Monday 11 April 2011 Rain forest, wild life sanctuary, river cruise

G'day and how you going?

Today, after watching Rory tank the Masters, and a host of multinationals jump in, we were picked up for nature day.  We started with tight time with koalas, mini crocs, and lots of birds/ducks.  Pretty well done, and some wallabies were there too.  Then we took the bus up the coast, beyond Mossman, to see the barrier reef from another vantage point, and to reach the Daintree Rain Forest.  The tour guide was solid, and we learned a lot about vines, ferns, cassowaries (a bird you don’t mess with because it would kick Big Bird’s butt), orange-footed scrubfowls (who make these huge compost mounds to incubate their eggs) and monitor lizards.   We made an ice cream stop to taste wattlenut, hazelnut, raspberry and another flavor, all in one cup.  Mimi shared (Because Denny made me.).  Really good, and I didn’t pout over lack of choices.   

After that we saw more trees (seriously, some very impressive ones), and headed off for croc spotting on the Daintree River.   Salties....we saw ‘em and kept our hands in the boat.  I noted that our river guide knew the crocs by name, which made me think he had done this for 862 straight days, and PERHAPS was exaggerating the threat.  I still kept my hands in the boat.  We also saw a snake or two. It was strange for us to realize that this great meandering river is completely unsafe for swimming or water skiing and that even playing on the water’s edge or fishing from shore presents a meal op too often too great to resist for crocs. On the way home Mimi and I bought a roasted chicken and a bottle of red, then got lost walking the beach home.   Don’t ask. But it was sunset and the long, long, long walk provided us with much-needed leg stretching and  just-above-a-certain-level-of-panic conversation. It was dark before we left he beach. 

Tomorrow, a full day of pool time and reading and packing, nice dinner at Italian restaurant. Then Wednesday departure. Sigh.


Sorry...technical difficulties are preventing photos uploads..... 


mimi and denny

A carrowary... can literally rip you apart with its feet....