June 10, 2011- Day 43
Where: Cape Tribulation
Dinner: Leftover noodles with egg and spring onions
Another last minute plan turns out to be incredible! After reading Lonely Planet extensively about the area we are in, we decided to take a barge and come up north of Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation. We read that it has nice rainforests and areas where the rainforest meets the sea, so we figured we should go up and have a look. We didn't really know what else there was to do up here, but they said it's a really popular day trip from Cairns. Alrighty, sounds good to us. We drove a ways up to catch the barge and along the river we were crossing we saw our first “Danger Crocodiles” sign. Creepy. We know to stay away from rivers and lakes in this area though so it should be fine.
As soon as we drove off the barge after the 5 minute trip across the river we could tell this place was going to be amazing. You drive us a windy road heading up into the rainforest. The road was very narrow and we were completely surrounded by ferns, rock walls, and huge, incredibly green trees. The rainforest at its finest. We pulled over at the first lookout point and were able to look out over a big river and large expanses of rainforest bellow us. As we were looking out a couple of bright blue butterflies fly by. I heard a French couple talking about them and I could understand them so I even knew what to look for. Ha, that was my proud comprehension moment.
We continued to drive up the mountain and then we stopped to do a short walk. When we got to the walk we were the only ones on the pathway so it was particularly nice. The rainforest is so beautiful and we always fine something new and different. Cassowaries, which are large flightless birds similar to emus, are common in this forest. They are the most amazing looking birds that are black with red and blue features on their head and a strange pointy looking thing that almost looks like a crown. We didn't see one because they are shy, but we did see one at the Australia Zoo. They have been around since the dinosaurs and they still go up into the hills to sleep safely at night because the dinosaurs would have slept on the forest floor. Pretty interesting creatures.
Since I decided to come to Australia Sara has been telling me that I have to come to Crocydilus Village, a rainforest hostel she and Allie stayed at when they were here around 12 years ago. Today we found Crocodylus Village and because the cheap campground we wanted to stay at was full we decided to stay in the van at the Village. We'll sleep in the parking lot but can use their amenities which will be excellent because we haven't showered in three days and it's getting rather humid. Hehe, we're getting used to this not showering for a few days way of life. The hostel really is cool though. It's all outdoors with huge tents above and the rooms are all big tent like cabins. It was only afternoon though so we kept driving up north a little ways. We stopped at the beach and the rainforest really does come right down to the sand. It was a bit different to see ferns and big palms right down along the sand.
As we were driving we pulled over to get tropical fruit ice cream. This place only served one combination of ice cream a day, with four flavors in a bowl. The flavors of the day were blueberry, pineapple, wattle seed (tastes like mocha), and sapote (tastes like custard). The ice cream was amazing and it was fun to try some new flavors. There were huge orchards on the property so I assume they grow all the fruit they use. Yummy! I don't think you can ever go wrong with tropical fruit ice cream.
Further north we pulled over to do another walk, this time in a mangrove area. Mangroves are marsh like areas that exist where water meets land. That's my best attempt at describing them. The trees that grow there (called mangroves, I believe) have adapted to this incredibly wet environment by having many large roots at the base of the tree instead of one solid trunk. They look like they have spider legs crawling all over the place. This mangrove was particularly muddy, I think the water was lower than usual. It was so weird to see roots spread our everywhere, half covered by mud. They really looked like hairy spiders in the mud. Some parts were almost too gross for me to look at :S Overall though it's a very interesting environment and I'm glad we got to walk through such a dense one.
It was getting later at this point so we drove back down to the hostel. We made some dinner and then we went on a night time rainforest walk with a local guide names Possum. Apparently he's been doing this tour for around 15 years, so he's probably the same guise my sister had when she was here. There were 4 of us on the walk and it was a a pleasant temperature. They gave us super bright lights to hold so that we could try and spot animals and bugs. We went over all the different mammals and spiders and bugs that we might see and then we set out. Possum knows basically everything there is to know about this forest I think, and taught us a ton about the different trees and plants we were seeing. Unfortunately, it was a pretty quiet evening out in the forest and we didn't see much :( We did see a little bandacoot, which is a bit like an anteater. We also saw some little frogs, spiders, and large beetles. What was a bit ironic was that we were looking for possums. So the things that I have been running away from all trip were now the things that I was searching up in trees for. Ha! I'm glad we went with this guide though because I would never walk out into the rainforest alone at night, but with him things didn't seem very scary. It was a fun thing to do, even if we didn't see any particularly amazing animals.
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