It's time for a nap. I must have been awake for nearly an hour now.
Later on, we all go for a walk up Finch Hatton Gorge, as far as Rawson's Creek. We'd like to go on further up to the Wheel of Fire and the Araluen Falls. But we're wusses, so we get as far as the car park. That said, the Gorge is tremendously beautiful, even in its lower reaches. The mixture of sub-tropical forest and boulder-strewn (boulder-strewn, we note, is an extremely commonly-used phrase in this country) river channel - which might not be out of place in Scotland, or Dartmoor - is odd indeed. I take a million photos of it, just in case.
Back at Platypus Central Command, we break camp, and head off, saying cheerio to our new-found chums, and avoiding The Fuckwits. Happily, the phone reception is restored once we get out of Finch Hatton Gorge. Unhappily, I'm driving at the time; by the time we've stopped, the signal has gone again. The pattern repeats itself throughout the day. Expedition HQ back in dear old Blighty assumes, rightly, that there's nothing too badly wrong, and we're having a good time.
The road up to Eungella is amazingly beautiful, with views down the valley for miles. Eungella, too, strikes us as an extremely pleasant place, with an air both of unspoiltness, and of well-off-ness. We decide that, when the time comes to open the Australian office, Eungella is where it shall be. Or one of them, anyway.
Further up beyond Eungella is the Broken River Mountain Retreat, where, we've been told, platypuses are as bold as can be. Wandering off on the wrong track, we come to a wide pool section of the river, "below the bridge", as the guide says, which looks a quiet and likely spot. 45 minutes elapse, and the spot is looking less likely by the minute, though we have seen a Pacific Black Duck, and a Little Pied Cormorant. Wrong bloody bridge. We wander back down the trail, and find the "bridge" referred to is actually the road bridge we came across, just by the car park. And damn me, there they are; platypuses frolicking around in the river, in full view of the road, with families wandering by, and kids screeching. 
There are turtles, too, and an Azure Kingfisher - which looks like the European species, only seems about twice the size - flashes past, to sit on a branch over the river. Rather exhausted by all this sudden platypusness, we retire to the picnic area, surrounded by prowling bush turkeys, and a Brown Cuckoo-Dove, which sits in a tree and views us with deep suspicion. Happily, we also bump in to the Nice Aussie Couple from the Bush Camp last night, and say hello again.
And then we're off, again, back through Eungella, and down towards the valley floor again. The Sky Window lookout on the way down, overlooking the whole Pioneer Valley, provides one of the most stunning views we see on the whole trip - heady praise indeed.
