Evening arrives:
We visited one more site--a coastal location where we saw mounds of
soil and leaf litter a few meters across. These large mounds are maintained by brush turkeys
as nest sites--very impressive!
After looking at the mounds, we picked our way through the brush to the
beach. This photograph that Beth took is very odd, I know, but it is of Robert and me on the beach after sunset. This beach
stands out in my mind because, as Robert explained, the sand in the beach had apparently been sorted by various geological
processes so that all the grains were just about the exact same size. I have never thought about this, but usually grains
of sand occur in a size spectrum--but not the grains at this beach!
Why the devil am I bringing this up, you wonder? Because it had a fabulous effect--the beach squeaked! Every time you put your
foot down, the beach made a squick, squek, or squeech sound like two pieces of rubber being pulled across each other.
In this photograph, Robert and I are pounding our feet up and down on the sand, making squek-squek-squek sounds as fast as we
can. Are we a pair of idiots, or what?
That night after dinner (during which Beth sampled a few more bits of meat normally outside of her acceptable
criteria), we sadly said goodbye to Robert, John, and Kirk. The next day we returned to Sydney and caught a plane to the
Australian outback...the "Red Centre"...
