Day 28 – Cairns, coconut and a cloud of bats
In the morning Łukasz picks us up. We go to the coconut plot where we will do some work in exchange for the house that we got into the care during the Christmas. On the spot it turns out that the palm trees is slightly more than we expected – more than a hundred and the plot is so long that we run over it by car. Well, at least we will try a work in the tropics. We put a trailer up the first palm trees. We put gloves on and we pick dry leaves and weighing several kilograms coconuts up, now and again looking up and taking care not to get a coconut in the head. After 2-3 palm trees a trailer fills up so we drive 15 minutes to the dumping ground where we empty out it.
We try to open a few coconuts straight from the palm trees, but it turns out that it is impossible without an axe or other tool. Finally, by means of crowbar we open a coconut. We expected, that it will be more tasty. but it was personally picked and opened, so anyhow it tasted pretty good.
In the north of Australia is a rainy season, so every now and then it rains, making our work difficult. On the other hand, is so hot that this refreshment may not be the worst idea. After more than 5 hours, we found it’s enough for today and we go home.
In the afternoon we go sightseeing Cairns with Łukasz and we reach to the urban lagoon. It is a swimming pool with a beach in the middle of the city. When is getting dark we are witnesses of an amazing phenomenon. The sky creates a kind of tunnel with thousands of giant bats, which are called here: ‘flying foxes’. A cloud of bats doesn’t seems to end and all bats are flying the same route, in the direction of islands. For a half an hour we stay awe-stricken. We cannot stop be surprised by the endless number of bats.
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