof completely cave in to form an arch. The Devil's Kitchen is the oldest and has lost its roof everywhere on it. The Tasman Arch will someday fall and become something similar to Devil's Kitchen. And they all started out as a tiny little sea cave.

After that we went to where we were staying and slept. The next morning we drove down to the historic site. Australia used to be a penal colony. England would ship people over on a six month boat ride. They would be forced to do hard labor to build the colony (in fact, the Richmond Bridge was built by the prisoners.) And when they finished their sentence in prison, they didn't even get to return home unless they could afford to buy their way back. Port Arthur was a great place for this. As you can see, that tiny neck of land was the only way out (unless you were willing to swim through the shark infested waters) so they only had to patrol that part.

But we chose not to go because it was very expensive just to get in. So we went to the Remarkable Cave. We hiked about five minutes from the parking lot to a boardwalk above a beach. However, the beach was not right on the ocean. The ocean was through a cave. There wasn't a staircase down to the sand but it would be possible to climb over the fence. We could see footprints on the sand, though.

One of the two entrances to the cave.

The other one. Look, you can see the shape of Tasmania!

Then we went on this walk to another blowhole. We didn't make it there though. On the way was a huge hill of sand. So Syarra and I played in it. As we played, people came back from the blowhole and said there was nothing exciting to see. The sea was again too calm. After that, we went back to the Blowhole we had been to the day before (stopping to buy some very good chocolate from a chocolate place on the way) to get fish and chips (or squid and chips) from a seafood and chips stand we had seen last time. After that, we continued on to Freycinet National Park.

Sandslide!

Our sandstone cave!

Bridge the Gap – Erich

Ready for a Tasmanian joke? Here goes.

Why did the platypus cross the bridge?

We have been driving through Tasmania for three days, and each of those days we have seen a somewhat celebrated bridge. How does a bridge become somewhat celebrated? Well, the first and most important element seems to be having been built by convicts.

That probably isn't so rare for things built in a certain period in Tasmania. But not all of those structures lasted until today. Some of the bridges have.

On our first day of travels we saw Richmond Bridge in the village of Richmond. (Unsurprising, I know.) It was built in 1823 and it is the oldest remaining bridge in all of Australia. It crosses the Coal River.

It's a little bit uneven

The Richmond Bridge is built over six arches and two of them cover paths you can walk along. The other four are over water, so it's much harder to walk under them. The bridge has an uneven top due to settling that has happened among the supports over the years. This is because it was built by convicts and designed by people who were not really experts at building bridges. This is a running theme you find in many of these bridges.

That's a pretty good arch for bridge amateurs

Oh, and just for an extra bit of fun: the bridge has a ghost. So legend says. A cruel overseer would drive the slaves carrying bricks to the bridge and whip them horribly. The legend says they revolted and killed him and his ghost is sometimes heard under the bridge to this day. Spooky, yeah? Well, it doesn't keep anyone from crossing it.

On our second day we found a very unusual sight. It's called Spiky Bridge.

Don't worry, I will give you a closer picture of those spikes.

This bridge isn't in any town, but it is outside of Swansea. It also doesn't cross a river, it crosses a gully. The story of this bridge is that the people of the area wanted a bridge to cross the gully, but they had to convince the Major who was in charge of the region. One night, the Major was at a dinner in Swansea and his host offered him a ride home. This required crossing the gully. The host took the gully at full speed so that the coach would be rocked terribly in the crossing. And this convinced the Major that a bridge was needed.

That would not be a fun gully to ride across

Again, this bridge was built by convicts. Again it wasn't designed by bridge builders. But the big question is this: Why all the spikes?

I promised a closer picture of spikes and I delivered. Some people have so little trust.

The answer is that no one knows exactly. Some conjectures are: a) it was to make the bridge more sturdy, though why that would help is unclear; b) It was to keep cattle from walking off the edges, though I suppose rails would have done the trick too; c) It was just something that the man in charge thought would be cool.

Today a new highway runs parallel to the bridge, so it isn't in much use any longer. Though you can pull off the highway and if you wanted to, you could drive across the Spiky Bridge. It wouldn't take you anywhere. Still, we stopped to see it, and sadly, lost our daughter on the way. Her head is now impaled on one of the spikes. I think this is good news for Spiky Bridge as now maybe it too can have a ghost.

The tongue effect is the best part

On our third day about Tasmania, we crossed Red Bridge in Campbell Town. It crosses the Elizabeth River. This is pretty great because you can figure out where these names came from. See, the great General in Tasmania was General Macquarie. And he visited this area with his wife Elizabeth whose maiden name was Campbell.

