Cairns/Cape Tribulation

Yesterday I flew into Cairns which was uneventful - although I did get a full meal on my flight - Australia is definitely the place to fly domestically. So the biggest shock was leaving Alice Springs at 43 degrees and extremely dry to arriving in Cairns at 28 degrees with probably around 85% humidity. Major climate change.

So the best part about arriving in Cairns...getting to bagging claim and seeing Mark!!!! My friend from home decided to come out and spend a few weeks traveling the East Coast with me. It was so great to see a friendly face from home. I have enjoyed traveling alone, but the truth is, I prefer to travel with friends or family. It just makes a world of difference.

We got to our hostel and it was funny because this has become second nature to me, but is new to Mark, so I had to explain how everything works with where you sleep, eat, shower, etc. Cory and Matt are also here right now, so we met up with them for a bit and chatted. Crazy thing though, the three of them ended being roommates - small world. After dropping our stuff of in our rooms, we headed out to get Mark some dinner and pick up some groceries. Cairns seems like a great town and has a nice downtown area with lots of shops and restaurants and bars. We indulged in some gelato and then headed back to the hostel to get some sleep. Poor Mark had been up for quite some time and I think the jetlag was setting in.

This morning I got up and went for a run along the Esplande that runs around the lagoon here in the city. Since it was so hot, I left at 6am and wow, there were tons of other people out running, walking and swimming. Now when I say swimming, I mean in the local pool that is just out in the middle of the esplande and looks like a big fountain. You can't swim in the water up in this area because of crocodiles and jellyfish, so I will obey the signs and stay on land.

At 7:30, our tour guide picked us up and we headed out for our Cape Tribulation Day tour. Oh and guess what, I got the tire seat again!! But this time, it was more like a booster seat, so I was sitting about 6 inches above Mark. It was weird looking down to talk to him everytime. My neck started to get stiff. It has been raining like crazy here lately, but we ended up lucking out and barely had any rain - if anything, it was a view sprinkles here and there.

Driving up to our first stop, Mossman Gorge, it was amazing to seeing the new climate setting I was in - going from one day in the Outback to being in a rainforest...not many places where you kind do that easily. This is the area where the rainforest hits the ocean - literally. Some areas there isn't even beach - just rainforst and then water. On the way up, we saw sugar farms (not in season yet), tons of cattle farms (did you know there are white cows???), waterfalls and just beautiful scenery. Funny story: Mark saw the white cow and said "Hey look, sheep!" So now everytime I see a cow, I say "Hey look, sheep!" - even if it is brown...maybe you had to be there.

When we stopped at Mossman Gorge, we all got out for a short hike into the gorge area and into the rainforest. There was a calm swimming hole area, so of course Mark had to go for a swim - give a guy some water and he will go swimming!

Next stop was the Daintree Wild Zoo. It is a small zoo with maybe 20 animals and 100 birds. A lot of the animals have been raised from hatching or at a really young age. I didn't really like this zoo because it seemed like a farm. They had Euros (a type of Kanagroo) and you could just go up and pet them like dogs because they are so tame. There were also crocodiles - but you couldn't pet them - they mostly hid, but we did get to see them. They also had a lot of birds (loud birds!) - yay - can you tell I was excited. I tried to get out of there as quickly as possible. Not only that, but it was getting really hot and humid and we were just sweating standing there.

After our morning tea (tea, coffee & biscuits - similar to cookies), we heading to Cape Tribulation. At one point, we had to catch a ferry across the river (about 150 yards), but it was just on a cable rope that went back and forth, so it was much of a ferry boat. For those of you that don't know, Cape Tribulation is a VERY small town. Maybe about a block in length and has a lodge, cafe and pharmacy. I was expecting something much bigger. We drove past the town (didn't take long, blink and you miss it) and went for a walk on the Marrdja Boardwalk which goes through some of the Daintree National Park rainforest. We saw a variety of amazing trees, crabs (the water up there is saltwater that comes up from the ocean), spiders, birds, roots that stick up above ground and just some indescribable scenery. The walk wasn't long, but we had a great time checking all the new views out.

Then it was lunch. We went to Kulki - a beach in Cape Tribulation and also part of the Daintree National Park. It was weird, one minute we were in the rainforest and the next minute we were on a beach with white sand and clear water. Again, we still could go swimming and there was actually a bottle of vinegar there in case you got stung by a stingray, you could poor it on the wound. Hmm, just one more animal to worry about hurting you. It was great sitting on the beach and eating lunch. After, we walked up and down taking pictures and touching the water - very warm! Two cool things we saw down there - 1. Weird spirals of sanding coming up from ground - it is sandworms digging their way deep into the sand. It wasn't actually the worm, but what they ate and let out the other end. 2. Small round balls of sand on the ground from crabs digging into the sand.

We loaded up the bus and the next stop was the Daintree Ice Cream Company. This is on a fruit farm where they grow their own fruit and make their own ice cream everyday. Since they don't know which fruits will be available everyday, the menu changes daily. Today's selections - Jack fruit, Wattleseed, Sour Sop, and Blueberry. I have no idea what the first three are but they weren't that bad. It was a quick stop though because we had to get back on the bus and head to our river cruise.

We got on our boat right where the ferry boat goes across the river. It was a 5km cruise along the Daintree River and took about 1 hour. We weren't sure what to expect but ended up having one of the better rides of the day because we saw 4 crocodiles! One 4 year old, a 1-year old, a 9-year old male and a female croc nesting (the guide guessed it was about 15-20 years of age). There was great scenery all around (all rainforest), but I didn't see a lot of it because I spent most of the cruise looking at the banks trying to spot the crocodiles. It was hard too because logs would be floating in the water and you would think it was a croc, but never was. I tried to get pictures of the crocs, but they keep themselves pretty well hidden. It is amazing to think that one chomp from the 9 year old (3 meters long) and you would be crushed! The female croc nesting is also apparently the most dangerous type to come across because they are so protective. Thankfully, she was up on the bank and we were in the water - a nice comfortable distance away!

At the end of the river cruise, we had afternoon tea (more tea, coffe and biscuits) and left for Port Douglas. This is a very touristy town with only about 100 people living there but about 100 hotels (or so it seemed). Apparrently, this town is where all the famous people stay when they come to Cairns, so it is pretty expensive up in the area. We just did a quick driving tour and then left to get back to Cairns.

It was quite a long day and we are beat, but seeing the rainforest, beaches and wildlife was well worth the exhaustion. It was a great day and even better for me now that I have a friend from home to share it with! Until tomorrow...