Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas

After coming back down the windy road from the tablelands into Cairns, we got a shuttle into Port Douglas and stayed there for the night. The next morning, we went on a trip into the Daintree Rainforest, which was pretty cool. We were on this tour with a family of three and a teacher who was on school holidays, and the family was apparently taken aback by my semi-excessive swearing in front of their daughter (I didn't even realize it but my mom said that the mother would cringe in the seat next to her because I accidentally let slip a few curse words.. I don't hang around kids enough anymore I guess I should clean up the language). Anyways, we saw a lot of cool things in the forest, it was a pretty surreal place. Definitely more tropical than the rainforests I have seen in the south, and there were all these crazy plants that kindof reminded me of a Dr. Seuss book. They had these mangroves that would grow up on the forest floor, and they were just these pokey roots that came up everywhere, it would have been impossible to walk if there had not been an elevated platform. We saw some water dragons (lizards in trees), lots of birds, and also went on a boat on the estuary and saw some crocodlies. They are everywhere up north, there was even a story going on in the news at the time about a guy that had been eaten by a croc when he was out hunting for sand crabs... pretty stupid guy for doing that I think. They were trying to figure out which croc had eaten him, and kept extracting them from the water (somehow..) and X-raying them to look for bones. (They since found the one that ate him and he is probably off to the Australia Zoo now). We also got to eat some green ants, which was actually pretty interesting. They taste extremely citrusy and have a strong citrus smell if you squish them too. The Aboriginals crushed them up and ate them as a drink, real bush tucker style.

Cape Tribulation is a special place because it is the only place in the world where a reef meets with a rainforest, and you could go off to the edge of the forest to these amazing beaches that were pretty much deserted. They were really pretty, the water was so warm and then you look behind you and there is this really thick forest. It would have been cool to spend more time at the beaches, but we didn't have much time and the group we were with moved pretty quick. We got to stop at this ice cream stand on the way out, this woman owns it as her own small business in the forest and makes ice cream with fruits and other flavors from things that come from the rainforest. You get a cup of four flavors, I can't exactly remember what we had, but it wasn't like any other ice cream I have tried before. It was very good, but very different, from some strange rainforest plants. After that, we drove out of the forest to Mossman Gorge, which was my favorite part of the day. It was this freshwater creek/waterfall area that you could go swimming in, and it was really refreshing and a lot of fun. You could swim up to where the current was coming down and jump into the stream and get pushed out into the river/creek. My mom and I were the only ones that went swimming, I don't know what was wrong with the others because they were really missing out. It was a good day, pretty relaxed and we got to see a bunch of cool things.

When we got back to Port Douglas we hung out on the beach there for awhile with some Bundy Dry n' Limes (a premix alcohol in a can drink from the fine Bundaberg Rum Company) until the sun went down. We went to this really good seafood place for dinner and had a great meal of shellfish, including the Morton Bay bugs! They have these crawdad-like shellfish that they cook up that are native to the area, and they are amazing. It's sortof like lobster, they were really good. We also had this seafood curry that was really spicy. The next morning we hung out for awhile and then had to catch the shuttle back to Cairns and fly back to Brisbane. It was definitely a full week of great stuff up north, it was probably my favorite part of Australia I have visited, along with the Whitsundays, which is pretty much the same type of area. My mom spent a few days in Brisbane, and we had a good time looking for bats and possums at my campus and just hanging around. We went to dinner one night at this place in the valley called Garuva, it was pretty cool, you sit on the floor on pillows and the tables are all separated by these white sheets that hang from the ceiling. My mom said it reminded her of a WWII hospital facility or something like that, but probly with better food. All in all, it was great getting to spend a week and a half with my mom exploring far north queensland, definitley was an awesome adventure.

Photos are: me with plant from the rainforest, mom and I at Cape Tribulation, stick insect in the Daintree, warning sign for stingers, and a possum in a tree outside where I live in Brisbane.