Day 70

Finally the last Undara post!  On Sunday morning I took a tour of the lava tubes at Undara.  They load you up on a bus and drive you out to the middle of nowhere, with the assurance that there's a helicopter landing area if they need to airlift you to a hospital for some reason.  (Hmm.)  I took the Active Tour, which meant climbing down rocks instead of taking boardwalks, which was the other tour.  The tubes were neat!

The entrance to a lava tube!

Sometimes stuff gets in that can't get out.

The ceiling is about 40ft high.  (Far side is the exit.)

See how the sides are still expanding in that last photo?  That's because the floor isn't really the floor.  After the lava was gone, water flowed through these tubes and left sediments that settled on the bottom of the tube.  Nobody has drilled to see how far down the real bottom of the tube is.

The entrance to the first part of the tube!

This section of the tube was about 100ft long.

This was the entrance to the second part of the tube.  The first section was fully open and lit, but this one was dark!

This was totally black without lights.  (My camera's flash is amazing.)

The walls were once black, but over time the minerals seeped out.  Pretty!

The entrance from afar.  This tube is probably even deeper under all that sediment.

I also found some bugs in the lava tubes, which is weird considering that there isn't much down there in the way of life.  I also found a few mummified toads.

I think this is a Huntsman but I couldn't get close enough to ID him for sure.

Amazingly, this is the only cockroach I saw in the tunnels.  What a difference from the caves of Bonaire!

Froggie!

Exiting the lava tube.

Once out of the tube we were back into the savanna.

This is a Bottle Tree!  They hold lots of water in their trunks.

Look at this wasp!  The abdomen is tiny!!!

The savanna forest.  A bright sun and not a cloud in the sky--that's my definition of a perfect day.

A messy panorama.  There are a few floating trees in here if you look closely... but from afar it looks okay!  

After the tour I was supposed to go back to the campsite, but I got distracted by a flock of beautiful Rainbow Lorikeets.  They were drinking from a man-made pool of water and they let me get quite close to them.  I almost missed my van, but it was worth it!

Just had a bath.

I didn't know that the individual feathers were multiple colours.  Gorgeous!

I loved this guy.  They look so personable!

Drinking from the faucet.

I wish I'd had more time to play with the shutter speed!

I love their little feet, they can climb around on just about anything.

I can see why people keep them as pets.

Thanks to the internet, I think of Leonardo DiCaprio every time I look at this photo.

Lorikeets at the drinking hole!

It's really hard to catch them in flight!  I just kept scaring them until I got my shot. 

And last but not least, here are a few photos of kangaroos!  My friend Jessica took both of these--I haven't actually seen a live kangaroo yet, but I've seen three dead ones on the side of the road.  I will keep looking though!!!

Eastern Grey Kangaroo!

This might actually be a pair of wallabies but the mama and joey look
like they're holding hands!  So cute!!!

That's all for now!  I'm meeting the family in Sydney on Thursday, so I've got lots of preparing to do.  Hopefully my next batch of photos will have my mom and grandma in them!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton