We spent the day today at the Daintree Rainforest, north of Cairns by about 75 miles. We left the hotel at 7:00 this morning and, after picking up another 24 sightseers at various hotels all up the coast, we arrived at the first stop, Mossman Gorge, around 10:00. We took the Coast Road up from Cairns, and as the name implies, it hugged the coast pretty much the whole way. What was interesting was that there wasn't a continuous sand beach all the way up the coast. What we had, instead, was sections of sandy beach (anywhere from 100 yards to maybe a couple miles long) interspersed with rocky areas. You could see the Coral Sea from much of the road and you could see the inner portions of the Great Barrier Reef pretty much the whole way, anywhere from 1/2 mile to maybe 3 miles offshore. There is an outer Reef that is further out to see (maybe 20-30 miles) in much deeper water.
Our first stop was at Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest National Park. Here you can get some idea of what the terrain looks like from the Visitor's Center:
We walked through the forest on this very nice catwalk for about half a mile to get to the Gorge itself. You can see how dense the vegetation is. That's Brian, our driver and guide, giving a summary of the plants and animals in the area:
The rainy season hasn't started yet, although it's just around the corner, so the water levels in the Gorge weren't as high as they get when they've had a lot of rain. We did find some local wildlife bathing in the stream, though:
After we left the Gorge, we took a ferry across the Daintree River to the Alexandra Overlook, where you can see the Coral Sea, part of the Great Barrier Reef, and the mouth of the Daintree River:
From there, we proceeded further up the coast to Cape Tribulation. The story goes that in 1770, when Captain Cook was exploring the east coast of Australia, he got his ship hung up on the Reef at this point and it took several days to free it. Anyway, the Cape is actually a bay and it was beautiful:
There were a lot of warning signs about swimming in the bay, though, because of the risk of sharks, saltwater crocodiles, sting rays, and jelly fish. There are a lot of things that can get you here in Australia...
From Cape Tribulation, we headed on over to the ferry landing again on the Daintree River and took a ride in the African Queen up the river with Mick, our couragous captain. Mick was quite knowledgable about the flora and fauna in the region and made it an interesting trip. These little guys are sand crabs that gather in the brackish waters of the river where the salt concentration is just right. They were all over some areas of the river bank:
And a little further down the river we met a total of four smaller crocodiles. This first one is about 5 feet long and 18 months old:
A little further up the river, we came up on three smaller crocs, about 2 feet long and a year old:
As we headed further up the river toward our dock, I got this picture. You can get some idea of how lush the area is here:
All in all, it was a very interesting day. We met people from the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia. The guides were interesting and really tried to make the day a memorable experience. Very nice...
Pat's Paragraph.... The area here grows a lot of sugar cane. They were having problems in the 1930's with certain bug pests so instead of using insecticides they decided to import 'cane toads' to take care of the problem. Cane toads are very poisonous and grow to be the size of dinner plates. There was a 'little' problem that these 'wise' people didn't take into consideration. And instead of trying this experiment in one little area, they released the cane toads into the fields. OOPS! The bugs are busy during the day, the cane toads are busy at night. The cane toads have no natural enemies so they took over everything. They killed all the local creatures and anything that ate the toads, died. The cane toads have become such a horrific pest that the locals have bounties on them and kill every one they see.
We had a blessing ceremony this morning by the local 'shaman' of the area's Aborigine tribe. It was a 'smoke' ceremony using a special holy bark that made the white smoke. We were in a small glade by the river and the winds changed, covering all of us in a heavy cloud of smoke. Our eyes are still red from it, we smell like a camp fire but we are thoroughly 'blessed'.
Tomorrow we're headed for Brisbane for several days...more to follow!
