Day 284: Mossman Gorge — Rainforest Wiffle Ball
We had a chill morning. It’s nice to have a few days away from the breakfast buffet marathon and go back to the basics —coffee, juice, yogurt, cereal, fruit — in the privacy of your own home.
We did school this morning out on the big porch. James and I were at the dining table and Willa and Margaret sat around the coffee table.
There was nothing scheduled today, but we took Alan and Suzi’s advice and drove about 45 min south to Mossman Gorge. We ate our packed PBJs at the outdoor cafe tables then jumped on a five-minute shuttle bus up to the gorge. From the bus dropoff we walked along a raised walkway and eventually down on paths through the rainforest.
The plantlife is remarkable but the thing that stood out most for me and Margaret: no trash. A touristy place like this in Indonesia, Cambodia or Vietnam would always be covered with plastic litter — so much that you eventually start to take it for granted. Then you really notice when it isn’t there.
One of the paths leads down to an awesome swimming area: fresh mountain water running over and around huge boulders, with a little beach that makes it easy to enter. This appears to be the prime attraction at the gorge and we found an interesting mix of people: picnicking families with toddlers in life jackets; Gen Z cool kids sunning themselves on rocks; and grandpa and grandma tourists who followed their guidebooks to the edge of the water.
James, Willa and I were wearing our suits so we headed in. The water was chilly. We made our way past the little fish, over some slippery moss covered rocks and onto a couple big rocks that had been warmed up by the sun. We hung out for about an hour, then headed back to the bus.
We stopped in the town of Mossman on the way home. The Main Street is a sorta-cute, sorta-eerie set for a 1960s (post-apocalypse?) Western movie. We got fro-yo and insulated coffee / cocktail mugs at Yum-Yums and picked up some fresh watercolors and a baseball bat and balls at a variety store that time forgot.
When we got home we broke out the new bat and ball, made G&Ts in our new mugs and smacked the balls around the yard. The grassy area outside our house is ideal for wiffle ball.
Growing up my brother and I evaluated every family vacation accommodation by one criteria: is there a good place to play wiffle ball. We would have lost our minds over this spot at The Botanical Ark. It’s actually sorta shaped in a diamond and there were two big trees in perfectly located to be foul polls.
We laid down big leaves for the bases and while the kids hit and ran around the bases, I started teaching Willa and James the rules of baseball. A way-overdue lesson.
We called the teams the Rat Bags versus the Bandicoots.
I would give them terminology, like if you get a hit and end up on second it’s called a double. Then I would quiz them as we were playing. At one point James had just hit a triple so I asked him, “You get a hit and end up on third base, what’s it called?”
“A triple!” He and Willa yell together.
“You end up on second, what’s it called?”
“A double!”
“And what if get a hit and stop at first?”
Willa doesn’t know the answer. James pauses, thinking…
“Once upon a time?”
We all die laughing. We’ve been spending too much time in the classroom and not enough time on the baseball field.
We played for 45 minutes or so then Gaia came over for a night cap game of fetch.
Finally, dinner, showers and bed. Another good day in the North Queensland rainforest.
