| Feb 4, 2012 Hello from the windy and wet, Wet Tropics, A brood monsoon trough is held over the Wet Tropics by a low pressure system that moved from the Gulf of Carpentaria and crossed the coast over Cairns Friday night. The low is now over Willis Island and is moving away from the coast in an ESE direction. It is expected to form into a cyclone tomorrow and to continue to move out to sea. |
The low brought very strong winds to the Wet Tropics but the winds at Freshwater were enhanced by the topography which cause Katabatic winds. Last night power was lost over a wide area and many trees fell across roads.
I went to Cairns for a meeting Friday at Stratford which is near Freshwater and on my way back the top speed on the car’s wipers could not remove the torrential rain that was falling on the windscreen. The wind blew at least forty knots all night at Coquette Point and trees fell down around the nursery but no other damage. Mt Annie and Bellenden Ker were cover in heavy cloud all day. | 
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Pond-apple is in full fruit all over the Wet Tropics and many cassowary’s scats contain only pond-apple seed. As well debris on the high-tide line contains whole pond apples and lots of their seed. How can this noxious plant be contained when its seeds are so prolific? 
On the forest floor white bracket fungi cover trees fallen to past cyclonic winds. 
Snakes are looking for a dry home away from the wet and I heard today of a number of snakes found in sheds and houses in the Cassowary Coast. 
| Ma Mu elder Victor Maund visited the nursery this week and he was excited to tell me that a very big female cassowary, in prime condition, was seen walking along the Palmerstone Highway near Crawford’s Lookout and close to the Mamu Canopy Walkway this week. Victor told me that it was the first cassowary he had seen in the area for a few years. Victor examined large cassowary footprints on the beach at Coquette Point and talked to me about the waterways of the Wet Tropics. 
Coquette Point matriarch cassowary Jessie.
The palm trees in the rainforest are in flower. The iconic fan palm, Licuala ramsayii’s inflorescence glow white in the shadows under the canopy. 
Archontophoeniox Alexandrae while in full fruit are flowering yet again. 
A little Herbert River Black found a dry spot in my laundry this week. Cheers for now, Yvonne C. |
