Segway Rainforest Discovery Tour

From my previous blog I had my chill out day getting the local bus from Port of Airlie (directly below my Club Wyndham Resort) to nearby Shute Harbour to see what that offers. Shute Harbour is a few kilometres south of Airlie and it is the typical one road in & out. Arriving after some 10mins & doing my normal viewing out of the bus’s side window there was mainly a small commercial sector, sheds & a harbour of all types of boats, more of the commercial side, the ferry barge and of the locals’ smaller boats. I guess everyone that lives in Airlie has a boat of sorts. The incoming road was full of utes and empty boat trailers lining for some 400m & this I’m told was a normal day. With a flash decision I decided to stay on the bus due to the lack of activity that I believed was available to me plus, I’m a far way from being a sailor or shipmate. What I did miss on the bus return was the Shute Harbour Walk from a roadside sign that took you to the top of the peninsula hill and ocean views. Bummer.

Before long I was back to good old Airlie and browsed freely on my blogging, finally getting a decent coffee at The Deck Café & much later a beer after my lagoon swim. To reiterate on the coffee, it was basically the best I had in all the 9days at Airlie. No-one here, including Hamilton Island can make a decent coffee. Argghhh!!!! Check out the photo of the Hamilton Island coffee that cost me $6.10. It was also supposed to be delivered to my table however, after a long delay I found it on the counter for me to take back to my table. A simple apology is all that I received.

With my sedentary day of chilling out over, I was keen to engage the next day in my pre-booked Segway Rainforest Nature Tour $139 through Sailing Whitsunday Tours.  Our tour guide, Zak picked me up at my Club Wyndham Resort right on time at 9am with coaster bus & trailer. I was the first pick up but as the others boarded the timing became much worse due to their tardiness in being prompt which added some frustrations to the group. Zak did well to hide his emotions.

Heading out along Shute Harbour Rd towards the Proserpine township we turn left into the Brandy Creek Rd then joining Forestry Rd to the Whitsundays Great Walk in The Conway National Park, a total of 7klm of winding roadway from the Shute Harbour Rd turnoff.

We enter a clearing of gravel area to operate as a carpark and here Zak scores the prime area for our set up & Segway training. Our group consists of 3 women from Melbourne & a young recently married couple with the male being the only one that had previous Segway experience. We were previously advised to bring along a hat, camera, jacket or raincoat in case it becomes inclement weather & a must for covered shoes. The other requirements are for the rider to be between 45kg and 117kg and the ability to stand unaided. Looking at some of the other riders their shoes were not the best for Segway riding or walking in a rainforest.

Zak gave us a quick tour overview and information for using the Segway along with the required safety advice. He advised with the current market each Segway was now costing him $10,000AUD due to the USD currency conversion rate plus the American model is of far better quality than what can be bought from China & co. The Segway weighs in about 23kgs and has a specialised motor for each wheel, a series of lithium batteries & gyroscopes that with the incorporated computer calculates more than 2,000 sensor readings per second assuring the highest degree of safety available. Segways can be speed governed for further safety as ours are today. One by one Zak unloaded a Segway out of the trailer & assigned that key colour to the rider and placing the provided individual lunch box into the Segway pouch and a coloured helmet.

Each person was shown how to go forward, reversing & stabilising using the feet position and the motion of the body with the upright control bar but the more crucial aspect was of mounting & dismounting and parking the Segway. This proved to be the more difficult operation for some of the group along with the barrage of laughter that was forthcoming. The Segway is controlled when your feet are placed in the wide stance and upfront of the foot pad; from there you lean forward ever so slightly with the control bar as well & that will set you forward & at the variable speed on the leaning position. Moving the control bar sideways will allow you to turn in that direction. Reversing is slightly leaning backwards along with the control bar. To park, is to in our case, lean the Segway up against a tree, then dismount. It will the go into park mode. Got it?

Taking everything in my stride I couldn’t believe how quickly I became accustomed to riding a Segway. Zak was most surprised too and questioned whether I had been truthful in ever using a Segway before. I even started showing some group members on what to do which helped Zak immensely. Once everyone did a few circuits of the gravel carpark we were all deemed to be ‘accredited’ and we started the nature journey. The very first hurdle we were given seemed absolutely daunting but we all managed to navigate it successfully, with Zak close by, was to do a turnstile type entry past the locked park gate. Talk about confidence building after navigating that tight semi-circle.

We were now off on the long gravel pathway through dense rainforest along the Whitsunday Great Walk with the constant challenge of keeping to the safe areas of the bumpy gravel pathway & away from the camber side edges and at the same time looking for nature (flora & fauna) and watching your speed. Seems daunting at first, but it became easier has we ventured on. Zak rode up front placing plastic-coloured cones over hazards for us to avoid (rocks jutting out of the pathway, etc).

Within the next 200m we came across another gateway (now left opened) and this is commonly called the ‘Jurassic Gate’ like in the movie. I’m not impressed by this now that I’m the last rider in the group being the more competent rider. The tail guy always gets it from the T-Rex dinosaur!! Lol!!

The rainforest is quite dense within the rugged hilly landscape with deep ravines and creek runoffs below. You could only imagine what this area would be like in severe rainfall with its steepness and ruggedness. We came to an instant stop with very little warning as we had come across a young Monitor Lizard sunbaking on the pathway to gain his UV energy. He, or she was clearly making a statement that this was its area and was not considering moving out of the way any time soon. Taking photos was no problem to the lizard either but it eventually took us to inch closer before it showed any form of movement to allow us to pass.

