Advertisement
Published: April 23rd 2008
It's been a while since I last updated a blog, so it might be a long one!
We hired a car in Port Douglas (a little bright yellow Hyundai Getz) and set off up the Captain Cook Highway to Daintree River, we took a detour to Daintree Village on the way and there wasn't much there at all, just an information centre, lots of river cruises and a few cafes! Back at Daintree River, we went on a croc tour on the Solar Whisper (the only ecological one or something like that) and saw a couple of crocs. We think we saw a little 6 inch baby, we saw a 6ft ish long teenager female and we saw a massive male (though he has half in, half out of the water) who weighs about 1000kg - so we didn't argue at him, or smile at him (Don't smile at a crocodile).
From there we headed up the coast, stopping at lots of the stunning beaches and wandering round a few boardwalks (through the rainforest, but you walk on like a raised pier/boardwalk all the way through, so you don't get mucky!) and saw lots of spiders, a few weird birds (sadly no cassowaries) and lots of trees. We got to our overnight stop - Crocodylus Village (http://www.crocodyluscapetrib.com/) where we stayed in a "little cabin". This little cabin has a double bed and 4 sets of 2 bunks with a toilet and a shower room - all to ourselves. It also wasn't a very solid cabin. It had a wooden frame, but round that was just a fairly heavy duty green net (like they use round scaffolding) and a tarpaulin for the roof. To get there you walked along a little path from which you branched off to your cabin and you had to walk round the back of the cabin to get in. All the cabins were in their own little bit of rainforest so when leaving our cabin we saw a massive lizard just munching away before it ran up the tree and a little wallaby that just sat there and looked at us for a bit! We did also get a little bejewelled spider that insisted on making a web across the path up to the cabin, so unless you remembered it was there and ducked, you got a faceful of web which was nice!
From Crocodylus Village we headed further up the coast (stopping for more beaches and boardwalks on the way) to Cape Tribulation. There we stayed in another resort (but in a dorm with 3 others) called Cape Trib Beach House (http://www.capetribbeach.com.au/) which was probably a more advanced, less eco friendly version of Crocodylus, instead of gravelled paths, you had concreted roads! From our room in a large cabin, you wandered down, past other cabins, through the bar and to the lovely beach that had reef exposed at low tide. Sadly it was ugly reef though which looked black and sandy when the tide was out. We spent the afternoon just lying and lazing on the beach in the shade (we couldn't swim at all the lovely beaches because it was at the end of stinger season - so although the water has dropped below 26 degrees C you can't be sure you won't get stung) before playing cards all evening in the bar/communal area.
From Cape Trib we headed back down to Port Douglas, taking a massive detour via Mossman Gorge where we planned to swim in the swimming hole, but it was so busy and crowded that we just wandered around a bit then left. From there we took a 150kms detour inland where we were up higher and on a mountain plain type thing, it was amazing to see how the plants and countryside changed with the altitude. There were massive termite mounds and lakes and pretty views. At Port Douglas we spent the night in a dorm and set off early the next day to get back to Cairns for 8am to head up on the Scenic Train to Kuranda. We saw the picturesque Barron Falls, a 305m waterfall and stunning views back out over Cairns and down the coast. We spent the day wandering round Kuranda and bought me an awesome Australian 'Roo hat, Alex tried a Kangaroo Pie (he liked it, I didn't!) before getting the SkyRail (a 1.5 hour cable car journey) over the rainforest and back to Cairns.
On the 17th we flew down to Sydney, not directly though as our flight was cancelled. Luckily we were at the airport early enough to be put straight on a flight to Brisbane and there we transferred onto a flight to Sydney. All in all we arrived half an hour before our original flight had been due to land. Sydney has been a bit of a shock to the system, it isn't boiling hot and humid here, in fact it's about 20 degrees, so jeans and jumpers it is! We are now officially whimps, but things need to change before we head down to Tassie and out to NZ! So far in Sydney we've walked a lot! We've been out on a ferry to the island of Manly, we've seen the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, we've been up the southeast pylon of the Harbour Bridge, we've been to Paddy's Markets, the Sydney Fish Markets (where we had fresh barramundi and salmon and chips), we've seen the Town Hall, Queen Vic Building, Strand Arcade (two old style shopping centres) and more. Tonight we head back to the Sydney Opera House (assuming Alex sleeps off not feeling very well) to watch Reginald D. Hunter, a comedian, which should be good. We still have so many more things we want to do before heading to Tasmania and then onto Melbourne where we hope to watch some Aussie Rules and then on the 9th of May we fly on to New Zealand. We brought forward our flight to Nz as although there is still so much to do here in Oz, it all costs a lot if you want to do it. We had planned to go to Canberra and maybe be there for the Olympic flame to be run through, but there isn't a lot else that we want to see in Canberra and this traveling malarkey isn't cheap! We also thought we needed more than 3 weeks in NZ so now we will hopefully be able to see more that the islands have to offer!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0583s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Wendy
non-member comment
Smiling at crocs
Why mustn't you smile at crocodiles?