It's red

Before you ask, yes, this bridge was built by convicts. No, they didn't bring in any professional bridge designers either. But this bridge is on National Highway 1 running from Hobart (Tasmania's biggest city) to Launceston (Tasmania's second biggest city). So the bridge gets plenty of use by plenty of vehicles.

And that really is its name

Beside the bridge is a park and in the park are three sculptures that detail the importance of the Campbell Town area. The first shows the building of the bridge.

A sculpture of the bridge right next to the bridge. Meta!

The second shows some of the accomplishments in art and science and technology achieved in the Campbell Town area. My favorite part of this sculpture is the propeller on the airplane, which actually spins when the wind blows.

Lots of industry

The last sculpture shows some of the unique fauna of the area.

I did not see all of these species in Campbell Town

You will note there is are platypuses (or platypi if you prefer) in that sculpture. But they are not crossing the bridge.

So why did the platypus cross the bridge? I don't know that it did. They are very shy and elusive creatures and we have yet to see one. If I do, I'll ask it.

Too Close For... – Erich

There's a saying: Too Close For Comfort. Yeah, forget comfort. Let's talk sanity.

Our family is taking an AP Psychology class through a MOOC (a Massive Open Online Course). Early in the course, we learned about our nervous system and its many subdivisions. And one of those is the sympathetic nervous system. It is this system that responds to perceived threats to increase your blood pressure, release adrenaline, dilate pupils, etc. It creates the fight or flight response.

But these days most people have it activated not by a predator jumping out at them, but rather by stress. It's part of why too much stress isn't so healthy for you.

Today, I am in Tasmania. It is an island off the southern coast of Australia across the Bass Strait. Part of being here today is that yesterday I traveled to get here.

Travel days, as I have mentioned before, are always stressful. But I've gotten much better on this trip at not getting so stressed. Except, really when I have made such a claim, I have been referring to after our arrival in the new place. Ever since our arrival in Budapest, I have found it just not a big deal to be in a place I know nothing about.

This doesn't mean I have transcended the stress though. It's still there, it is just in the getting to everything travel related. Yesterday was a very getting to it day.

First we had to take a train. We had to drive 45 minutes to get to the train station and we made that train with about 2 minutes to spare. I stayed reasonably calm there, because even if I had missed that train, I could have taken one an hour later.

We took the train into Melbourne and had some lunch at the train station. If I had been smart, at that juncture, with plenty of time to spare, I should have insisted we continue toward the airport. See, the next step is to take a bus that goes from downtown Melbourne to the airport.

But we didn't do that right away. Instead, we decided to explore a bit of downtown Melbourne. They have a cool tram system, and in certain zones it is free to ride. So we rode (with all of our backpacks) to the end of the line, by the harbor. There was a nice playground here. But then, there were no trams back.

Okay, there were, but we had to wait quite some time to get to them. By the time we got one and got back to near where the bus was, it was approaching rush hour. The sidewalks were crammed with people. So it was slow going to the bus station.

We managed to catch the bus we needed, but by now we didn't have a lot of time to spare. And traffic was, well, rush hour traffic. So it wasn't a quick trip to the airport.

We did arrive there and get our luggage (the two big backpacks) checked in with four minutes to spare. Then we reached the gate after they had begun boarding.

Every step of the way was a close call. Every step of the way, we had to make it with mere minutes to spare. And then the rest of the day was ruined for me. I was more or less a wreck inside.

By the time we arrived, collected luggage, hired (rented) a car, and drove to our lodging, we were basically after the hours that restaurants are open around here. But we went to the grocery store. That was also close to closing time, but we had fifty minutes to shop. That should be no problem, right?

Sometimes time is on your side, but you don't really notice it then. You notice it when it isn't. And yesterday it wasn't.

So let's be sympathetic for my sympathetic nervous system.

Them Thar Hills – Erich

What is so important about gold? Yesterday we visited a gold mine, or a mine that still has gold in it but isn't currently being worked. And Carver asked essentially this question. Why gold?

Gold is soft and easy to work, making it great for coins and jewelry. But you can't make tools out of it like iron. True, gold doesn't rust or degrade, but stainless steel is pretty resistant to that too.

So what was it in antiquity that made people willing to die and to kill for gold? Why was it so sought after by everyone from Californians to conquistadors?

I don't know. But I did learn more about getting it out of the ground.

We headed up to Walhalla, here in Victoria. Walhalla is a neat town, sort of held in time from when it was last truly populated. Now 23 people live there, but it lives on for historical tourism.

Walhalla is in a valley between two mountains and you have to climb a twisty road to reach it. In the winter, because of its position between two high ridges, they only get about two hours of direct sunlight a day. We were happy to be there in the spring.

