We headed back toward the ferry for another walk through the rainforest. This was the walk most highly recommended – something I found out from the tourist center the day before, no thanks to Buttercup, however – and it definitely lived up to its hype. It was one of the best walks we did with a few more of the larger trees and a lot of creeks and swamps along the way. We were happy to have done a walk with a little bit of awe involved.
The bad side, however, was my camera started fogging up on the inside of the lens! Oh no! I think some water must have gotten in there and now my pictures are looking foggy! I was not sure what to do about that – I was able to clear it every once in a while by holding my thumb down over the top of the lens – but it was very frustrating and something I will have to look into when I get home.
We crossed the ferry and went right nextdoor to the other Crocodile Express tour. This tour ended up being a lot better than the first because (1) We had even fewer people, with five or six of us altogether, (2) The guide was much more understandable than the last one and gave a lot of interesting information, and (3) We saw so much wildlife!
Now we still never saw any huge crocodiles like Nick wanted to see. But we did see two, both about six feet long, lounging on the shore! This was our opportunity to see all of them as opposed to the top only, like we had seen with the crocodile on the other tour. We also saw a baby crocodile in the water, maybe just a foot and a half long, and two other babies laying on a fallen tree branch over the water! So, we got our fill of wild crocodiles!
We saw plenty of other things too. We saw two more snakes, both of them green tree snakes. These are not poisonous, which was good to know although it would have been kind of cool to see a deadly snake or something, as long as the tree branches weren’t smashing into me on the boat like last time! We also saw a big green tree frog camping out on some tree roots. These roots stand straight up out of the water like spikes along the shore! We saw some very strange fish called Mudhoppers jumping along on a log looking like grasshoppers. They actually live outside the water but still have gills!
And we saw a beautiful Azure Kingfisher! I had said to Nick, “I want to see a kingfisher,” because I really like those birds and although we had seen one on our last tour we had not seen him up close. Well, we not only saw one but I spotted him myself, which I was pretty proud of! We were able to get pretty close to him and he was beautiful, bobbing his head up and down all mechanical-like.
Now, wasn’t this the most frustrating thing when my camera was fogging up again! Aggh! I was not happy standing right in front of the animal I very much wanted to see and being unable to take clear pictures of his beautiful blue plume! So, I got pictures but they are a little foggy and I am hoping I can restore the true color in PhotoShop at home!
Anyway, we really saw so much wildlife and I was happy with that. The amazing flora and fauna have been the highlights of our trip.
We stopped by an Aborigine Art gallery on the way to our next destination and wished we could afford their ridiculously priced works there. They had some pretty cool printmaking prints that I liked and it made me want to try printmaking again. It is a laborious but fun and rewarding art. We also took a quick cat nap in the car while there. So exhausted from our exciting river cruise!
Our next stop was Mossman Gorge, actually, to do a walk they have there. This walk and our walk earlier that day were the best walks we did in the rainforest. There were HUGE boulders covered in green and the sound of the river running by and lots of other creeks and tall dark trees and fallen logs covered in mushrooms that look like fairy condos. And we also saw some of the huge trees I was looking for! There was one tree that had its smooth roots running every which way and reaching twenty to thirty feet from its trunk until sinking into the ground! It was one of those eye-popping jaw-dropping experiences, like something you would see in a fantasy world.
There were two downsides to this walk. First of all, my camera batteries – all three – were completely dead so I have no record of this lovely walk. Second, it was serious mosquito country in the rainforest. I was walking behind Nick and seeing this cloud of mosquitoes following him. I figured I had my own cloud too. So, although the beauty of the rainforest was stunning, we were literally speed-walking through it to avoid getting overwhelmed by pesky mosquitoes! I think Nick was glad I didn’t have my camera so we weren’t stopping every minute for a photo. We would have been eaten alive!
After our hustle through the jungle, we were thinking that a dip in Mossman Gorge was sounding pretty good! We just went in to our knees and sat on some rocks for a while. I wanted to get in all the way – it felt so good after the hike – but I was worried about the time. While sitting there enjoying the cool and the sound of the river, we talked about the highlights of our trip and realized that almost everything was a highlight! It really has been such a fun trip and we have been able to do and see some really cool things. Instead of a trip with a few highlights, it’s more been a highlight the whole way through with a few low lights here and there.
We drove back to Port Douglas where we dropped off our car. We then had to wait for a shuttle I had booked to come pick us up and take us back down to Cairns. We waited and waited and waited and the shuttle was not coming. When it got to be 30 minutes late, I found a payphone and called (using my handy travel binder) to ask about our pickup, hoping they hadn’t forgotten about us! The lady picked up and said, “Can you please hold, thanks,” and put me on hold. I waited for about 20 seconds and wondered how long it would be and how many coins I would have to pop in before she picked back up.
Forget it. I hung up and called back and when she said, “Can you please hold,” I interrupted and said, “No, I can’t hold, I am on a payphone and you guys were supposed to pick me up a half hour ago.” So she apologized and said the shuttle was running late but it would be there in about 15 minutes. Needless to say, I sure didn’t feel like giving the driver the $50 when she arrived 45 minutes late to pick us up! It was a little stressful but all okay in the end.
It took an hour to get down to Cairns and it was about 8pm by then. We were checking back into the same hostel we had stayed at before and I was happy to see Neal from Wales at the desk again. I was hoping we would be nice and give us our own room again for no extra charge. Even if he didn’t, I was going to ask about it because we were both feeling a little pooped from our camping excursion. When I asked, he said, “We put you in a double before so we will do that again. It’s two beds but you can put them together if you like.” Yay for Neal!
Finally I could take a SHOWER! I had done a stretch without showering on the Great Ocean Road but this one was worse for some reason, perhaps the heat. So it felt so good to be clean!
Now, we have two more days in Cairns and one day in Sydney and then we are home. I had not made any plans for our two days in Cairns but wanted to leave it open so we could see what we wanted to do when the time came. Well, we couldn’t go back to the rainforest and there was no reason to see Cousin Brad again but I could definitely justify another trip to the Great Barrier Reef, though something cheaper would definitely be best. So, I grabbed a few brochures from the front advertising $77 per person trips to a place called Green Island, about a 45 minute boat ride as opposed to 90 minutes, and decided we could do that tomorrow, spending significantly less than our last trip.
Despite my needing to get up early for our reef trip the next day, I stayed up until after 1am catching up with the blog! There is just too much to write about all our adventures and too many pictures to go through!
Pictures:
A very enjoyable walk through the Daintree forest, seeing some cool trees along the way...
The crocodile on the beach. You can tell my camera is getting foggy!
See the tree frog on the roots? He is hanging on in the middle.
Another snake, if you can see it.
Ah, the kingfisher, all fogged up. He is right in the middle, if you want to click on it to look closer.
Look for a tiny crocodile head in the water by the shore.
Another crocodile on the beach, up by the fallen log.
A beautiful flower we saw outside the Aborigine art gallery. Nick's shirt is the background!
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