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Published: April 10th 2014
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Early start today, with a 7.15 pick up by "Tony's Tropical Tours" for a day of adventure up into the Daintree Rainforest...which turned out to be one of the many highlights of the holiday so far.
For those interested, you will find lots about Daintree (which is the oldest rainforest in the world) and Auntie Pauline also said there was a great documentary about wildlife in the Cape Tribulation which is one of the sights we visited.
This was a full day trip with 8 of us in a small coach, with Adrian our highly amusing and knowledgeable Ozzie guide. It took me a while to be confident about the knowledgeable bit since he announced up front that he was a trained hairdresser which didnt sound like the perfect qualification for fighting crocodiles bare handed!!!
We started off with a trip up to the Mossman Gorge which has a beautiful cascading river flowing through and got our first introduction to the tropical flora and fauna plus lizards, spiders all set in the most dense forest I have ever seen.
After that we then went to Bruce Belchers place (I kid you
not!!) to hop aboard his river cruiser to wander up the Daintree river amongst the mangroves. This one was all about crocodile spotting which did not disappoint with 4 separate sightings. Three of the four were weeks if not months old and really quite cute....however the one that swam directly across our path was (we were reliably told) about 3-4 metres long and definately not in the cuddly category!!
Next stop was the Alexandra Lookout for some great views of the coastline where the rainforest meets the sea before a quick stop for a refreshing cup of Daintree tea which is grown locally in the area.
From there we went onto a private estate for another walk into the deep rainforest with Adrian who pointed out a myriad of things that you would never see with the naked eye. The highlight of this part of the trip was when he ducked down into the stream and pulled out a big granite block and then half a dozen pebbles. The pebbles are named ochre and each one when rubbed against the granite produced the most beautiful colours which are used by the indigenous people (and
now Alex and Izzi!) for body decoration and paintings
After this walk we then moved further into the estate and had a wonderful fish and steak lunch in the middle of the forest followed by a swim in the freshwater stream. This was very fast flowing (and they had not ventured in the prvious day) but everyone took the plunge and had great fun riding the currents
After lunch we headed out to Cape Tribulation which as indicated previously is where the barrier reef meets the rainforest. We spent half an hour wandering on the deserted beach disturbed only by Izzi doing her gym routine before wandering home via the Daintree Ice Cream stopover for a Blackberry, Passion Fruit, Wattleseed and Macademia nut delight.
This was one of the best educational trips we have ever done and Adrian the host kept us laughing throughout the day.
We got home around 5pm, booked our trip for the Barrier Reef on the Thursday and then settled in for a nice relaxing meal back at the appartment. Whilst out shopping for food, the talk of the town (we met everyone who was on the trip to give
you an idead how big Port Douglas is!) was the anticyclone which was looming off the coast of Queensland and starting to track towards the coast north of where we were staying. As we speak the cyclone (hurricane to us Northern Hemispherians) is a Category 3 and expected to reach 4 as it reaches land which is only 1 short of max strength and could have gusts up to 200km/hr according to the locals. Probably of more concern was the risk of getting stuck in the resort for several days without being able to leave the appartment and also with the prosepct of torrential rain for about 4 days.
Sure enough we got the call to say our reef trip had been cancelled and it was obvious that a lot of people were starting to look at evacuating the area
So with some regret (although I think shark hunter Isabel is secretly relieved) we have decided to leave Port Douglas a day early and head back to Sydney. This is partuicularly tough as I am sitting on the balcony in perfect conditions, but apparently this is what they call the "lull before the storm" with all
of the weather systems sucked up into the anti cyclone.
The good news is that we have an extra day to really explore Sydney which will be the next phase of our trip
More to follow on Friday
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UncPeter
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Yet another great blog
Hi all, loving the blogs, another great one today. The rainforest trip looked amazing. Were you using Izzy as bait for the Croc? Mum and I went through the blogs at the weekend, guess you've picked up how much she is loving them. Hero status awaits on your return! Sorry to hear about the TC. Exactly the same happened when Jane & I stayed on Hayman Island. Still managed to get out to the reef briefly by helicopter. Have a good trip back to Sydney and look forward to the next update. P&S