Eungella Park

Hello
Sorry, its been a while seen my last entry, but internet access is proving a bit difficult.  The National Parks do not have internet and the Maccas is so slow.  I am sending this from Macca's, so I am not sure how many pictures I can send.
We travelled up the coast from Hervey Bay and spent the night in our old haunt, Yeppoon. (Last blog).  We then headed inland to Emerald and the gemfields.  When we lived here, the area was brown and desolate due to the drought.  They were slaughtering cattle because there was nothing for them to eat.  It is now green and lush, with lots of cattle and calves.  It is wonderful to see.
The gemfields cover hundreds of square kilometres and this is where most of the world's sapphires are found.  Did you know that sapphires are graded by hardness, not colour?  Sapphires come in a variety of colours, most commonly blue, but yellow, pink, green and red (rubies are red sapphires).  You can stake a claim anywhere (not already claimed) and start digging, as long as you have a licence (ten bucks or so).  It's hard work,  it is quite hot here now, 30+ degrees and the ground is hard.  We tried our hand at "fossicking", with buckets of wash (dirt already picked and piled), we then washed the wash and tried to pick out the gemstones.  Got a few small sapphires, not big enough to cut, but lots of hard work, just washing them.  Would not want to dig for them now.  The gemfields area is quite deserted now, but in the winter, the"grey nomads"  ie the retirees from down south, pack the place.  Quite a few have heart attacks swinging their picks looking for riches.
We then headed off to Eungella National Park, eungella means "land of the clouds" in the aboriginal language.  It's not hard to see why, its quite a steep windy road up and the top is covered with clouds.  It's a bit surreal after the hot coast to be cool (had to wear jeans and a long sleeved shirt!) and shrouded in clouds.  It is a subtropical rainforest which has been cut off from the others, so it has several species of bird, skink and flowers that are not found anywhere else.  It is also a great place to see the duck billed platypus.  We saw a couple of them, very strange looking.  They dive for their food, with their eyes closed.  They detect electromagnetic field coming from their prey with their bills, so they often live in murky water.

Add caption  Duck billed platypus surfacing for air before diving down again to fish.