Daintree Rainforest

In order for me to see the rainforest, the cheapest way to do it was to join a tour – so i managed to find one offering a day trip for $99 – lunch included.

I was collected from my hostel at 8am and we began our journey north. Our first stop was a breakfast place where we had the chance to go to the toilet (or buy breakfast).  This is where i saw my first White Lipped frog... in the ladies room!!! I thought it was fake as it sat so still as peopled moved in and out of the toilet cubicle, but apparently it’s eyes moved. Then in the restaurant area there was another one – and this one was definitely for real as i saw it breathing as well as its eyes moving... They are just so gorgeous!!

From there we went to the Croc Express, where we grabbed a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits and hopped onto the boat for a croc hunt.  The big ‘Fat Albert’ has gone missing – suspected murdered by a local farmer... so the tour operators are not impressed as they earned their living by showing people the croc.  Needless to say, we did manage to see a couple of crocs as well as a snake before we headed over to the other shore to hope back onto our bus.  We then drove to the rainforest where we had our ‘jog’ around the raised platform through the forest.  From there we went to our lunch destination on Cape Tribulation, where we were given 15 mins to go to the beach – not telling us that it takes 5mins to walk there and another 5mins to walk back...mmm....  Lunch was ready for us when we got back, and once we had wolfed that down, we were herded back onto the bus and stopped off at Alexandria lookout, where we could get out for 5 mins to take a pic of the spectacular view.  From there we went to catch the ferry back across the river and headed straight to an icecream farm... I say ice cream farm, because they have an orchard with various types of trees, and the ice creams they make are flavoured by the various products of the trees.  I did not have the ice cream – 5 bucks for a tiny cup was just beyond what i was willing to pay. Then it was back in the bus to head out to Mossman gorge, where we allowed 30mins to either walk around or swim... I had originally thought i would swim, but decided to walk around instead to try and catch a glimpse of a cassowary.  These are the most illusive birds ever – they have road signs of them all over, warning motorists that they are in the area... well... to be honest, i think the cassowary is a mythical creature that doesn’t actually exist in the wild.

From Mossman gorge we were back on the bus and had a quick half an hour stop in Port Douglas, which houses loads of palm trees from South Africa!!! 

And from there we headed back to Cairns, arriving 6pm.  It felt very rushed, and that we were only getting a sneak peak of what is out there.  So on one level it was really cool that we got to do so much and see so much – but on another level – that is all we were doing was seeing, there was very little time to really experience it all.