Night Hike with Mick

As if hiking Mount Sorrow Lookout was not enough, we had signed up for a night walk later that evening. We were moving pretty slowly as we climbed into the landcruiser equipped with the obligatory engine snorkel and roo bar that all 4WD vehicles seem to have up in the Daintree.

Mick was our guide for the evening. He is knowledgeable and passionate about wildlife on the large area of land that he is caretaker of. He does small private tours (there were 9 of us I think) at least twice a day and keeps records of everything sighted to compare from year to year.

That's a rainforest dragon at left.

He really wanted to start off the tour by showing us crocs, so we went down to the river where a 5.5 meter male and his smaller partner are often sighted. After watching a croc feeding earlier in the week, I was not too disappointed to not see one without a fence between us. Mick also told of an amethystine python that he has seen out there on multiple occasions that is 7 meters long.Imagine that dropping out of the tree...

The birds sleep on the distal tips of branches so they can feel a snake coming. It makes them easy to spot.

That's a wolf spider at left (I think.)

We saw many sleeping animals (birds, reptiles and amphibians) that were totally not bothered by our shining lights on them, talking and walking by. All ten of us stepped over this frog sleeping on the path.

I wish I had taken notes, but I do know we saw cape york rat, bioluminescent fungus, rainbow skink, goliath snail, green lipped tree frog, wolf spider, trap door spider, white kneed cricket, rainforest dragons and much much more.

There is a GIANT green lipped tree frog in the picture at left, but he was camera shy.

I wish I could remember what kind of frog this is!