World Dance

Me leading the girls off after performing Sowu (Gana dance - Cellebration of Life). The second dance we performed was a contemporary choreography of an aboriginal dance - the Rock Spirit.

lanterns

The ceremony was at the Golf club. Everyone lit these paper lanterns, which heat up and act like a hot air balloon. Wishes for prosperity and happyness were lifted into the night with them.

Hugo

Gretel & Phil's son playing the cushion drum :-)

Chloe

Gretel & Phil's daughter blowing bubbles.

Happy couple

Gretel and Phil were married on the deck of Margaret Knoll look-out. The weather was perfect and they looked gorgeous!

heart

The boardwalk of love...

Bali style wedding

Eleanor & Simon provided beautiful Bali style music for Gretel & Phil's jungle wedding.

coconut breakfast

Coconut crabs aren't the only crabs on this Island that like a bit of coconut. We found this red crab munching on a coconut in ou side yard that Simon opened and decided was too green for our tastes.

fungi yellow caps

I decided it was time to do the Territory Day Park walk again. It has information boards spaced along it, which is good because it makes it so much easier to learn about different trees when they are in front of you. The book I have is a great start, but it only shows leaves, fruit and flowers - no trunk or roots! I won't bore you all by posting all the reference photos I took though :-)

tree house

This dead tree is home to lots of crabs.

fungi ledge

This red crab was using some ledge fungi as a perch. Crabs will eat some types of fungi, but this variety obviously isn't as pallatable as the leaves.

Massive tree

I think this is a Canoe tree, but it was sooo big, I found it difficult to tell! I think it has the largest girth I have found on CI so far.

Canoe tree

Simon, with his new walking sticks, in front of a large Canoe tree(Kayu Kolek). The Malay people used to make small outrigger canoes (koleks) from these trees because the trunks are beautifully straight. These trees are also called Propella Trees - because their small fruit have two wings that spin like a propella when they fall. And just to confuse everyone, this tree is also known as a Cabbage tree - although I'm not sure why!

Stinkwood tree

Every now and then, when you are walking through the jungle, you will catch a strong smell. Chances are, it is one of these trees and something has wounded its trunk. The size of the wound on this tree made it very stinky! One tourist described it as being like the smell of a wet nappy.

diamond bark

fungi paint

fungi rust

fungi purple

fungi scalloped

fungi curls

fungi cluster

It's that time of year again! We've had loads of rain so there is plenty of fungus to be found growing on old dead wood.

Bathing Buddha

Simon and I went to the birthday celebrations for Buddha on Friday evening. While you bath the statue of Buddha, you hold a vision of yourself or loved ones with all negativity washed away.

Don Holbrook

Don flew in from Las Vegas to be the keynote speaker for a Commerce Dinner. Simon met him at the International Economic Conference in America last year.

Don

Don got a very quick, jam packed tour of the Island. He was only here for 2 nights.

Open Sesame!

I waited ages for this butterfly to open its wings! In the end it paid off :-)

Varied Eggfly Butterfly

Yellow Nipper

I haven't seen this variety of crab on the Island very many times. So I'm pleased to get a good photo.

Goshawk

This Goshawk flew up to our car and landed on top when we took Don to look at the flopped Rocket launch site.

Royalty

The newly married couple look like a King and Queen.

Kompang

The Kompang (Malay drums) perform for the bride and groom.

Procession

The Malay bride and groom walk slowly up the street.

Brides feet

The feet of a Malay bride are also tattood.

Brides hands

The hands of a Malay bride are tattood to make her beautiful.

Giant Trevali

Awesome swimming with these large fish. They are quite unafraid of people because the local fisherman feed them. It's meant to be taboo to catch them.

Bleached fan coral - macro

Bleached fan corals

Hydrocoral

These purple corals are gorgeous!

Stony coral - yellow

Stony coral comes in many different shapes and colours.

Giant clam

The lips on these clams never cease to amaze me.

Feather Stars

These creatures are like Starfish. During the day they latch onto the coral and rest. Sometimes small shrimp and crabs take refuge in their many arms. At night time they become active and move around the coral, curling and uncurling their arms as they feed.

Graeffe's Sea Cucumber

The flowering parts at the front are the feeding arms. They pick up bits and put them in the mouth - a bit like an elephants trunk, only with several on the go at once.

Cardinalfish

This is the only decent photo I managed to take while in Thundercliffe Cave. These fish have flashing lights when not in a spotlight. However, our group was creating too much light with all our camera displays etc to see. I think I did well to get a photo of one while it was still, because they were all darting around the entrance as we were swimming out.

Spotted Sea Cucumber mouth

This cucumber was threaded through some coral. Even though its body was exposed, it kept trying to hide its head. It probably didn't like me shining a torch at it or firing my camera flash at it.

Spotted Sea Cucumber body

Another night shot. These sea cucumbers can grow up to 1.5m long. This one was only about 50cm.

Lion Fish

Found this Lion Fish on my night dive. It stayed still enough for me to photograph, but kept trying to hide its face from me.

Coral garden

These small flowering corals growing on the wall of the drop-off look like fields of wild flowers.