Daintree Rainforest 2 Day Tour

The Daintree River Cruise
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Our day started early, the bus for the Tropix Explorer Tour picked us up from the hostel at 7:45 AM and we were the first people. Of course this meant that we got to sit through the next hour of stopping at almost every hostel in Cairns to pick up other people, but I enjoy this because it gives me a free ride to see other areas of the city. I also like identifying the different types of people that stay at certain hostels, you have the places geared towards party people, couples, women, youthful single travelers, and the extremely budget-conscious (cheap?). One result of traveling on your own is that you become much more conscious of people and what sort of category they may fall in. My only hope is that I am not obvious in checking people out, stealth is always my top priority. I can only hope that I was successful. I digress, back to the tour. This was a 2 day tour that would take us up to Cape Tribulation in the Daintree National Park then bring us back to Cairns, stopping at sights along the way.

The cool paterns left by the crabs throwing out balls of sand from their holes
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Once we were on our way we ended up driving north along the Captain Cook highway, this first passed through some very green countryside then the drive provided some beautiful views as the road wove it's way along the edge of cliffs overlooking the ocean crashing onto the rocks below or the deserted pristine white sands of the beaches that ran right up to the side of the road. I am always happy to have something visually interesting because I am able to keep awake; otherwise I tend to fall immediately asleep when you put me on a moving vehicle with a monotonous landscape. Our first stop was the Daintree River where we all boarded a small boat to take a Crocodile Cruise. The object of this, of course, is to see some crocodiles. Well, our first wild animal spot was a python curled up on a high branch overhanging the river. I am going by the boat operator's identification here because I have no idea what a python looks like. In fact, it took me quite a long time to even spot the snake as I was expecting a HUGE snake. This one was rather small when measured against my expectations. Aren't pythons supposed to be able to eat humans? Maybe I'm thinking of the amazon or some horrible movie. Anyhow, we weren't totally disappointed in our quest to spot a crock. Our next spot was a baby crock sunning itself along the muddy banks. This really wasn't our spot as our driver pointed it out, baby crocodiles are really rather small. I challenge you to find it in the photo I've attached. Granted, this would have been one of those many times that I wished I had zoom capabilities on my camera, you might be able to tell what it is! They are cute from afar, as all baby animals are. So other than seeing another baby crock I sat back and enjoyed the views of the river, because the area is rather stunning, especially since I'm arriving from the outback where you really don't see much green.

Okay - look closely in the mud and you'll see a baby crocodile, I swear!!!
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Our bus met us on the opposite bank, while we were cruising around it had crossed the river on a ferry boat. We continued on our way further into the rainforest, at this point you could definitely tell that we were in a rainforest. Just for some brief history on the area the "wet tropics" was listed on the World Heritage List in 1988, rather amazingly holding up against the logging industries protests. This doesn't mean that the area is completely protected because the wet tropics area covers some 3000Km stretching from Townsville in the south to Cooktown in the north and only the areas classified as national park are protected. There are obviously lots of privately owned areas along this distance that the government has no control over. Interestingly the area covers only .01% of Australia's surface yet it contains a vast majority of the bird, butterfly, and fern species. Thank you Lonely Planet for these facts.

The huge trees on the Marrdja Rainforest walk
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The next stop was a guided walk along the Marrdja trail showing the wide variety of flora you find in a rain forest. There were plants that had leaves that could have been used as roofs for small buildings. I loved the mangrove forest with it's otherworldly looking root system that looked as if massive schools of finned fish had been frozen in time while they were surfacing through the mud. For Star Wars fanatics like myself it was very close to the Degobah system, where Yoda lived, minus the overwhelming fog. Our guide did a good job explaining all of the different plants. My favorites being what are called widow makers, so named because an symbiotic mass of vines and roots grows at the tops of trees until the weight overwhelms the host tree and it all comes crashing down, obviously sometimes on unsuspecting married people standing below. Another interesting symbiotic plant was a vine that starts growing from the top of a tree and then  eventually strangles the tree, rooting itself in the process. Once the dead tree rots away you are left with a hollow tube of vines rising up to a height of a tree. Nature is so fascinating!

the otherworldly mangrove trees - check out the roots!
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So after a short ride and another round of dropping people at their respective hotels and hostels (of course we were the first to be picked up but the last to be dropped off) we arrived at Cape Tribulation, which is more of a destination than a place, it's really just a small collection of hotels and hostels. There were 10 people on the bus that had chosen to stay at the Cape Tribulation Beach House. Heidy and me had chosen it based on our hostel receptionist's recommendation  in Cairns. The Beach House is a misleading name as this is a complex comprised of over 10 buildings, the one I stayed in had four separate rooms with bunk beds. I was in a room with a British guy and two girlfriends traveling together. When we got inside the room I was a bit shocked as it looked as if it had been abandoned, all of the furniture was shoved into the middle of the room and it was very wet, even the mattresses were damp, which kind of grossed me out. As we had been sitting for most of the day, I wanted to head off on a walk. The receptionist had said that it was low tide so now was the time to head north along the beach to Emmagen Creek, where there was a crocodile-free swimming hole. Heidy was game and the British guy along with two other girls that were rooming with Heidy. We all headed north along the beautiful, pristine, deserted white sands for what was supposed to be a 3 hour total walk.

