Blogs from Daintree, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 4

DAY 329 At some point in the night I was awoken by the scuffling of little feet outside, at first I could not see what it was but I heard what sounded like someone trying to suck a rock, looking outside I flicked the torch on and could see a Bandicoot sat just outside the door of our tent, he was not perturbed by the light from the torch at all, so I sat and watched him for a while before he finally disappeared behind the truck and back into the bush. There was plenty of wildlife activity but only the one Bandicoot to be seen. Just before 7.00am I woke up and could see that Andy had just woken too, it seems strange that now we are back out on the road again we are ... read more

On Wednesday morning, we arose at 3am (!!) to catch the early morning flight out of Christchurch to Brisbane. While we were waiting to depart we had a quick middle-of-the-night breakfast - a diet coke for Tim and a cheese scone for Emma - it was a strange time of night to be eating! We had a great flight (2940km) and ate second breakfast (a shared triple chocolate muffin and suitably bad airline coffee and hot chocolate) on the plane... We arrived in Brisbane at the international terminal at 8am Australian time and caught the train to the domestic terminal. While waiting for the lunchtime flight up to Cairns we had third breakfast/brunch at "Hungry Jacks" (like "Burger King")... We arrived in a hot-and-cloudy tropical Cairns at 2.30pm after another good flight (1390km) and over eleven ... read more

The drive up to Daintree National park wasn't a long one... but it certainly was interesting. Once we cleared the gazillion roundabouts leaving Cairns the road stuck to the ocean like white on rice. The sun decided to come out a bit and the views were spectacular even when driving. But the sun only lasted for three quarters of an hour, so that as soon as we crossed the cable ferry to the National Park we had to turn our headlights on and drive about 30 km/h in the torrential rain. The road became very skinny and very wet, very quickly. We even crossed our first floodway. We weren't sure Janis (our van) was up to it. But when we saw a little Holden car cross we new she could do it. We got to our ... read more

Our last big excursion out of Cairns takes us to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. This nature-inspired outing promises to be good! The day starts with a hiccup, however. Andra has left her camera on the shuttle that took us from Cairns to Port Douglas where we catch the tour. Not to worry....Chris has his...so we still get lots of pictures. We are a small tour lead by a Swiss-transplanted tour guide. As we enter the Daintree we are instructed to keep our eyes peeled for Cassowaries . Our first stop was a crocodile excursion. We pile in to a low-riding tin boat and head up the muddy Daintree River looking for Crocs. The guide goes on at length about the mangrove trees that line either side of the river as we keep our eyes ... read more

Righto, well sorry for the delay in the updates, we have been having too much fun! From Cairns we did indeed drive up to the Daintree river ferry crossing, where Sharon mans (or should that be woman’s?) the ticket stall for the business they have there. She sorted us for a ferry ticket and promptly jumped on the radio to let Steve know that it was OK to knock off early, much to his delight =). We crossed the river and drove to their house which was only about 300mtrs from the ferry crossing. There we were greeted by Steve and soon joined by Sharon and their two beautiful boys, Ryan and Jeremy. Their property is the only residence with river frontage on the north side of the Daintree River, and sits on 32 acres of ... read more