The Daintree Rainforest

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Today I visited the rainforest at Daintree which is about a two hour drive from Cairns. En-route our driver Lisa pointed out a roundabout on the duel carriageway. She said that a couple of years ago when they had quite bad floods the road flooded quite badly. The water was quite deep but everyone continued to drive through in good Aussie fashion. When the water subsided there left on the roundabout was a fifteen foot crocodile!!!! Good job no one broke down!!!

First stop was tea near the Daintree river where they actually grow the tea, a very nice tea it was too. This was followed by a river trip looking for crocodiles. Apparently there are some quite big ones however we didn't see those only a very small one on the river bank. The guy on the boat said that only about one fifth of the baby crocs survive to reach their first birthday.

Following this a guided walk through the rainforest, we didn't see any rare birds but we did see a variety of fig tree which starts growing around a tree and eventually encompasses the tree killing if off eventually. The rain forest is the oldest in the world apparently 135million years old definitely and maybe 200million!!!

Followed by a splendid lunch of fish and chips, bang goes the diet!! And a walk on the beach, no swimming of course or you might get killed off by the jelly fish I wondered why Lisa counted us back on to the bus!!!!!!

The afternoon consisted of a talk by an aborigine guy, who showed us leaves that they used to wash with you rub it on pop your hands into some water and it froths up just like soap. Also we were told of the black bean which they use, it is as toxic as cyanide or arsenic before its been processed. They grind it into a powder and put it into a special sort of bag which they make. When the men come home from hunting which apparently they still do, the women wash the bag in the stream which removes the toxins and takes the oxygen out of the water. Hey presto the fish come to the top for air are scooped up for tea. Who needs take always!!!!!!! Nature is a wonderful thing, it's a shame we have forgotten so many of the old skills. Oh also this particular black bean scientists believe may be a cure for Aids.

Mossman Gorge was the next stop where we were invited to go for a swim health and safety in the UK would have been appalled, people going into a fast flowing river to get swept down to a little beach. The water was a bit on the cold side but some people did brave it. All in all a very enjoyable day.

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