Back to civilisation!

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Our final day at Cape Trib was another lazy one - it is quite hot and humid here so as little time spent outdoors as possible during the day is not a bad thing!

Once up we chilled out round the pool with breakfast and continued to watch the last day of the cricket. It's great watching it from a rock in a tropical pool rather than crowded round Anthony's TV at OCSL like 2 years ago! No offence intended to Anthony's TV of course I'd hate him to get a complex.

Unfortunately it started to piss it down mid morning - which meant heading inside - but it is quite cool up here when it rains as it really brings the rainforest to life. It also makes everything much more green, lush and dark and mysterious!

We were collected by loopy Coral our driver at midday, and after a tour down to another hostel to pick up our remaining punters we headed off back down to Cairns. The amusing thing was that the hostel we headed to to pick up the last couple of people was where we had considered going for dinner the night before. We had looked at a map and thought it was just round the headland - can't be far to walk and we can take our torches to stagger back through the forest in the dark. As it turned out it was the best part of 10 minutes drive through seriously undulating unsealed roads and vegetation! It would have taken us days and we would have probably been eaten by something.

En route back to the Daintree River crossing we stopped at the Tropical Fruit Farm. There was a group of American girls on the bus whining about needing ice creams. It was quite a cool farm though - they grow over 40 different tropical fruits, nearly all of which we had never heard of. They rob the tourists for a little pot of ice cream with 4 totally tropical flavours and then we were back on the go.

After the Daintree River crossing we headed to a centre providing us with a boat trip on the river. The main aim of which was to go Croc spotting (hunting). I had my pockets armed with several hundred small stones and bit's of coral. It was quite funy though - the guides themselves were genuinely quite scared of the Crocs in the river. They clearly really respect the Salties up here. They hadn't seen any all day - it's breeding season and with the water so hot they tend to stay under water for hours. Thankfully however by the end of the trip we had seen 2 Crocs, a Lyang Lyang Tree (god knows if that's how you spell it), hundreds of Bats, some rare Frogs that again looked just like Basher and also lived on the boat. I was pissed off though that we couldn't find any snakes.

After the boat trip we headed through to Mossman Gorge and Rainforest in the driving rain. As the rapids were so stong we couldn't swim in the water, but it was a cool walk up through the rainforest and over a swing bridge over the river.

We also checked out the Aboroginal community at Mossman Gorge - the Kuku Yalanji. Aboriginal's thankfully now have the right to claim the land they live on - a process called native title here in Oz if the Aboriginals can prove that they have worked or lived on the land for a certain period of time. Should their claim be successful, they are granted benefactor rights over that particular piece of land from the government and are granted substantial input into how the land may or may not be used.

The Coast road back to Cairns was again totally stunning, and we got back about 7.

After a bit of a pain in the arse tour round several accomodations in Cairns to drop people off before we got back to our own (which we must have gone past nearly 3 times) we headed down to the Chinese Food shops in the night markets. Clare has been desperate to head back to the Seafood stall for days. These guys are similar to the hawkers in Asia we encountered, and you simply pay for the size of plate you want, and then fill it up. I literally filled my pockets with prawn crackers, was putting spring rolls down my top and using my hat to fill with rice.

Got to get your money's worth eh Dad?!

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Comments

[Dad G]

Sound's like a return trip from Whitby on Bus!!. Glad your appetite is ok. Don't forget the female item off clothing that makes two good rice bowls when on a food mission.