We spent the morning wandering through the Cleveland markets, a sort of street side craft sale they set up every Sunday. It reminded me of Lake Avenue (near my house back home) on Saint James Day, when all the nearby vendors, artists, and craft makers set up tents and booths the whole length of the street right up the middle of town. Traffic is diverted around, and the quiet little town of Saint James becomes a mob of foot traffic. Well, this was similar, but there were fewer people, and the bright purple jackaranda trees told me I was definitely not in NY.

Harmonica	Fresh Honey	Cleveland Markets	Beer Can Planes
Beer Can Ships	Beer Can Dunnies

Not far past "The Old Courthouse" is Cleveland Point's "Old Lighthouse." It looks out into the bay towards Peel Island, which, by some tragic coincidence used to be home to a leper colony. On that same road we drove past, and had to return to see, the oldest Banyan tree in Queensland. With a thousand intertwined and fused branches and roots, it looks like something from "The Dark Crystal." It sprouts roots from its branches, which tangle together, forming new trunks to support the branch. These massive trees take over anything in their way, including other trees, and fences, which can be seen slowly being absorbed by this particular one. All of the branches and roots that look like a strangler vine in the photos, are actually all part of the same tree. The complex aerial root structure makes them all the easier to climb.

Peel Island from Cleveland Point	Easy to Climb	Roots From Braches	James in the Tree
Surrounded	Queensland's Oldest Banyan Tree	Eating a Fence

I wanted a better photo of an ibis, so Carmel directed us to a place called Black Swamp. Sounding like something from "The Princess Bride," I half expected to see R.O.U.S's but was instead shocked to see an infestation of ibis. Set asside as a nature reserve, the Black Swamp attracted 1100 ibis (according to the sign posted nearby) which, as you can see, have completely taken over as the dominant species. Then, as we were walking from one viewing platform to another, right by the side of the road, Carmel noticed a carpet snake sunning itself, nearly 10 feet in length. Then a second, and a third one were seen. Two of them slithered over the first one, which couldn't be bothered to move, and entwined themselves in a continuous spiral, right before our eyes. They were only 3 feet away from us. We could have stepped over the small wooden barrier and touched them, but thought it best not to interfere. They looked pretty busy, actually. So the five of us gathered around just staring at this rutual mating dance, and must have caught the attention of a cyclist riding past, who had to come back to see what we were looking at. Then the crowd of onlookers grew when cars began pulling over to see what everyone else was looking at. It was a strange display of both animal and human behavior.

Black Swamp	Ibis Infestation	1100 Ibis	Three Carpet Snakes by the Side of the Road
Mating Dance

There is an unwritten list of things a visitor has to do before leaving Australia. I can finally scratch off one more of those things. Because, Carmel, compelled by the snake sighting, spotted a koala bear in a playground tree from the car as we drove by. The picture is a bit fuzzy, having zoomed beyond optical without my better judgement.

First Koala Sighting

We spent the evening watching lightning storms light up the horizon from Robin's (Jess from Adalaide's mom) back yard, home to dozens upon dozens of difficult to photograph wallabies. They are inquisitive, and all sort of sit up and stare at you, but not long enough to pose. They hopped away uninterested in the dim, 1/2 second light, my camera unable to zoom far enough, or open it's aperature wide enough.