An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
This place is a hoot, and a scream. Literally! We slept to the aquatic and animal sounds of the rainforest and toward the morning were awakened by various jungle cries of what we presumed to have been birds, though some of them could have been monkeys.
The large Daintree rainforest area has recently been designated a World Heritage Site, due to the diversity of plant and animal life found here. We made our way along the wooden walkways through the rainforest (this whole place is built amazingly into the jungle) to breakfast. En route, we saw our first giant Golden Orb Spider building its web along the wall of a neighboring lodge; including it’s 8 arms, it was roughly the size of our hand. They’re allegedly not harmful, though (so don’t worry, GG!)). Breakfast was the usual continental, though we did try a good custard apple, which was a large, gelatanous/custard like fruit, but tasted more like citrus. It was then time for our full-day rainforest tour.
We were picked up by Norm, our guide for the day, who was gaunt but chipper, with a long, full scraggly beard (looking like the Australian Unabomber) and whose accent combined with his mumbling made it a real challenge to understand him. (though we did sort of get better at it as the day went on) We boarded the minibus, where two other couples were already sitting: a younger couple from Canada and an older couple from southern Australia, the husband of which was even harder to understand than Norm! We drove to the point where we and the bus crossed the Daintree river on a small ferry, then drove a short while to the point where we boarded a small boat for an hour cruise up Cooper’s Creek, a several km-long estuary of the Coral Sea. All along, Norm was giving commentary over a speaker system that served to amplify his marginally-intelligible ramblings.
The boat ride was nice, motoring slowly between the massive mangroves on both sides, looking for crocodiles. We saw two of them, though just their heads peeking out of the water along the shoreline, and we did see several of the more prevelant inanimate creatures often mistaken for them - the logadile.
It was then a short drive to our picturesque and serene lunch spot along the riverbank. We enjoyed grilled fish and steak, along with good fresh salads and fruit. The two of us then took one of their small canoes and paddled up the stream for a little while, absorbed in the bountiful green beauty and tranquility (and really appreciating that despite the humidity it was pleasantly cool). We all then drove a bit further to a boardwalk that went in an 800 meter loop through the rainforest.
We spent about an hour traversing just that small distance, with Norm explaining (somewhat more understandably by this time) fact after fascinating fact about what we were seeing. This particular rainforest is mostly original growth (having never been destroyed by ice ages, volcanic ash or broad fires), meaning that many of the plants and trees are of species that are literally millions of years old and found nowhere else. (In the greater Daintree rainforest, there are over 3,000 varieties of trees) Under a mostly dense and seemingly infinitely varied towering canopy, we saw a most amazing array of vines, trees, roots, etc: vines that grow to hundreds of feet in length; palm vines that are as thin as a piece of string but lined with hooked barbs for growing up trees and which are strong enough to support tremendous weight; trees that grow down from a seedling lodged in the canopy and eventually take root into the ground; a strangler fig which had completely entwined a large tree in its lattice-work of vines, then the tree had died and decomposed, leaving the hollow, enormous circular fig vine structure to flourish on its own; many vines twisted into long corkscrews; and on top of all that, an entire separate ecosystem lives atop the canopy. As Norm said, one doesn’t learn the rainforest by going deeper into it, but rather as a function of how long one stays in and studies it (at least we think that’s what he said).
We then drove a bit further to Cape Tribulation (named, of course, by Capt. Cook) beach, where we took in the wonderful view from the cove of the forested cliffs on both sides of the beach, then had some juice and cookies. We drove back, sporadically dozing off as the sun had gotten warm and Norm was droning on (though some of his commentary was actually quite informative)
We used the little remaining daylight to walk the 10 minutes to the Lodge’s waterfall, where we admired it for a moment, then ran back inside as we were getting bitten up something fierce. We read for a bit, then went to the restaurant for dinner. Always a kick when these places so far away from civilization have such great culinary offerings. We had a radiccio salad w/pancetta and baked parmesan slices, a great tandoori chicken salad, grilled barramundi (a local fish specialty) and pasta w/seafood. It was all top notch, even though it took much too long to arrive. We also got the story from Steve the Manager about the couple who’d shown up here to elope and the fun time (and great pictures) that was had by all.
We walked home along the wooden boardwalk, marvelling at how we were in deep in the tropical rainforest while a day and a half ago we were on a farm on a crisp fall day.