But in its time, Walhalla was a thriving town built around gold mining. There were five separate gold mines in the mountain at its west. We visited the Long Tunnel Extended Gold Mine. We went in with our guide and with one other couple from the United Kingdom.

It's cold inside there

It took the miners ten years to even build the main adit (horizontal shaft at the entry and exit level.) Then they built a boiler room in the back so they could have steam power for drills and eventually for a lift (an elevator). After this they dug straight down and made more horizontal digs running directly under the main adit. Each of these was mined for anywhere from one ounce to a maximum of about fifty ounces of gold per ton of rock. Most of the time it was around 3 or 4 ounces per ton.

The mine was active for fifty years from 1865 to 1915. Inside we saw the main shaft, one smaller shaft, and the big boiler room and lift room at the backs. We learned why timber is used to build the supports and not metal.

This kind of support is called a "pig sty"

When the rock begins to press on wood, the wood creaks and moans. The miners say timber speaks to them. So they know that something is wrong and they have to fix it or get out. With metal, it keeps quiet. It just bears the weight until it can't bear it anymore and then suddenly snaps.

The highest paid man working inside the mine was the lift operator. The lift could only carry two men at a time. And they were all down on various levels, some of them far below ground. They didn't have radios to communicate with the lift operator, so if they needed the lift, they had to pull cords to ring bells.

The lift operator had to carefully listen to Morse Code being rung out by bells to figure out which level needed a lift car. If the miners were blasting with dynamite and the lift operator sent the car to the wrong level, those miners didn't get out in time. One of many ways to die in the mines. We'll get to more on that.

Because the lift operator had to hear so closely, the lift needed to run as silently as possible. So there was another man who had to, once a day, climb a ladder up into a dark sloped tunnel. He had to go to its peak where the big pulley for the lift was. Then he had to grease it to keep it quiet.

The ladder for the pulley greaser

But the pulley greaser was not the second highest paid man in the mine. That was the dunny man. A dunny is an Australian slang word for a toilet. The dunny man had to go from level to level and collect the excrement and then get it up and out of the mine.

Since the mine was built, 52 people have died within it, and perhaps a much larger number died because of ailments they got mining there. There were a lot of ways to die.

Of course there were rockfalls and cave-ins. There were supports that fell away and dropped people into deep shafts. The lower levels were underwater so had to be pumped out. This didn't stop occasional drownings though. At the very lowest level, the water was still ankle to hip deep and bitterly cold. Some of the men who worked here died of foot rot. I'm not entirely sure what that is, but it sounds horrible. I'm resistant to looking it up online because I don't necessarily want to know what it is.

Other miners died of miner's lung. It's similar to black lung in coal mines, but this was the super fine silicates that got into their lungs and shredded their alveoli. Then they would live on with less ability to breathe day after day. And some died of arsenic poisoning, as the matrix that holds the gold also holds arsenic. Of course, no one knew that at the time.

In the end, it wasn't the deaths that stopped the mine from production in 1915. There were two factors. One was the first World War. Many of the miners left Australia to go fight for the mother country. But that was not the main reason.

What was? Wood. To run the boiler required 35 tons of wood to be burned a day. In addition, timber was needed for supports. Plus people who lived in the valley needed wood to build their homes and then to heat their homes during the winter. There was a lot of demand for wood.

By 1915, all of the trees within 20 km of Walhalla had been cut. At that point, getting wood from further away and transporting it to the mines was so expensive that a ton of wood cost as much as the gold found in a ton of rock. It wasn't economically feasible anymore. Besides, none of the miners could afford to keep their families warm in the winter.

Now that entire region is covered in tall trees. But they are all regrowth over the last century.

Understand, the mine didn't stop running because they couldn't find gold. They never ran out of gold. There still is gold in them thar hills. Just no one is mining for it any longer.

The family, a mine cart, and rusty tools! It's got everything.

That's okay with us. I wasn't looking for a new career as a miner. As Carver, who is still three years shy of the 15 year requirement to begin work as a miner, pointed out: What really is so important about gold?

Certainly nothing I want to risk my life over.

Hey Bridge, Bridge, Bridge, Bridge, Swing! – Erich

In mathematics, often we are interested in uniqueness. It isn't always enough to say that something exists, but we want to show it is the only one of its kind. Here's an example.

Say A ⸦ R and Ǝ z ϵ A such that Ɐ x ϵ A, z ≤ x or in English we are saying set A is a subset of the real numbers and there exists (that's the upside down E) an element z of A, such that for any element x of A, z is less than or equal to x. In other words, z is a minimum element of A. We might want to show that this minimum is unique.

