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Published: March 30th 2013
We flew into Cairns and made our way up to Port Douglas where we spent the next four nights. The climate was noticeably more humid in this tropical region and the weather constantly fluctuated between rain and sun, but remained very hot throughout. We arrived around 9pm, so had to wander down the road in the dark to find a convenience store to buy dinner. On the way there, there were numerous rustles coming from the bushes which kept making Mark jump into Hazel's arms in a cartoon fashion. We saw a few toads, but nothing more theatening and were glad of the Shell torch Joanna had donated to light the way. We discovered later, whilst on our Daintree tour, that Crocodiles are actually rare in the town and that the nocturnal snakes are likely to be less dangerous than if we were walking during the day - if only we'd known at the time!
The next day we walked around Port Douglas and took care of the essentials like food shopping and washing clothes, occasionally dashing indoors to hide from more rain. Port Douglas is a nice little town but unfortunately it has pretty expensive bars and restaurants for
us mere backpackers. There was quite a lot going on though, including a local bar where they had cane toad races each night and a harbourside restaurant where a wild Groper fish arrives at 5pm prompt every night to be fed food scraps. They called him George, but we thought "Gordon the Groper" would work better?!
The next day we took a trip to the Daintree rainforest and Cape Tribulation. We started early and were greeted by our guide Chris, the local snake catcher, who jumped out of the van and squatted down, shouting "crikey - what a beauty" while looking at a large spider on the drive. (Ok - that last sentance may not be entirely true). There were only six of us in our group and as Chris drove us to Mossman Gorge, we did the usual introductions where Hazel and I have to admit to having the most boring careers on the bus. Yawn! When we arrived, we took a canopy walk where Chris pointed out all the lethal plants in the rainforest and taught us how to make our own poison. Some of the less dangerous vegitation only caused fainting and paralysis!
There was
another plant which was like a spikey vine which clings to things and if touched can be very difficult to remove. Chris demonstrated by sticking his backpack and umbrella to the plant before accidentally walking into one and cutting his forehead (are we really following this guy in to the forest?!). We wandered down to the creek where the water level was really high due to recent rainfall (which they measure in metres here). We spotted some wild turkeys and their nests which were 2 metre high piles of mud and leaves, and were told to look out for cassowaries - these are rare emu-like birds with blue heads and there are only about 1000 left in the wild up here. Chris said that he sees one, on average, about once a month and so wasn't due a sighting for another couple of weeks.
We then took a crocodile spotting boat trip on the Daintree River. This was advertised as a River Cruise until the point at which crocoiles were spotted, so as not to get people's hopes up. It was a shame we didn't see any full-grown ones, but we did spot a couple of baby crocs clinging
to low branches sticking up out of the water. We also saw a White Lipped Tree Frog and a Green Tree Snake (again demonstrating the Australian knack for naming things exactly as they see them), so it was still a pretty successful trip.
We got back in the van and headed up to Alexandra Lookout to admire the Daintree River estuary and surrounding rainforest. Our next stop off was at Thornton Beach, where the rainforest meets the white sands. Our guide prepared us some Daintree Tea and local coffee as a mid morning snack. Even as a non-tea drinker it was a good cuppa, but I'm sure the experience was enhanced by having spent the morning traipsing through the rainforest.
While in the rainforest, we started being eaten alive by the local bugs. I think any insect which had the ability to sting or bite came out for our arrival. We were covered head to toe in deet and still they were biting. Hazel got bitten through her clothes, whilst I (Mark) managed to get one on my eyelid - Hazel had to remove the clinging bug! This swelled up later to deform my face so I could
hardly open my eye, which wasn't a particularly good look, but luckily it went down after about 12 hours of antihistamines (First Aid Kit to the rescue again).
The main stop of the day was the beach at Cape Tributation - "the only place in the world where two World Heritage Listed areas meet", i.e. the reef and the rainforest. Before Chris let us loose, he showed us a couple of spiders (literally) hanging around. One was easily bigger than my hand and is the sort of spider that would check its bed for people before sleeping, as opposed to the other way round! The other one was so well camouflaged against a tree, that we are not sure how Chris managed to spot it, but he was keen to take a photo on our camera to show us its face close-up. After renewing our arachnophobia we cautiously walked to the lookout and then onto the beach.
After some lunch (BBQ-ed steak and fish, yum) Chris took us on another tour of the rainforest to point out a few more lethal plants and the infamous stinging tree, which causes a shock sensation to shoot up your arm if
touched and can last for weeks or months. Along the way he would upturn rocks and describe the creatures under there and also pointed out the Strangling Fig tree, which grows roots down around a host tree and strangles it to leave a hollow middle where the original tree once was.
On our way back, after a cheeky stop at a local ice-creamery, we spotted a Cassowary actually crossing the road! We couldn't believe our luck - apparently it was the famous 'Big Bertha', a large female who has lived in the area for years. Unfortunately, the park rules mean you are not allowed to get out of the vehicle to get a closer look, so we had to make best of viewing it through the leaves (which is our excuse for some attrocious photos). However, the sighting certainly made up for not seeing any large crocs earlier in the day!
On our third day in Port Douglas, we took a snorkelling trip to the Great Barrier Reef. It was actually primarily a diving boat, but we went along anyway as they had a nice big boat - we had chosen a bigger vessel for this trip due
to the strong wind conditions at sea and were glad we had on the return to the marina, as there were some vicious waves rolling around resulting in the inevitable "vom-cano" from one of our fellow passengers!
Throughout the day we visited three sites, which all looked the same from above the water. It was only when you looked below that you could see the variety under the water. Once again, stinger suits were in order and Mark was pretty pleased to get some more lycra onesie action! At each of the locations there were site briefings given by the crew to let you know what to look out for, then you leapt off the back of the boat (into 28 degree water) to go and explore. The coral at all the sites was beautiful but our highlights were definitely the reef sharks and clown and angel fish. As you were out to sea, the swimming could be quite exhausting as the waves were constantly pushing you along. This also meant that snorkelling over the coral was tricky, as the level of the water kept rising and dropping (it turns out I, Mark, have buoyancy issues!)
At the
last site, one of the lifeguards jumped in with us and gave us a snorkelling tour around the reef. She dived down and bought up different things for us to look at, including Hazel's favourite - a sea cucumber (this was way more squidgy and gross than it looked before Hazel took her turn at holding it!). She also found a fish which was tending to an algae garden and when she placed a piece of coral on its patch, the fish removed it straight away; a giant clam which closed when you went too close; a weird kind of starfish that looked more like a giant spider; and some colourful worms that were sticking out of a massive piece of boulder coral, but that shot back it if you clicked your fingers next to them!
On our final day in Queensland, we spent the night in Cairns just to see it for ourselves - we'd heard pretty bad reviews, but figured we might as well double check. We're definitely glad we chose to spend most of our time in Port Douglas, as there wasn't much going on in Cairns, apart from the lagoon and tourist bars
and shops (probably not helped by the fact that we turned up on Good Friday, and everything was closed). The good news is that we only got one mozzie bite between us last night, so fingers crossed our change of luck continues in Alice Springs!
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John
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Cassowary photo
You think your photo of the Cassowary is bad! Dont you remember the one that I took in 199? from about 100+m away in a dark and gloomy rain forest - we were so excited to have even got a glimpse of one, even at that distance!! Yours is bril in comparison, at least you can see what it is!!!