Today we're all booked on a day tour of the Daintree with DownUnder Tours. Our tour guide, Bruce, picks us up from the hotel. We have a tour bus all to ourselves because there are so many of us. Bruce is an interesting character who provides non-stop commentary and we learn a lot about him during the day. He used to be a film editor for television, and worked with the ABC Natural History Unit for several years as well as news and current affairs programs. He has strong views on several subjects. Our bus is luxurious, and we all have window seats.
We head north from Port Douglas up the Captain Cook Highway, through the town of Mossman. Our first stop is Mossman Gorge, where we do a walk along the river and through the rainforest. The river's running quite high after rain. Bruce points out the vegetation - lots of figs strangling trees, vines, and palms. Wait a While and Mother in Law's tongue both have barbs and spikes to catch unwary walkers. A new walkway is being constructed that will give wheelchair access. We watch out for cassowaries but don't see any - they're rare. The Daintree tropical rainforest is the oldest in the world - estimates range from 130 to 150 million years old. The soil is shallow, so the trees have roots that spread a long way on the surface and interlace with each other, and they can survive cyclones.
Back on the bus we head for the Daintree River where we take a wildlife cruise. Mick, our skipper, is very good at finding wildlife and birds and we see several pythons draped over branches, as well as several birds. Mick shows us a female crocodile and a couple of babies basking on the bank, and then we head downstream to meet Fat Albert, who is an enormous male crocodile - also basking in the sun. We keep a safe distance and Mick tells us about times when Fat Albert has chased his boat. A toddler was taken by a crocodile from a family's back yard on this stretch of river a few years ago.
Bruce picks us up at the ferry after our cruise and we have a barbeque lunch on someone's farm.
We drive up to Cape Tribulation and stop at several beautiful and isolated beaches. Bruce tells us a hair raising story about toddlers playing at the water's edge and Bruce seeing a crocodile in the water and rescuing the kids and abusing their parents. He shows us where stingrays bask in the shallows (though we don't see any) and explains the ecology of mangroves. Cape Tribulation was named by Captain Cook after the Endeavour ran aground on a reef and had to be repaired.
On the way home we stop at the Daintree Icecream factory for icecream: a scoop each of wattleseed, passionfruit, jackfruit and sapote (which tastes like chocolate custard).
Sue and I have leftovers for dinner, we're too buggered to go out, and we watch MasterChef (which Sue has introduced me to ) and go to bed early.
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