Port Douglas - North Queensland

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Morning everyone, well we have had 11 hours of solid sleep, so now feeling great, yesterday we got off to an early start and was picked up by a friendly Aussie chap called Pete and another couple from Bolton, Ashley and Rob Joined us. We set off to explore the DAINTREE Rainforest. This is the only place in the world where two natural World Heritage listed areas, The DAINTREE Rainforest and The Great Barrier Reef exist side by side forming one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth. The rainforest is the oldest living rainforest in the world at 160 million years. First we went to the Mossman Gorge where we wandered through the forest, saw Brush Turkeys, the males build enormous leaf and dirt mounds which are used as an incubator. Their tails are a bit funny, the feathers are arranged vertically, not horizontally. We found a large spider in its web up by the cafe, awful, mean looking thing, wouldnt want to walk through that spider's web by mistake !!! The gorge was beautiful, clear mountain water in the river, amazing huge trees and giant palms. Pete was very a fountain of knowledge, explained how the different species of trees lived with each other, how they made room for one another, very intreasting, if you like trees !!! It was really peaceful in there, we saw maybe half a dozen people, but we have picked the best time of the year to come as it is not tourist season, so no crowds. After the Gorge we travelled to Cape Tribulation and went for a beach walk with fantastic views, this is very near where Captain James Cook crashed his boat on the reef. Here we had a morning coffee, fruit and muffins which Pete brought us, so lovely, sat in the park, beautiful weather and gorgeous setting. We then drove to the ferry travelling over the DAINTREE river and drove to where our little boat was, to go up Coopers Creek to find the croc's. Oh, yes, so looking forward to this, me and Stu feeling very 'crocodile dundee'. We saw 3 altogether sunning themselves on the bank. (They have Estuarine and Saltwater croc's here, very dangerous). One was about 3 metres long, another was tiny, about a year old and then the last one was about 4 metres long and was 30 years old. I must admit I was expecting loads of them swimming up to the boat to try and get us !! Have no idea why I thought that, watched too many ridiculous Croc films !! we travelled through Coopers Creek, stunning wetlands, saw loads of mangrove trees, really feeling like Crocodile Dundee now !!! From there we travelled to 'On the Turps Resort to have lunch right in the middle of the rainforest, beautiful setting, below us was the Creek where we saw a baby turtle. Stu had a steak and I had Barramundi fish, pretty amazing or what. After lunch we went for a walk along the creek, then to Jindalba walkways in the rainforest where I saw another huge awful looking spider in its web, can't explain how creepy they are. Then all of us were attacked by San flies, horrible little things, they feel like a pin prick, still that's all part of the fun, NOT ! Unfortunately we didn't see any Cassowary's, they are the largest bird in Australia, is an icon of the wet tropics. They are endangered birds, lots of signs up, saying, please be as so-wary !! Pete then said he would take us to the fruit plantation where we could buy real fruit ice cream, sounded good to us, we had Jackfruit which comes from the largest tree borne fruit in the world, can grow up to 46 kgs, which tasted like banana-bubblegum flavour, we had Macadamia Nut, which is the Australian native nut, Raspberry and Wattleseed, I can assure you it was all very delicious. They also had a tea plantation there, so I brought some tea bags and whoever comes around to our house for a cuppa, can try a Daintree Tea !!! We then headed off to Alexandra lookout where we could see Port Douglas, Low Isles, Cape Kimberley, Snapper Island and Daintree River. Just stunning views, it really was a great day, Pete was a great host, coming across very proud and generally happy to share this wonderful place with us.

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Comments

[Denise]

How fantastic Karol we just don't realise how many fantastic places there are! Ur certainly cramming in as much as you can. What a fantastic experience. Not keen on the spiders thou.... Can't believe it's May already you've done so much and seem so many things on you're travel. Look forward to your next blog. Take care karol and Stu x

[Stu muir]

Hi d
Time is speeding by, I will be booing on the way home !! Stu is a little homesick, EHHHH yea, I actually could do another 6 months, but responsilbilities come into it !! (Ignore spelling mistake ).