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Published: August 18th 2008
Four Mile Beach
(The beach at Port Douglas)Well, from Bungalow Bay we took a bus to a ferry, a ferry to a cab, a cab to the train and a train to Cairns! We didn't actually stay in Cairns for very long as the next day we headed to Port Douglas (a holiday town about an hours drive north of Cairns). Port Douglas is very small...we didn't do a lot there. There is a very good beach, four miles long and fringed with palm trees! Unfortunately though the weather turned overcast so we didn't spend much time on the beach and we didn't go out to the reef again as the wind had picked up, making for slightly rougher waters with reduced visibility.
After a couple of days in Port Douglas we took a day trip to Kuranda, a little town to the North-west of Cairns. We took the skyrail on the outward journey, which is a 7.5km cable car over the rainforest, and got a really good view of the canapy and the Barron falls, a huge waterfall! We took the scenic railyroad on the return journey and got a different view of the forest and the falls, which was also really good. Kuranda itself is
Barron Falls
(From the Skyrail) basically a tourist town with lots of interesting little stores and market stalls selling locally produced goods such as wood crafts, fruits and nuts and kangaroo leather goods etc. We tried some really good chocolates and tropical fruit wines, of which the passionfruit was particularly good! 😉
After the day in kuranda we reterned to Cairns for the night and got a quick look around the esplanade and the night market before heading for the Daintree rainforest the following day. We had booked a tour to the Daintree which included a trip to the Mossman Gorge, a pretty gorge with a clear freshwater river running over and between smooth doomed boulders. It was good to see but there were a lot of people which was not so good.
The tour then took us to the Daintree river where we went on a river cruise. The cruise lasted about an hour and we were able to see several salt water croccodiles (technically called Indo-pacifi esturine croccodiles)! These are the same type of croc as teh ones we were close to on Magnetic Island but much bigger! One of the males we saw was about 5 metres! So that was
really good to be able to see them! We also saw a white-lipped tree frog on the boat... obvisouly a lot smaller than a croccodile but very cute looking 😊
We stayed in the hostel in the Daintree for 2 nights, whilst we were there we went on a guided night walk through the forest. Although we didn't see any mammals or reptiles we did see a lot of insects and the guide was really knowledgeable about the differnt fauna and flora. I was particularly excited to see a net casting spider! (Yes I know I'm being all geeky again)... but I remember writing about them in an essay in the first year of my degree and thinking that they are really quite clever (they make a web which they hold between two legs and hang on a silk thread waiting to swoop down and trap insects passing below) and they are apparently only rarely seen!
Hmm... sorry this is turning into a bit of a mammoth read!...will condense a bit more....
Whilst in the Daintree we visited Cow Bay and Cape Tribulation, where the rainforest comes right down to the beach! We tried some locally made
Crabs on Four mile Beach
These crabs dig holes in the sand and make these sand balls from the snad they remove - the beach was covered with them! tropical fruit ice cream which was fantastic! And I went on a horseride through the forest and onto the beach; we were allowed to canter the horses a couple of times and rode through a couple of creeks as well so it was really good fun! (Unfortunately Emily was not very well so had to cancel her ride :-( ).
All-in-all I really enjoyed spending time in the Daintree. The forest really is beautiful and has so many interesting things to see!
more soon,
Kx
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