A day out with Uncle Brian

Today we were picked up at 7am from our hostel to do a tour with Uncle Brian's tour company of what we were told is the oldest rainforest on the earth, Cape Tribulation. Apparently it's 150 million years older than the amazon rainforest, which is 9 million years old. It's existed since the dinosaurs were around. It covers 896,000 hectares and has 1300 species of tree. That''s compared to only 143 species of tree in the whole of Europe. Many of the trees are dependant on a flightless bird found in Australia called a cassowary. One of our guides, Ritchie, went on for ages about how beautiful these birds are but really they just look like exotic turkeys. Or at least from the pictures we've seen and from what I remember of them from all that time ago back at the wildlife park in Sydney.  Apparently cassowaries are the only birds with stomachs that are able to dissolve the plastic like film on the seed that allows it to regenerate and grow. There were protests in the 80s, which resulted in deaths of local people who were attempting to save the rainforest which a local 'crook', as Ritchie put it, wanted to clear. And from what I've seen, it was definitely worth saving.

Our first stop on the trip was in Port Douglas, at 4 mile beach. We stayed there for an hour, walking on the beach, having tea, coffee and biscuits. I tried a Lamington which is like coconut sponge.  I don't know if they're an Australian thing but they seem to be popular.

On the drive to Port Douglas we saw loads of wallabies in a field which was cool. Ritchie also told us about a golf club in the area, and about how there was a crocodile in the lake, so they called the only crocodile catcher in town, only for him to forget to leave his handbrake on and all his equipment end up in the lake.

After Port Douglas we drove on to the rainforest and had to cross the Daintree River on the ferry. It takes about 2 minutes to cross as it's not a very wide part of the river,  however at the widest part the daintree river is 200m wide. Once you go to the north side of the river, there is no police, no running water and no electricity, so people have to generate their own. Most people do this using solar power.

We drove past Thornton Beach, which was apparently the sight of the most recent crocodile death (which aren't very common and wasn't very recent). A woman was swimming at night and got eaten whole by a crocodile*.

We stopped for lunch at Turtles café. Lauren and I both had cheeseburgers from the limited menu. We had had to choose in advance so that the tour guides could phone the order through in preparation for our arrival. It was about 11:45 when we got to the cafe and had lunch, and we had to be back at the bus at 1. We wandered down through the rainforest to the beach, past some gigantic spiders. It was a beautiful beach with beautiful surroundings such as the rainforest (obviously) and mountains. It kind of looked like a stereotypical desert island with palm trees and the forest leading away from the beach.

Our next stop was Emmagen creek for a swim. It was another beautiful setting with clear waters, surrounded by forest. The guides also showed us how we could paint our faces with oaka (sp?) which looks like face paint but is made from rubbing a certain type of rock against another.  After everyone had had a good swim we headed back to the bus to start the return journey.

On the way back we stopped at Alexander look out (originally called Walu Wugirriga by the native peoples). From there we had a beautiful view of the Daintree river and Ritchie told us about Steve Irwin and the exact way he died, as it happened not far from where we were.

When we got back to the Daintree river we went on a crocodile cruise run by a guy called Bruce. We went out on his boat looking for crocodiles and he told us a whole load of information about them and the way they live.  We saw two small crocodiles and one huge one that was about 4 metres long, called Benda.  It was pretty awesome! This cruise lasted for about an hour. We also saw a blue kingfisher and a whole load of fruit bats.

After the cruise we drove home, via one more look out point, that again had a amazing views. On the way home we played a game where a song was played and we had to name the tv show or movie it is associated with. The songs included the Friends theme tune, the Big Bang theme tune and a whole load of film ones such as the Godfather, Star Wars and James Bond. We were in teams of 5 and the two Scottish people we were with carried the rest of the team. We came joint second with 17 points of 20.

The trip was a lot of fun and it was really awesome to see a huge crocodile.  I would have liked to spent some more time in the forest itself but given the amout of dangerous animals in there, it's probably good we didn't. 

When we got home at around half 7, we did our laundry and showered and just spent the evening chilling.  Tomorrow we have no plans so hope to have a nice relaxing day.

*some of the info in here was told to me by the tour guide. I have no idea how accurate it is. I haven't starred it all.