Where Rainforest meets the Reef...
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2004
1
23
44
Trip End
Dec 22, 2004
Cape Tribulation,
Australia
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
It was an early start in Cairns, the bus to "Cape Trib" as the 'cool' backpackers call it, picked us up at 8am. Our first stop was Daintree National Park, which was the first part of the rainforest. It was full of very old and strange trees and plants, one of which had razor-sharp leaves, not an ideal place to bring the kids for a Sunday stroll then. The full walk through the forest took over 2 hours, but Jillian and I had had enough of walking in Peru, so we decided to go to the lagoon instead. It was lovely there, apart from the old German women who thought it was fine to change into their swimsuits in full view of everyone else, there was no way we were getting into the water after seeing what we saw :-)
After the rest of the group had been to the lagoon too, it was on to PK's Jungle Village, our accomodation for that night. Before we all got back on the bus, Andy went to the toilet and had an unpleasant companion join him. In the cubicle was a Huntsman spider which was absolutely enormous, easily the size of his hand. A photo would've been taken for evidence if I'd had our camera with me.
PK's Jungle Village was what it states, accomodation right in the middle of the rainforest, not the best place for Andy to be, suffering from the heebyjeebies after his earlier encounter. It was quite a nice place though, and there didn't seem to be much in the way of creepy crawlies about, surprisingly. They probably waited 'til we were asleep to come out and crawl all over us.
The next morning Jillian and I visited the Bat Sanctuary, where we saw 2 fully grown Flying Fox bats who could no longer fly, and a litter of baby Flying Foxes who's mother had been killed. They were so cute feeding off tiny bottles of milk, and 1 of them became quite attached to Jillian.
At 2pm we were back on the bus heading to the Daintree River for some Crocodile Spotting, "crikey crikey". The boat we were on seated about 20 people, so if the crocs had've got peckish they'd at least have had a lot to get through before they got to Jillian and I. We ended up seeing only 2 crocs, a youngster then an adult, but it was great to see these amazing animals in their natural habitat, not couped up in some enclosure. We then left Daintree for our return journey to Cairns and the Calypso Inn, and our last night in Australia.
That night we just relaxed in the hammocks outside our room, as the next morning it was back on a plane again for Singapore and the start of the Asian leg of our world trip, I really am starting to sound like Phileas Fogg now, pratt :-)
