Thar be salties here.

I had thought we might have a swim at Wangi Falls, but this sign warning of possible saltwater crocs in the water was a fair deterrent. Since they do usually allow swimming here, we wondered just how they knew the crocs had shown up...

Behind the orange barrier is a beautiful pool at the base of the falls. There was a good sized colony of flying foxes hanging out in a tree over the pool, and we tried to point them out to the couple on the viewing platform next to us. It turned out they were German, with a very limited command of English. I, of course, have an equally limited command of German, and couldn't for the life of me recall the German word for bat, so we began a ridiculous pantomime of flying bats, vampire fangs; anything I could think of to communicate what I was trying to point out. They would nod and smile and point at something in completely the wrong direction. There were dozens of them and they were moving around, so it wasn't as if they were hard to spot, but they had some difficulties. Finally, they saw them, and we all grinned. As soon as they said the word "fledermaus", I remembered it. It translates as "flitter mouse".




The path here literally follows the border between the wet rainforest on the left and the dryer woodlands on the right. Because the region experiences 6 months or so with no rain at all, the plants are fairly specialized and the densest rainforest can only live where there is permanent water.




A view inside the rainforest.





A look up and down the creek that forms Wangi falls, right where it tumbles over the escarpment.




The angle of view is somewhat narrow here, but the woodlands extend as far as one can see, with no sign of human habitation.




And at last, the falls themselves. We are looking straight at the sun, which is searing directly into our brains through the giant hole in the ozone layer, but, you know, anything for a picture.