Cairns - July 17, 2013

Today I went on a Cape Tribulation and Daintree Rainforest tour.  It was interesting, but again, I think they try to cram too much into one tour.  I was at Cape Tribulation for maybe an hour.  I had 20 minutes on the beach and 40 minutes to eat my lunch.  It was way too fast.  There are a few other stops I could have done with out and would have liked to linger a little longer at others.  But it was still cool to see the rainforest and learn a little about it.  I saw 4 crocodiles in the wild.  I guess they were in the wild.  They have been given names and are the same 4 crocodiles they have been showing to tourists for years.  I guess it is like the wild bison in Yellowstone, although the crocodiles will still kill you, even if they do have names.  I also saw a common tree snake and a King Fisher.

Our guide talked the whole morning.  He gave us some of the most random facts about everything.  He talked forever about jelly fish and how they can kill you and your only chance at survival is to pour vinegar on the stung spots and even then chances are slim, how they keep vinegar in bottles on the beach but it is bright blue because the Brits used to go and grab it to put on their fish and chips.  Anyway, I am right terrified of jellyfish now!  Thankfully, he said that because it is winter and a little cooler they have migrated out to sea further and are hibernating.  I am still however a little terrified to go snorkeling tomorrow…

Alexandra Look Out

 At the dock of the crocodile river tour there is this giant crocodile mouth.

Look carefully there is a crocodile in that picture....

On the Daintree River

 In the Daintree Rain Forest.  This is called a strangling fig tree.  It was quite a unique tree and really cool.  I could't get a picture that really shows what it looks like.

The Fan Palm Tree.  Someday when I have a fancy camera the wannabe photographer in me will have a lot more fun with pictures like these.

Me - just walking through the rainforest.

This is the beach and Cape Tribulation.  There is something that makes these little balls out of the sand. It must be some kind of ant, but it looks really cool.  

A bit of my own sand art.

Mossman George

 The Aborigines believe that if you swim in the gorge it will make your hair really soft.  It wasn't quite warm enough for swimming for me and they only gave us 1/2 an hour there so even if you wanted to swim, by the time you changed in and out of your suit you could swim for like 5 minutes.  But it was a very lovely place.

There were a couple of lovely retired couples from Sydney on the tour.  There were also a lot of young college age people.  I did talk to both the couples, but the students seem to have their travel companions and are not interested in talking to others.  I was also the only other American on the tour.  That was strange.  This was the first time I have run across that other than when there were only 1 or 2 of us.  But it was a full tour, there must have been 30 or 40 people on the tour.

I spent the evening organizing pictures.  I have taken almost a thousand pictures on this trip!  Whew!  And most of them are scenic…