Day 10 Cape Tribulation and Daintree Rainforest, Monday, October 2, 2006

After our day on the sea, which yielded some more sunburn, some windburn and some residual seasickness after the rough ride home, we were very happy to be headed to the rainforest!

The drive between Cairns and Daintree Rainforest winds along the coastline and there are spots where the rainforest ends at the water’s edge- two World Heritage Sights colliding! The scenic coastal drive was a great way to start an early morning. Along the way, we saw fields and fields of sugar cane. One of the two crops per year was being harvested.

Once we arrived at the Daintree River, we set out on a boat cruise

We had strict instructions to keep all of our body parts well inside the boat. Why? Take a look:

River Python

Tree Snake
Hungry Crocodile
Most of the Crocs here are female because males are born ONLY if their egg incubation temperature is 26 degrees. Because that doesn’t consistently occur in the wild, there are more females. How fun would it be to determine human gender by temperature only?!

There was also lots of interesting plant life on the Daintree.

Mangroves are really amazing- they are rooted on the banks of saltwater bodies of water and their root system grows upward. They have mini-valves in their roots; when underwater, they take in water and when not, they don’t. They filter out most of the salt and live happily where most plants can not. So happily and strong-rootedly that when cyclones and hurricanes are expected in this area, boaters bring their boats from Cairns and Port Douglas up to the river here to tie up to the mangroves. They are the one thing that can weather all of these storms.

Yulang Yulang- the exotic plant whose flowers are pressed for perfume and oils.
We then drove up the Alexandria Range into the heart of the Daintree Rainforest. Walking through the rainforest was like being in a whole other world; the day’s 28 degree temperature suddenly cooled, the air smelled like fresh rain and the bright sunlight was softened and filtered by walls of damp greenery. There were also lots of birds chirping away from the rainforest rooftop- we could hear some kookaburra but unfortunately, not see any.


Queensland Fan Palms

We had lunch at Lync Haven, a rehabilitation centre for injured kangaroos and wallabies. This guy was blind until a human optic nerve was transplanted for him- now he can see.

The others are recovered but aren’t able to be released into the wild, so they get to live it up here at Lync Haven. We fed them their lunch and they seemed quite pleased.




These guys are so cute that any plans I had of trying kangaroo meat quickly disappeared.
After lunch, we drove through thick rainforest further up the mountain to Emmagen Creek. Here we swam in the freshwater surrounded by rainforest and had Billy Tea, cooked traditionally in a large tin can over an open fire. It doesn’t look like it, but the water in front of the large tree (centre of the photo) was over 6 feet deep. It was fresh and cool and clear- just perfect.



Coming back down the Alexandria Range, there was a lookout point to gain a bird’s eye view of the rainforest sweeping out to the Coral Sea.


We drove further down the mountain to Cape Tribulation, where rainforest meets beach meets Coral Sea. I could have stayed here all afternoon.
Sand crab tracks

Today was another very full but incredible day. After a swim, we flaked out. Afterall- tomorrow is my big diving day on the reef.