Hi all,
After two disappointing footy results last night, we had a burger at the
pub and then a gelati at the ice cream place we spent half our trip at
as kids. The ice cream was just as fab as I remembered!
This morning we got up fairly early and set off north of Port Douglas
towards the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. We were
disappointed that despite a sunny, rain free weather forecast, the
weather ahead looked gloomy and it kept raining. We hadn’t brought our
raincoats!!
We arrived at the river cruise station for our 9.30am cruise on the
Daintree River. We were on a small, quiet boat with solar panels.
Our guide, Mark, told us that the Daintree is a tidal river. As a
result, at times the river can have “beaches” in the middle, and at
other times it is up to 6m deep. On Australia Day 2019 there were floods
so bad that the whole office was underwater! You can still see debris
and damaged trees by the water from this event. You can also see many
mangroves by the water’s edge, and there are 34 species of them in the
Daintree - approximately half the world’s species. They are the only
tree that can survive in the saltwater, and are able to excrete salt or
pump it into sacrificial leaves.
Speaking of saltwater, those are the type of crocodiles present in the
river. They are the biggest and most dangerous type. Females can grow up
to 3.5m long, and males 6-7m long. Their species has been around for
millions of years - as long as the dinosaurs! One of their evolutionary
features are ‘scoots’ (spikes) along their back and tail, that are
positioned in such a way that this allows them to be aerodynamic and
undetectable under the water’s surface.
We were really lucky on our cruise. It was meant to go for an hour, but
our guide ran it for closer to an hour and a half. We saw tree snakes,
different birds including Papuan frogmouths, a bird’s nest hanging from a
tree and plenty of crocs. Apparently it’s more common to see them this
time of year as the water is cooler, so they prefer to come out onto the
banks.
There are ten regular crocodiles that frequent this area. We first saw
Scarface - so named because of the scars on his face obtained from
fights with other crocodiles. He is the dominant male in the area and is
about 4.7m long.
Next we saw a few hatchlings, tiny crocodiles that were well camouflaged
on logs. We had a few keen photographers/nature enthusiasts on our boat
who were very good at spotting them. Around this area we also saw
Elizabeth, a 40 year old female. Females lay between 20-80 eggs at the
one time, and partially bury them beneath leaves etc in a creek off of
the main river. The compost heats the eggs so the female doesn’t have to
sit on them, but rather just guards them for two months from predators
such as wild boars and goannas. Crocodiles are then the only reptiles
that are maternal - the mother spends the first two months of the babies
lives caring for them such as carrying them on her back or swimming
with them. On average, only one crocodile out of two nests full of eggs
survives to adulthood though. Apparently they start off weighing about
500g, and the heaviest weighed saltwater crocodile came in at 1000kg.
Elizabeth was pretty shy and went under the water once she saw the boat
coming, but we turned off here and saw another female, Scooter, on an
embankment. She was not phased by us at all. It’s illegal to feed wild
crocodiles up here which is good. They don’t associate us with food, and
they don’t rely on the boats.
On the way back we could see sugarcane through the forest. Mark told us
that erosion means the buffer between the forest and the farms is
decreasing. So it’ll be interesting in the future to see what happens
there.
After our river cruise, we queued up for the ferry to cross the river.
When we arrived at 9.30 there was no queue. Because more people had
arrived by now, we had to wait about 45 minutes for the ferry. But we
didn’t mind, we were just happy to be here. We had a good laugh at some
idiot that tried to jump the queue by getting in the priority queue
without a priority pass. The lady made him go right to the back of the
queue which was double the length by that stage!!
The Daintree Rainforest is three times older than the Amazon, making it
the oldest rainforest in the world at 180 million years old.
Our first stop after the ferry was Alexandra Lookout. The view was a bit
cloudy but still beautiful. At least it had stopped raining! Then we
went to the Dubuji Boardwalk through the rainforest. It was a nice loop
and we particularly enjoyed the fan palms here. It was amazing that the
path from the rainforest emerged and within metres you were on the
beach. What was a bit daunting at this point was the “WARNING/ACHTUNG
sign that warned of a “recent crocodile sighting in this area” - yikes.
We walked along the beach for a little while, and saw some questionable
footprints in the sand. When Rob googled “crocodile footprints” I’d be
lying if I said they didn’t look similar. Then we headed back to the
car.
We had a quick toastie and juice each for lunch at a local cafe, before
heading to Cape Tribulation Beach (or Kulki to the Aboriginal people).
Captain Cook named it Cape Tribulation as he had some trouble with his
ship nearby being damaged by a reef.
Here we enjoyed more mangroves that looked really cool sitting right on
the beach, as well as the patterns in the sand made by crabs. The short
walk to a lookout was nice, as was a walk along the beach. I had fun
recreating another photo from our 2004 trip. Again though we were
greeted with “WARNING”, “don’t go near the water’s edge” etc on signs
due to saltwater crocodiles frequented the area. Thankfully we didn’t
see any!
On the way back down south, we enjoyed an ice cream each at the Daintree
Ice Cream Company before wandering through their orchards. They make
fresh fruit flavoured ice cream using fruit they grow on site. For $7.50
we had a taster cup we had passionfruit, wattleseed (an Australian
fruit that had a hazelnut/coffee sort of taste), soursop (an Amazonian
fruit with a creamy lemonade taste) and coconut - which we both agreed
was our favourite.
Our final stop was the Jindalba boardwalk circuit. Once again the jungle
was beautiful, but this area had more streams and was very quiet and
peaceful as there were not as many people.
We once again waited about 30 minutes for the ferry and then headed back
to Port Douglas, along the way seeing some sugarcane being harvested
and transported in train carriages. We arrived back in Port Douglas
around around 5.30.
Tonight we had dinner at Hemingway's in Port Douglas and now we are back in our room ready to watch 'Have You Been Paying Attention'.
Love to all,
Claire
Xoxox
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