I can’t believe it’s October already. And only 1 week until my 30th birthday. WHAT.
Back to the trip recap…
Monday, August 10.
We took a tour up the Daintree Coast with Tony’s Tropical Tours. They were grrr-eat! Heh.
It was a really small, intimate group — only 6 of us plus our tour guide and driver Jonathan. One of the couples, Terry and Andrew, was from Melbourne and they were HILARIOUS. For example, they taught us that Australians have “nicknames” for Aussies from various states. Victorians are called “Mexicans” because they live “south of the border,” Sydneysiders are “cockroaches” (can’t remember why exactly but I can guess), and Queenslanders are “banana benders” because they have nothing to do but put the bends in bananas. Is it terrible that I find this incredibly amusing? OK, fine. I am a BAD PERSON.
BWAHAHAHAHA.
Anyway, our first stop was the Daintree River where we were going to cross via ferry and look for crocodiles! EEEK. At first, we weren’t seeing anything at all. The water wasn’t very clear and I had no idea how to look for them. But Bruce, our ferry guide, is a seasoned pro and we ended up seeing 4!
The first one was this baby crocodile that was only 7 months old. Look how tiny it is!
We also saw a couple of older crocs that were about 2 meters long. BUT THEN the dominant male made an appearance — he was HUGE! About 6 meters long! CRAZY.
We continued up the Daintree coast to…
…the Walu Wugirriga Lookout. Gorgeous view of Port Douglas and Snapper Island from there.
…and also to the beach on Cape Tribulation.
The road past this point is unpaved and gets progressively rough. We were in a 4-wheel drive vehicle, though, so we keep going to our northernmost destination, which was…
… Bloomfield Falls (aka Wujal Wujal). So lovely! It was a tough walk along the rocks to get close to the falls (I almost fell multiple times – eek) but it was definitely worth it.
On the way back down the coast we stopped at Stingray Bay (aka Cowie Beach). It’s another beautiful piece of coastline. This is the home of the Lone Mangrove — right in the middle of the water. Although there are actually about 3 “lone” mangroves here so I’m not sure why it got that name.
It was almost 2pm when we stopped in Noah Creek Valley for lunch. We were starving!
And the food didn’t disappoint. Tony’s has an outdoor grill set up and we had a fresh and YUMMY meal of steak, sausage, fish, salad and damper.
Throughout the day we saw green ants — I didn’t take a picture but they’re pretty large and have a big green bottom. The “juice” in their bottoms is supposed to be good for you. Aboriginals use it for medicinal purposes. You can get a taste of this juice by letting the ant crawl onto your hand and then touching the tip of its bottom to your tongue. This doesn’t kill them.
Weeellll, Paul (one of our tourmates) decided he would try it so Jonathan (on the right) picked up one of the ants and held it to Paul’s tongue. He said it just tasted like lemon juice and it gave him a numb sensation for a few seconds. Uhhh, yeah… NO THANKS.
After lunch, we took a walk through the nearby rainforest — we saw various ferns, strangler fig trees, vicious hairy mary (a plant that has tiny spikes on its edges), and other plants that shy away and close when you touch them. COOL.
Our last stop before heading back to Port Douglas was the Daintree Ice Cream Company. They serve 4 flavors daily and you get a cup with all 4 for $5.
We had mango, banana, wattleseed (YUM! tasted like coffee), and black sapote (ehhh – not so good).
For dinner we went to town and picked up Thai food for me (it was yummers, thank goodness – I was still annoyed at myself for not having “good” Thai food the day before) and a kebab sandwich for Rob. We also went to the grocery store to pick up some snacks…
Rob made the mistake of choosing these Cheese and Bacon balls… sounds good in theory but TERRIBLE in execution. And so ends another Aussie day.
More pictures on the Flickr:
Daintree & Cape Tribulation
Up next: Kuranda and the Koalas!
