Tuesday, February 4, 2002

Daintree Rain Forest Safari

We woke up at 6am, had breakfast in the lobby, and then were picked up by our guide in a 4WD safari bus from The Adventure Company. After picking up 8 other passengers, we proceeded North past Port Douglas and made a stop at the outskirts of the rain forest. We walked down a path and were shown a few of the nasty plants which Australia seems to have an abundance of. One has a sap which makes you sick three days later, another has microscopic silica tubes tipped with three different kinds of toxins which can make you itch for up to three years (!) and another has long leaves with saw blades along the edges. Randy decided the rule was "don't touch anything!". We saw some cool lizards and some interesting plants as well.

Then we proceeded on to the entrance to the Daintree rain forest where we stopped for a bit for morning tea.

We took a cable driven ferry across a river, then followed a very windy road through the rain forest, with our driver pointing out many different plants and animals as we went along. We made another stop at an area of dense forest, and followed a wooden boardwalk that ran for about a mile through dense foliage and a mangrove forest. We saw all kinds of plants and animals along the way. It was amazing how only about 1% of the sunlight reached the forest floor, the rest is caught by the trees above, and they are all very aggressive about getting their share.

This river is tidal, bringing salt water into the mangroves.

These ants were hard at work.

Where's Randy?

Buttressed roots are needed to support the bigger trees.

After this we drove down to the ocean and stopped for a bit. We saw some white sandy beaches and more rain forest foliage. Fortunately lunch was next, as we were starving by this point. We had lunch at a small tented area hidden away in the forest. After lunch we followed a trail through the forest down to a little swamp. On the way we saw a huge spider and a small snake (4 feet long) that was slithering away from us.

Then we proceeded to an ice cream factory on the road home and stopped for a quick snack.

Just before the ferry across the river, we stopped and looked at a flock of fruit bats hanging in the trees. There were thousands of them hanging upside-down. Most of them were sleeping, but a few were squawking and moving around. Some were even flying from tree to tree, so we got to see that they had a 3 foot wing span.

At the ferry crossing we boarded a 'Crocodile Hunter' boat for a river cruise. While we didn't see any crocs (it was too hot out at this time of year for them to be down at the river bank), we did see lots of plants and several birds. After re-boarding our bus we headed back to Cairns, making a couple of stops at vista points along the way. Just before we got back to town we stopped at a field with some wallabies in it. Then we were dropped off at the hotel around 6:45. It had been almost 12 hours since we left, a very full day. We were both very tired so we ordered room service, watched a movie on the laptop and then fell asleep.