We wandered around Cooktown in the early afternoon. In the mangroves along the Endeavour river we found a large camp of Flying-foxes. As far as we could tell there were two species present, Little Red Flying-fox and the larger Black Flying-fox.
Flying-foxes feed mainly on nectar and fruit rather than insects and do not use echo-location. They are capable of long journeys on the wing and it is not unusual for them to cover 50 km a night.
People are rather mixed in their response to these creatures. They do harbour a virus that can be infect humans, although transmission is a rare event. The camps tend to be rather smelly and noisy. And some people just find them particularly creepy. The aborigines ate them and it is said that they are very tasty.
We met a guy whose response was one that we had not encountered previously. He had wandered out of the RSL with a beer in hand, clearly not his first for the day. It is an inescapable fact that some of the males sport very impressive gonads. This was something that our gentleman was very keen to discuss. In fact, in making a comparison with his own, it seemed that he felt considerably inferior. I suspect that the next logical step, dropping his trousers so that passers-by could make their own comparison, was only a beer or two away.
bobmcgee 