21/08/2020
Today we climbed to the Whitsunday peak(434 meters). The whole walking distance is 5 kilometres return. It was not difficult to walk, but I was wearing reef shoes with ultra-thin soles. Although I added more insoles, my feet still hurt on sharp pebbles. There was dense forest most of the way so it was not too hot, but you could feel the heat of the sun immediately once on the top of the bare mountain. On the way, we encountered a small python basking in the middle of the track. It looked no different from a tree root. I was walking with my head down so I saw it just a meter away. I immediately jumped back and shouted. J had already crossed over it while he was looking up at the tree tops. How lucky he was and so was the python that no stepping on happened.
Along the mountain path, we saw lots of big hoop pines. Its bark forms scaled-like horizontal hoops. From 1890 there was a logging mill here to send logs to the surrounding cities until 1904 when it shut down. From then on, no hoop pines have fallen under axes and they stand proudly among the rain forest.
At the top of the mountain, the scenery was infinite, the entire Whitsunday Islands could be seen. Whitsundays consists of 74 islands. I checked Wikipedia and found that there is a tiny island with an area of 0.011 square meters, named Titan…
There is no fishing luck tonight, so we were having tofu stir-fried with various veggie strips.
Sea Journal 