The easiest way would be to do a proof by contradiction. We will assume the opposite, that there is more than one minimum. And then we will show that any two minima (or minimums if you, like spellchecker, prefer) must actually be equal.

Say z ϵ A such that Ɐ x ϵ A, z ≤ x and y ϵ A such that Ɐ x ϵ A, y ≤ x . (Those upside down As mean “for any” or “for all”.) Then we know from the property of z that z ≤ y and we know from the property of y that y ≤ z. Therefore, z = y. The minimum must be unique.

In life outside of mathematics (and yes, even I accept that there is life outside of mathematics) we are also often interested in uniqueness. I guess an interest in uniqueness isn't unique.

Well, we got to see something unique, the last of its kind. In Sale, Victoria, Australia, there is a swing bridge.

The Swing Bridge of Sale

If you don't know, a swing bridge is an alternative to a drawbridge. A drawbridge has a deck that rises to an angle to allow boats to pass. A swing bridge is also designed so boats can pass, but it rotates. The deck moves from perpendicular to the river to being parallel to the river's flow.

The swing bridge of Sale is not the only swing bridge left in the world. But it is the only swing bridge left in the world that rotates a full 360°. This swing bridge rotates on a central pillar. And it can, if needed, keep rotating all the way around.

Part of the rotation mechanism on the central pillar

The mechanism to accomplish this requires many parts. Not only were there the rollers on the central pillar, but a complex gear structure is required.

Gear structure

And the underside of the bridge needs to be able to roll on the supports.

Rollers where the end of the bridge meets the support

The swing bridge isn't really needed these days. There is no longer boat traffic that requires it. But, normally the bridge is still rotated on Saturdays, Sundays, and the second Tuesday of every month, just so people can see. It's a national engineering heritage landmark.

Recognized for its unique and historic character

Sadly, right now, people aren't rotating it. And why?

A view of the catwalk from above

See that catwalk. Of course, it is designed so that workers have a place to stand while they maintain or repair the mechanism. But it is also apparently a favorite place for vandals to do their work. And because of recent vandalism, the swing bridge is not in operation until repairs can be completed.

It's a shame. It was neat to see the bridge regardless, knowing how it functions and that it is the only one of its kind left in the world. But it would have been even cooler to see it go.

Unfortunately, in this life outside of mathematics, Ǝ (there exists) vandals. And that problem is not unique.

Man of Stone – Erich

The Golem of Prague was a man made of clay. Superman is the Man of Steel. But do you know of the Man of Stone? Or perhaps more precisely, the Man Half of Stone?

He was the Nargun, a mythical half-man, half-stone creature in the stories of the Gunaikurnai Aboriginal people of Australia. According to the legends, the Nargun is made of stone except not all of him. But most of him. And if you attack him with a boomerang or a spear, it will just bounce back at the attacker. (The aboriginal Australians didn't have guns or even metal weapons, so there is no mention of what would happen if a sword or bullet hit him. Unlike with Superman where we know what would result.)

The Den of Nargun is a real place located in what is today Mitchell River National Park in Victoria, Australia. We visited the park today and walked to the Den of Nargun.

On the way we saw and heard kookaburras. Though never at the same time. I mean, we saw kookaburras, but they weren't making their laughter-like call. And other times we could hear the “I'm so amused” call of those birds, but we couldn't see who was making it. (This reminds me of a new proposal. I suggest we stop calling bird calls calls and instead call them their ringtones. Good idea?)

Rapids on the Mitchell River

We also got to see the Mitchell River and the canyon it has formed. We saw scarlet parrots. And we saw this guy.

What is it wearing? Is that a shell? A leaf? A tortilla?

I don't know what he is. Like a cross between an insect and a hermit crab?

We climbed down into the canyon and then we climbed up out of it

The area is filled with lovely waterfalls, tall canyons, steep paths, and the unusual flora of a temperate rain-forest, close to the furthest south that any such temperate rain-forest exists.

This is part of the going back up

We did then proceed to the Den of Nargun. Among the Gunaikernai people, stories were told of how the Nargun would grab and eat children who were found at the pool outside his den. This both convinced children not to wander off, but also to stay away from the den.

The Nargun lives in there

However, the Gunaikernai people did use the cave as a location for learning and initiation rituals for women. It is a place that the Gunaikernai men did not and still do not go. Visitors are asked not to cross the pool and enter the cave, out of respect for the Gunaikernai traditions. We only gazed at it from across the pool at its mouth. We certainly would never want to disrespect the traditions of those who lived in this land for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.

I mean, who would do that? You'd have to have a heart of stone. Or perhaps more precisely, half of stone.