Peter was a funny guy. He might have been my favorite part of the entire day. He ended every sentence by saying “with a bit of luck” and before he turned off his microphone between all of his facts he would say “NNNNNoooooooo wawwies” It was awesome. I will do my impression of him when I get home.
Okay, enough about Peter for now and back to our day. Our first stop was Port Douglas. This is a little tiny town just north of Cairns. It is a very up-scale five-star town.
Apparently, a lot of celebrities hang out there. The Clintons are rumored to have a house. Last week, when Peter took a group they saw Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer). I would have pooped my pants had I seen Jack Bauer. I was on the hunt. I didn’t find him but we went to a cool little market and did some wandering around before it was time to get back to the bus for our next stop.
The old wharf at Port Douglas
A part of the market at Port Douglas
The Somethin’ Somethin’ Gorge was our next stop. I probably should have paid more attention; I can’t remember the actual name. Anyway, it was a nice little river running through the forest. There were several little walks you could take. One led us right to a suspension bridge that we spent some time on. One of my first memories is being terrified of a suspension bridge at Turkey Run (I think) with my family. I did much better this time around. It was a cool little stop but again, we had to get back to the bus for our next stop.
Tilt yo head. The suspension bridge.
We made a stop at this lookout point. That bay is actually where Steve Irwin was killed. Peter said "Irwin loved Crocs but kept the sting rays closer to his heart." Too soon? Hey, don't shoot the messenger.
Next stop: Daintree Wildlife Center. This was a cool little center that had some of the animals that are native to the Daintree. We saw a spider that was as big as my face, a huge python, some kangaroos, a couple of wallabies, some crocs and a cassawerry (more on these crazy things later). Peter spent some time working at a Kangaroo center and let me just tell you this, he knows way too much about kangaroos, especially there um mating habits. He was happy to share all of this information with us. For instance, did you know that female kangaroos only need to have sex once every 3 years to be pregnant every year? Did you know that this in turn, leads to raping problems with all the male kangaroos? Fascinating stuff right? Female kangaroos can also choose the sex of their offspring. Nobody knows how but it’s true, Peter said so.
After the wildife center, it was time to cross the river and head into the heart of the Daintree Rainforest. This forest is not your typical forest. It is the world’s oldest living rainforest at approximately 200 million years old. There are more species of plants in 1 hectare of the Daintree than there are in the entire United States. There are all sorts of crazy animals such as, a spider the size of a large dinner plate, a butterfly the size of a man’s chest and the infamous cassawerry. This big ugly is a five-foot tall bird. It is a member of the ostrich and emu family. There are only around 1400 alive today and about 200 or so in the Daintree. According to Peter, they are sort of symbolic with the Daintree. He said it’s very rare but occasionally a group will get to see one in its natural habitat. So there we were cruising along, Peter was in one of his speeches and all of a sudden we here “Aha, lookie there guys, it’s a cassawerry. We got to watch one of these prehistoric looking birds cross the street just feet in front of our van. Peter was pumped, we were pumped and I would assume the bird was pumped.
Crikey!
After seeing the bird and some more driving through the rainforest we made it to our forest walk. It was brief but very interesting. We saw some crazy plants and trees that were very interesting. It was just cool to be in the midst of a rainforest – something I have never done before and might not get to do again. Next, we went to Cape Tribulation to get some lunch.
The strangler tree. It is actually completely hollow. Weird huh. That's Peter at the bottom if you tilt your head correctly.
Unfortunately, we got a little unlucky with the weather so it wasn’t as picturesque as we thought it would be but it was still very impressive. Again, it reminded me a lot of Hawaii with the mountains and beach. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay forever.
When we made it back to the Daintree River, the border between the uncivilized rainforest and the civilized rainforest, we went on a boat tour to hopefully see some crocodiles, snakes, birds and other random animals and plants. Our boat driver was hilarious. Again, you could tell he really loved his job as he was cracking jokes the entire time but also educating us on the plants and animals of the forest. He left the wheel of the boat several times and every time he acted like it was normal as he walked up and down the boat just talking to us. About ten minutes in we saw a croc – Lilly. She was a 2.7 meter croc that has been nesting in the same place for about 15 years. 2.7 meters sounds like a lot for a predator like the saltwater crocodile. However, many crocs get up to 9 or 10 meters. Scary, very scary. Later in the boat tour we saw a very rare bird that our boat guide was stoked about. That guy was crazy, I think he was on something. What was the only thing that could cap off a day like this?
You guessed it, ice cream. On our way out of the Daintree we stopped at the Daintree Ice Cream company. We didn’t have much choice on the flavor as we were just given a scoop of each of their flavors of the day. You might have heard of them: Raspberry, Yellow Sapote, Wottleseed, and Soursop. The raspberry was your typical raspberry. The Wottleseed had a mocha taste to it that I enjoyed. The Yellow Sapote was actually my favorite. It almost had a carmel flavoring to it. I am not real sure the best way to describe it but I really enjoyed it. The Soursop was sour and citrusy. It was refreshing. Well, our day was behind us, we were full and exhausted as we headed back to Cairns.
The "menu."
The result. A wooden spoon for good measure.
We were on our own for dinner Sunday night so a group of us decided that we wanted some seafood. We found a restaurant right on the beach and had a delicious meal. We started it off with an appetizer of kangaroo, crocodile and emu. The kangaroo was good, the crocodile was good and the emu was absolutely terrible. I imagine it tasted something like catfood. The texture was the strangest thing I’ve ever tasted and the taste was equally strange. Glad I tried it, but that will be the last time I ever eat emu. I had a delicious grilled barramundi meal and the restaurant shouted (Australian for bought) us all a glass of wine. Couldn’t tell you the name of mine, it was white and just okay. It was a delicious meal. After dinner, we all headed back to Gilligan’s we knew what was in store for tomorrow. I tried to get some sleep but had trouble relaxing. Why? I was considering jumping out of a plane Monday morning. Until then…
Cheers!
funny that the person who was scared of a silly suspension bridge jumped out of a plane!!!!
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