Journey into the Jungle

We spent Saturday morning driving two hours north from Cairns into the Daintree Rainforest (above is a map of whereabouts we were). We saw some awesome views of the Queensland coast (above). Mostly though we drove past lots of sugarcane fields (above), which grows well there since it is a very tropical area. We stopped for a few photo ops, including one that looked out across the Daintree National Park (above). You can see the rainforest leading right into the ocean (above). In our travels, we came across a cassowary (above, not my picture). A cassowary is an ancient bird (they’ve been around for thousands of years) that can grow to be literally as big as me. Luckily the one that ran across the road in front of our tour bus was only about 2 feet tall. Also lucky that we didn’t hit it, or it would have suffered the fate this sign warns about (above).

One main stop we made was at Mossman Gorge, an area in the Daintree Park. Our bus driver led us through a walkway, pointing out several rainforest-y things. He showed us a fire dragon (above), which is actually a lizard that is a lot less menacing than its name suggests. It was cool to actually see the 3 levels of a rainforest that I learned about in elementary school. There are the plants on the ground (above), the tall trees at the canopy, and then things in the midlevel such as this plant that had attached itself onto a tree (above). We went for a swim in the stream at the gorge, which was filled with these awesome huge boulders (above). The rainforest nutrients in the water made my hair feel really silky afterwards.

The real highlight of the day was our cruise on the Daintree River (above), where we went croc hunting. Okay, it was more like croc spotting, but it sounds more adventurous if I pretend we were hunting them. Our tour bus got onto this boat, piloted by this old guy that had an eagle eye for animal life. He pointed out this HUGE python wrapped around a tree branch high above our heads (above, red line shows where he was). This thing was like twenty feet long. Eeek! He also explained how the roots of the mangrove trees that lined the river acted like snorkels (above), sticking out above the water to get the tree the oxygen it needs.

The first croc we saw was so small that I wouldn’t have seen it had the boat driver not pointed it out. It was a baby, and it totally blended in (above). Then the driver pulled us up next to a bank. I wasn’t sure why we were that close, and then he told us to stand on the seat. Once we did, we saw this female crocodile staring right at us on the top of the bank (above). A while later, we saw the big daddy of all crocodiles. It was an adult male croc just sitting on the bank of the river (above). The guide told us that with his tail stretched fully out, he would be about 4 meters long! He was quite menacing, even his tail looked like it could cause trouble (above). It was pretty crazy to see that.

Then we were dropped off at our hostel in Cape Tribulation, where we spent a very rainy night.