Australian Geographic — May-June 2017

66 Australian Geographic

T

HE FINAL BLAZE of the setting sun is a cue for frogs and

other wildlife to begin stirring to feed. Alan Gillanders, a

former teacher who’s run wildlife tours on the Atherton

Tableland for 14 years, has developed a sense for where such

creatures might be lurking, which is handy because it’s pitch black

along the track to Dinner Falls in Mount Hypipamee National

Park, south of Atherton. Suddenly, he stops and swings his light

up to a branch where a prehensile-tailed rat sits.

At ground level he susses out two northern barred frogs, then

again his beam hits the branches above – almost instinctively – and

we spot the white stomach of another frog perched above. We

turn off all our lights to admire luminescent fungi and fireflies.

Then Alan scans the forest with a thermal imaging device and

detects something. “It’s big,” he says, and his spotlight picks up a

red-legged pademelon in a gully.

The next day, Alan takes us to a place favoured by creatures

that are a little shyer. Along Peterson Creek in Yungaburra there’s

a spot where platypus venture at dawn or dusk. But because it’s

mid-morning our attention is turned skyward, where two green

ringtail possums embrace, probably a mother and her young.

“Their diet is quite nasty,” Alan says. “Just about everything

they eat is poisonous, so they look for the least toxic of the species.

They have favourite trees and even favourite branches.”

This part of the Tableland is volcanic and Lake Eacham is a

perfect example of a maar crater lake – shallow and broad. But

Alan has a hidden treasure for us to discover in the surrounding

Crater Lakes National Park. Near the bridge on Wrights Creek

Road, an un-signposted track takes us down through the rain to

Vision Falls. This forest is dark, but Alan’s seen it darker. “It used

to be like a tunnel in here, but the forest took a caning during

Larry,” he says. “I walked in afterwards and teared up. You could

now get sunburnt in the forest. But it’s still a special place.”

W

E’RE GREETED in Margit Cianelli’s kitchen by Gerald,

a small rufous bettong, while Lily the pademelon suns

herself in the lounge. Meanwhile, out of Margit’s shirt

appears Dobby, an eight-month old tree kangaroo who, without

the protection of her mother’s pouch, needs constant cradling.

This is Lumholtz Lodge, a B&B-cum-wildlife rescue centre, one

and a half hours drive south-west of Cairns.

The Lumholtz’s tree kangaroo is Margit’s specialty and this

German-born wildlife carer has lost count of the orphans she’s

nurtured during several decades at her private 65ha rainforest

sanctuary at Upper Barron. Tree kangaroos Kimberley, her son

Monty and orphan Dobby sleep in Margit’s room at night. She

wakes at about 2am to feed Dobby, and usually Kimberley is ready

to be let outside then. But Margit looks anything but exhausted.

During our excellent German-style breakfast, she cradles both

Dobby and Monty in her shirt, and then it’s time for Monty to

be reunited with Kimberley in the rainforest.

Kimberley wears a radio-tracking collar and within minutes

she’s located high in a fig tree. Margit puts Monty onto a branch

and Kimberley comes down to greet her son. They sit together

for a few minutes before moving higher in the tree kangaroo’s

distinctive style – pulling up with both front paws then pushing

with the legs.

They leap to another branch with astounding agility, then

come down to the ground, off exploring until late afternoon,

when Margit will call them in for the evening.

Although the Wet has the tropics flourishing, the tree kangaroos

in this area are a reminder of how vulnerable Australia’s tropical

north is. Primary industry is swallowing up more of the natural

habitat of these marsupials and they are at risk. But people like

Margit – and the other locals who have become guides and help

orchestrate a love affair between people and place – are fighting

to protect their home territory.

AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC thanks Tourism Tropical North

Queensland, Double Tree by Hilton Hotel Cairns and Avis for assistance

with this story.

SEE more of Don Fuchs’s spectacular Wet Tropics images online at:

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/issue138

AG

The tree kangaroos in this area are

a reminder of how vulnerable

Australia’s tropical north is.

Alan Gillanders inspects a potato

fern (Marattia salicina) along the

track to Vision Falls in Crater Lakes

NP. This species has been listed

nationally as endangered.