Fascinating tree
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As an aside I should mention that the beaches are deserted of the typical crowds of people in their bathing suits not due to the weather, which is perfect, but because of a couple of things: the first are the salt water crocodiles and the second are the irukandji jellyfish. Because of these two potential threats there are signs posted along the beach warning you that you cannot swim in the waters.

So I should have taken the hint when the pristine sands ended at continuous stretch of rocks and my first attempt at scrambling up the side of them ended with me slipping and falling. No harm done but to my ego. I was in my Chaco sandals, which are great for getting wet and usually pretty good at gripping on wet rocks so I figured that my slip was just due to my error of putting both my feet on the slippery rocks. From this point on the rocks only got steeper and wetter. Heidy was doing well and the British guy was ahead of us but the two other girls were struggling. They had on their flip flops, not the best of choice for this type of adventure so I can't fault them for being cautious while making their way along the rocky cliffs. There were lots of small crabs, and some rather large ones clinging to the rocks but they would typically flee before you got close. It wasn't until the girls pointed out a snake in a crevasse of a rock that I had just walked over that I became a bit concerned about what might be hidden amongst the rocks that I was making my way through in sandals.

The easy start to our hellish walk up the "beach"
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Just to explain our situation, it was now 2 hours into a walk that was supposed to be along a beach but it was anything but, instead we were clinging to the sides of rocks, sometimes wet ones due to the encroaching high tide, without the option to make our way off the rocks due to the thick rainforest canopy on a very steep embankment leading up to the edge of the rocks. As I mentioned, the tide was definitely coming in and I knew that we couldn't go back at this point because there would now be places that would be unpassable due to the tide. It was at this point that I took a very misguided leap off from a high rock to a lower one and my sandal of my left foot got caught in an indentation and snapped my big toe. I've never broken my big toe before, I've never broken a bone in my body as far as I know (other than my small toe when I kicked the cast iron balustrade while running up the stairs when I was a spastic kid) but this would probably be the worst situation to be in. I had to continue further north to reach the road so we could walk back, but we didn't have a map showing where we were nor did we know how much further it would take. I was definitely in pain but I managed to continue on, seeing that I didn't have much of a choice I just put up with the constant throbbing pain. Not too long after this one of the girls in flip flops had a major meltdown, it looked as if she was having a panic attack when she realized that she was going to have to walk across some dried palm fronds, after spotting the snake earlier everyone seemed to be a bit weary and I guess she just freaked out. I had to somehow calmly convince her that as 5 of us had just passed over this area she would be fine but I was convinced that she was going to completely shut down mentally. I've never seen a look like that on anyone's face before. I'm such a sarcastic person I almost told her that the last thing we needed as this point was someone having a mental breakdown. Thankfully I think that being calm helped and she continued on but she was definitely whimpering at this point. Everyone was a bit snippy and we were almost at the point of trying to make our way back when the guy found the creek that was on our map and there were PEOPLE there. I was never so happy to see other people while on a walk. This was a good thing because I was starting to panic myself. I can't believe that I wanted to do this walk and I convinced people to come!

The hellish part of our "beach" hike
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Well after going through what I did to get here, I was not going to let my toe deter me from swimming in this waterhole. Of course, it was at least another 20 minute walk from the coast but I happily made the trek. No one else but Heidy and I went all the way in. The water was super cold but I was glad to numb my toe. The walk back was rather uneventful, it took at the most a little over an hour, but the timing worked out great because it was just getting dark when we got back. I kept pace with the guy as I was motivated to get off my feet. Only problem being that I had left my main pack back in Cairns with my medical kit, including my sports tape and painkillers. Fortunately one of the two females in the room let me take some painkillers and I spent the evening with my foot propped up lying on the bed.

Hey - there's snakes in these rocks! Lets add greater stakes to our adventure
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The next day I had hoped to take a short walk to the Cape Tribulation lookout but even with the painkillers I was limping around, so I ruled out risking another walk and opted to lay out on the deserted beach with a book and my ipod. The bus picked us up at 1:30 to take us back towards Cairns.

There were still things to see on the way back and our first brief stop was at the "look about" over the Alexandra Range. Our guide pointed out snapper island off the coast where the infamous Steve Irwin lost his life while swimming with the sting rays. That was a rather depressing way to start the day.

The group miraculously all in one piece at the swimming hole
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The thing about signing up for tours through hostels is that you aren't always sure what your itinerary is. So after driving for an hour or more we arrived at Mossman Gorge. There is a beautiful river and a nicely developed walkway, unfortunately I wasn't feeling too much like walking but I did make it out to the point where people were jumping off the rocks into the river below. It looked fun.

Our last stop at the small but touristy town of Port Douglas was also rather brief. I had just enough time to make it halfway down the one side of the main street before I had to be back at the bus. The town seemed cute but I really wasn't there long enough to form an opinion.

The beautiful beach where you wouldn't want to swim in the water
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We arrived back in Cairns at dusk, what an adventure!