Once again, up the creek

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On Friday morning, we drove north up to Cooper Creek where we had arranged to join a boat in order to meet some of the local inhabitants, the infamous saltwater crocodiles. We had been advised to drive to a certain spot on the road and then stay in the car until the boat arrived and the guy running the cruise came to get us. Standing by a creek, while waiting to go on a croc spotting trip is not a smart move. Despite this however, no-one else was staying in their vehicles, so we joined the group, staying nicely on the road and away from the mangroves.

We were not disappointed on the boat, spotting first 2 large females (2-3m long) sunning themselves on different parts of the bank and then later, a couple of large males, both in the water, and both considerably bigger than the cute females. On the river we had spectacular views of the towering Mount Thornton and close-up views of the many different types of mangroves in the estuary.

After safely disembarking we drove back to the rainforest retreat motel, determined to bbq for lunch. I'll backtrack a little here...in Mossman, on our way up, we weren't sure of what cooking facilities we'd have available, and we equally were not convinced they would be a large range of places to eat out around Cow Bay. So we had decided to play it safe and buy meat, snags, fish, corn, zucchini, capisicum, potatoes, spray olive oil, mixed herbs and microwave rice in various flavours...basically anything you could do on a bbq. As it turned out we were right on the first point, we had access to a shared bbq and a microwave, but there were a few places to eat, including the only pub in the area right across the road. Such a limited menu gets a little tedious, so for lunch we cooked all the bbq stuff that was left (mainly snags) in order to give ourselves the opportunity of eating something different in the evening...to be continued...

So, after lunch, we drove out to the Walu Wugirriga (or Mount Alexander) Lookout for some spectacular views up and down the coast. We could even see Port Douglas which was to be our next place to stay across the bays.

Afterwards, we did the Jindalba Boardwalk, this time up into some hillside rainforest and then went to the Rainforest Discovery centre which was similar to the other rainforest walks we'd done, but you pay for it! They did have some unique features, like a audio tour, boardwalks that slowly take you higher and higher up the trees and the crowning glory is a huge tower that takes you up (66 steps we were told, yeah right!) to the very top of the rainforest canopy.

Finally, late afternoon there was just time for a quick swim in the motel pool and then we headed out on foot, in the pitch dark with a tiny headtorch, across and along the warm rainforest tarmac road, to the pub (this is significant in a later part of the story).

So, bored with bbq, and hungry for variety we went into the Cow Bay pub (interestingly enough, home to the largest bar made from a single piece of wood, in the whole wide world, nonetheless). The bar was reasonably populated with locals, but the restaurant around the back was dead. The reason...it was bbq night!!

We went back to the bar, ordered a few drinks, consulting the bar food menu, which contained many items that could be consumed in and around the bar, after they had been ordered and brought in from the bbq outside!!

Don't get us wrong, bbq is great, but not four times in a row, so we drank up and headed back (across the warm tarmac road again) in order to retrieve the car and drive up to a cafe we had spotted earlier in the day.

The 'Fan Palm Boardwalk Cafe' was great, and we had mud crab, Moreton Bay bugs (an Aussie speciality like lobster/crayfish) and steak and even plumped for home-made cakes/desserts afterwards.

On the drive back, and here's the good part, we spotted first one, then another rainforest snake (the Daintree is home to some of the worlds most deadly and vicious)...the first stripy, the second brown or black..Emma drove right over the top of the first one (completely missing it) and the second was just about a metre from the edge of the forest. So far, we had avoided all contact with the less desirable dwellers of the forest (apart from the motel's pet baby python, which Emma stroked and even Tim admitted was quite cute...from a distance). And where were these deadly venomous tropical agents of death? Coiled up...on the nice warm tarmac road...you know, the one we had been walking along, in the pitch dark, with Em wearing bite-me sandals, earlier in the evening. Yikes!

Later that night, Tim got the jitters and opened the screen door to check outside and a huge (like bat-sized) moth flew into his face. Let just say, the scream would have carried for quite a distance into the still night...somewhere in the distance, the bandicoots were laughing...

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Photos

Water looks nice...
...anyone fancy a swim

First croc
A female

Second Croc
Another female

Third Croc
A male

Fourth Croc
Another Male

Walu Wugirriga
Mount Alexander lookout

Rainforest Creepers
Jindalba walk

Climbing tower to the canopy
Rainforest Discovery Centre

Steak and bug
Moreton Bay bug that is...like crayfish