Tarzette, Queen of the jungle

My third day I made my way to Iriomote Island. Iriomote had a much more island feel to it. This may have been because I had to take a ferry to get there but I am sure that the lack of tall buildings helped too. The youth hostel was up on a hill overlooking the sea so the view was really beautiful. It was nice to see some nature too, a fruit bat and some glow worms and fireflies. No sign of the elusive Iriomote lynx though.

I took a trip by riverboat (which was strangely reminiscent of the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland) to see the waterfall you can just about see pictured below.Once back at the landing area I did some canoeing. The guide took us all around the mangroves and explained about the different species (I was given a special card in English) and also showed us some wildlife such as this crab...
And its mother...
Then we headed even further into the wilds to see an area where there was once a coal mine. It looked like nothing so much as a piece of scenery from an Indiana Jones movie. In this area we also saw some tiny lizards and large butterflies.