Daintree Rainforest

Hello from the Wet Tropics of northern Australia! I’ve spent the past couple of days in Cairns, which is along the northern coast and just off the coast is the Great Barrier Reef. Yesterday, I took my first day trip and went to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest.

The day started off early when I was picked up at 7:10 right at the front door of Gilligan’s, where I’m staying for the week. The tour guide’s name was Steve and he was a true Australian bloke with the sense of humor and wittiness that you’d expect. He actually did a lot of work with Steve Irwin and had some good stories to tell about The Crocodile Hunter. He said that the way he was on TV is exactly how he was in real life and he wasn’t just putting on a show for the cameras. But our Steve was a great tour guide. On the drive to the rainforest he made sure to point out all the significant landmarks and usually had a joke to throw in about it as well.

After we picked up all of the other tourists, our first stop was Mossman Gorge, which is a small section of the Daintree Rainforest. Usually, we would have been able to go swimming in the river at Mossman, but with all the rain the area has received the water level was too high and the current too strong. I did get to see some neat wildlife though. The highlight was a lizard called the Boyd’s Forest Dragon. It looked a lot like some kind of iguana, or even that little dinosaur from Jurassic Park. I also saw some wild tropical fish, which were pretty big. Just walking through the rainforest is really neat and none of the pictures I took can really do it justice. You just can’t take photos of the all trees and foliage and do it justice.

Well, after Mossman Gorge we headed on toward the Daintree River. But on the way we stopped at a really neat lookout point along the road that showed where the river met with the Pacific Ocean. The Daintree River, naturally comes out of the Daintree Rainforest. I’ll get into a little more detail about it a bit later, but the view there was just amazing. The sky was actually blue and not cloudy and overcast like it has been a lot lately. I also got a great view of the surrounding forest, too. Hopefully my pictures here can sort of show you what it was like.

Eventually, we went on to catch a cruise of the Daintree River. After some tea and biscuits (cookies), and a demonstration on how to play the didgeridoo, we boarded a pretty small little jungle river cruiser type of boat. It was really neat goin and things. We actually saw one too and got really close to it. Our river guide, Mickg through the dense rainforest in the boat and being so close to crocodiles, told us all about Scoot, which was the croc’s name. Unfortunately, Scoot didn’t move around too much at all, but at least we got to see him. The conditions that day really weren’t favorable for being able to see a croc. The Daintree River is a pretty good place to see them though because the water is pretty murky. It’s actually about 50% saltwater and 50% freshwater since it’s so close to the ocean. The saltwater crocodiles obviously can withstand saltwater, but prefer freshwater because animals they might want to eat are going to be drinking freshwater, not saltwater. But anyway, the Daintree River was awfully neat as well.

Next stop was lunch at an entomological center. No, we didn’t eat any insects. This was just the place where Steve would cook our lunches. Before lunch though, I actually got to go swimming in a small rainforest creek and swim with some tropical fish and a big turtle! We tried catching the turtle but he was pretty smart. The water was actually pretty cold but very refreshing and super clean and clear. For lunch, I had some Barramundi, which according to Steve is one of the top 10 best fish to eat in the world. It was very good and the potato salad I ate with it was also very tasty. I got to eat with Steve, too, so this was where he told me some of the stories of Steve Irwin and also gave some good advice about other good things to do around Cairns.

After lunch, we headed to Cape Tribulation beach. Unfortunately, we couldn’t swim here either because of the very toxic Box Jellyfish in the water this time of year. Their sting is said to be one of the worst pains that you could ever feel and some of the bigger ones have even killed people. Some places have swimming nets to keep the jellyfish out, but not Cape Tribulation. It was still very beautiful and there were at least lots of little crabs around in the sand to play with. I’ve put a couple pictures of Cape Tribulation here as well. Cape Tribulation is the spot where Captain James Cook, the man responsible for colonizing Australia, first landed after being stuck between the Great Barrier Reef and the coastline. His boat got stuck off the shore and he called the area Cape Tribulation because this is where his troubles began.

From Cape Tribulation we headed to another rainforest walk at a place called Jindalba. Here Steve told us all about some neat aspects of the rainforest and showed us some trees that were over 2000 years old and showed us how you can get water out of vines if you’re ever lost in the rainforest, too. Maybe most importantly he showed us a ginger plant which has leaves that are very useful as toilet paper if needed. Then he saw a snake on the ground near a tree and just stopped what he was doing and in pure Steve Irwin style jumped right over at it and tried grabbing it. The snake got away down in his hole, but you can see the picture here of Steve trying to dig it out.

We were heading home after Jindalba, but on our way we had the rare pleasure of seeing a couple of the most endangered animals in the area, a cassowary. There are only about 1000 cassowaries left in the wild anywhere in the world and we saw two of them, a male and one of his young. We had to stay in the truck though, because cassowaries are very aggressive birds and are the only birds that have ever been known to show aggression towards humans. Two people have actually died from them. But it was really neat to see something so rare. Steve said he hadn’t seen one in over four months and he does a lot of tours, so were just extra lucky!

The day at the Daintree Rainforest was really a great experience. The Daintree is special because it is the oldest rainforest in the world at around 135 million years old and is one of the few untouched rainforests left in the world. It is also one of the most diverse rainforests in the world, meaning it has one of the largest variations of plants and animals on earth. So, actually being able to visit a place so rare and extraordinary like this was very special.

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading out to sea on a sailing, snorkeling, and scuba diving trip, so be sure to check back for details on that!