Zak quickly reminded us again to keep to the safe distance of 3m apart to ensure our safety. Sometimes 3m wasn’t quite enough as I soon experienced, for around an upcoming hairpin bend the group started talking loudly. We encountered a group of about 6 walkers, all gorgeous young women that would make any male fall off their Segway. I surely wasn’t expecting this!!! I was able to ask if there were any more coming, but all I heard was laughter … I think I heard “you wish” .. LOL!!! They were walking out of the park obviously starting very early morning on their walk, unlike us at 10am. We certainly weren’t expecting anyone coming our way out of the blue & to meet on a tight blind corner was the added adrenaline.

Before long, Zak stopped to give us some plant detail & showed us the Gympie-Gympie Plant growing alongside this pathway that everyone must avoid at all costs, for it has tiny edge fibres on the leaves that can cause an anaphylaxis reaction & ongoing immense pain. The leaves are a heart shape and look very normal to other plant leaves. This plant has many nicknames, such as stinging tree (20m) or bush, Qld Stinger or suicide bush. Never ever rub the area affected and it is best to use sticky tape to remove the microfibres or tweezers. Some patients experience the burning & pain several years later with possible fibres still embedded in the skin. The pain is likened to being burnt with hot acid & being electrocuted at the same time. In 1866 a surveyor reported his packhorse was “stung, got mad & died within 2 hours”. There are tales of workers long ago committing suicide to eliminate the ongoing pain. Look this plant up on the internet to get more detail.

From that warning we proceeded to a much safer tree, a fig tree where it had self-sown onto a host tree and over the years ‘swallowed’ it and kept growing. The one in the photo is about 100+years old and the later photo, where we could walk inside it with the host tree decomposed, was well over 150yrs old. More photo opportunities for Zak to take all our photos ‘parking’ our Segways. Nearby we came across the camouflage effect on a tree trunk caused by different elements of fungi and algae growth. This is where the Australian Army derived its battle uniform to blend into landscapes. Rainforests continue to be explored for all types of hidden elements, from fungi and herbal medicine treatments, new species of insects and plant life, just to name a few.

After more lizards, rock path hazards and road cambers we reached the milky waters of Impulse Creek (milky from last night’s rainfall) where we all found a rock sitting area and opened our special morning tea ‘lunchbox’ to eat the home-made blueberry muffin & chocolate brownie Zak’s wife made the day before, an apple, bottled water & a container of mixed dried fruit & nuts. The muffin & brownie were amazing, Zak’s wife is obviously a great cook & I praised her to Zak in my feedback. Zak also had tea & coffee onboard so I enjoyed the coffee of course. The sound of the rushing creek and the shape of the water scarping over the rockbase where we sat was so soothing and crying out for us to sit in the water, but alas, no way to change into swimwear, nor time to soak in the creek. A side note, the creek can experience flash flooding.

With our rest stop over it was back to riding the 4.7klms of roadway again, but this time we were left to ride our own way and with Zak riding last to pick up the hazard cones along the way. Zak, being very experienced mentioned this is the time where the riders can get over confident, so take your time & enjoy the ride. Not a truer & timely bunch of words said.

I was 2^nd last in the group with Zak further behind and I was certainly in no rush like the others, for I wanted to see other hidden gems along the way. Coming up towards the oldest fig tree again, a loud scream echoed out around the corner up ahead. One of the Melbourne ladies, had run over a smaller monitor lizard’s tail before it went into the rainforest, thus causing the lady to fall ungracefully off her Segway. She was unhurt & shocked but then felt much better in that her swerve saved the lizard from potentially a worse injury. The rider in front of her swerved around it & with her being directly behind her didn’t see it in time. She had forgotten the 3m rule.

I paused further up at the fig tree to marvel at its magnificence and with the added ferns & orchids clinging tightly to the branches before catching up to the others where another Melbourne lady was looking around in front of me & with little warning I was yelling “lean right, lean right”!!! Too late! She came tumbling off just missing the mud in the left embankment. Again, another rider lucky not to be injured. She kept saying she didn’t know what she had done to cause this accident despite me repeating she was looking around and didn’t notice she was travelling down a left camber in the pathway & therefore didn’t push her control bar to the right to return to the middle of the pathway. With all the drama now over, we returned to the turnstile exit which left me plenty of time to play further around the carpark waiting for Zak, and for him to load up the trailer of Segways. I had such fun scooting around and being last to load thereby limiting my time standing around or waiting in the confines of the bus.

This tour was certainly a good one to do but I would say it would be far better to do it much, much earlier in the day when the rainforest is more alive. We didn’t get to see the larger monitor lizards or much birdlife due to the noise humans make when walking & riding through. This would explain the early walkers returning when we were starting our entry. This walk must be high on the list for the locals to enjoy their fitness walks every chance they get. So much better than the closed in non-inviting gyms.

Everyone certainly enjoyed our half day tour navigating some 9.4klms of the Whitsunday Great Walk and our return bus journey still had Zak providing the commentary for us all back to our respective resorts however for the remainder of the day Zak dropped me off at Airlie main street to change into swimwear to enjoy the lagoon once again with a beer after before heading back to my Club Wyndham Resort. A day well ventured.

I’ll end this blog here and appreciate you all for taking the time to read my travel blogs. My next blogs will be the full day on a magnificent catamaran and then a river crocodile tour. Take care and enjoy life.

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