Marc & Nora ROUND THE WORLD 2005/2006 - Join us!

In the previous NIMBIN chapter i wrote that there is no evidence of Nimbin. Well, i did found one picture to show our evening in the local pub...

Close to Nimbin is beautiful Nightcap National Park.

We stayed a couple of days to visit the protestor falls and to do a 9km walk down to the base of a waterfall.

Our 'campsite' was a government campspot in the park - basic but so beautiful. there were dozens of kookaburras - so beautiful, so clever as well. we watched them getting their food (tiny worms from the ground) and listened to them 'singing'. there are many different kinds of kookaburras, this one pictured is called 'laughing kookaburra' due to the sound they do. when they sing or communicate it sounds like they are laughing... really funny.

the 9km walk to the waterfall base was rather exciting!

we had to do some major rock-climbing to access the freshwater pool.

after a refreshing swim we got back to the rocks and put our clothes on when we spotted 2 girls shaking their shoes and looking rather disgusted. we soon found out that the pool and its rocks were the home of little monsters! to be more concise we had to face LEECHES!!!

they were tiny and sucked from both ends! i had a few on my ancles and went crazy! i wanted to get them off with my fingers but they were just sucking and sucking...horrible! i couldnt get them off by any means and if only to discover that they sucked on my finger next.
marc knew wot to do: you either have to use salt (which we didnt take with us of course) or you burn them off. luckily he had some matches in his rucksack and it worked.

but after getting them off the wounds bleeded like crazy. apparently they put some anticoagulant into your wound so you wont bleed and some anasthetic so you dont feel them sucking. if you, of course, remove those little monsters it bleeds like hell!

we had no tissues with us so ended up using flyers and brochures we found in our backpacks to wrap around our feet. NICE!

halfway up our ascent i had this panic attack that i might have not shaken my trekking sandals enough - so i checked my feet again! and there they were - another 3 leeches - meanwhile HUGE as they have sucked away for 45 minutes!

my scream must have been heard miles away.

sorry guys - i cannot show you any photos of this experience as my mind wasnt on taking photos really...

but the day wasnt over yet. when we arrived at the car park we were chased by a huge guana. marc managed to scare him away!

MARC WAS DEFINITELY MY HERO OF THE DAY.

...the next day i texted my mum to tell her about this incident and guess wot her response was:

"did you use salt or did you burn them away?"

i couldnt believe it! i thought marc was my hero but even my mum knew survival practices!
--> it seems that it is only me who doesnt watch any nature programmes...