Cape Tribulation - Daintree Rainforest

Sunday morning bright and early we were picked up and driven about 2 hours north of Cairns through the Daintree Rainforest (the oldest remaining rainforest on the planet!) to our ultimate destination, Cape Tribulation. This rainforest is amazing because it is the only place in the world where there are 2 World Heritages that meet... the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. Also, the rainforest actually grows right up next to the beach which is rare.



Fan Palm Trees








On the way there, we stopped off at the croc infested Daintree River which flows right through the forest and we hopped on a boat that gave us a tour of the riverbed. We didn't see any man-eating crocs (despite the fact that there are a lot in the water) but we did see one frightening one ;) We also saw a couple of rainforest birds and two amethyst pythons chilling on tree branches. Then we were given a tour of the boardwalk running through the forest and many of the trees were pointed out to us. For example, the Mangroves which are abundant in the forest and the Strangler Tree that drops roots from the top of another tree and then eventually causes the death of the host tree.


Crikey! That's a big one! ;)
Below: Amethyst Python

Mangroves and their weird root systems.

Strangler Fig Tree has brutally destroyed the host tree and has left a hollow core. They don't do it on purpose though!

After the "tour" we were dropped off at Cape Tribulation... the loneliest town I've ever been in. It was literally composed of 3 "resorts" which were really nice, a tiny grocery store, a pharmacy, 2 restaurants with limited hours, and a Take Away restaurant. Apparently we were there in "low season" and there were literally 8 people in the whole resort! It was so lonely and quiet. It was good for reading another book though. I think I'm at 13 books for this trip!

Monday it rained... okay not just rain but rainforest rain! It was pouring down. The psuedo-streets had red rainwater rushing down them and the trees looked beautiful! Despite the fact that it was beautiful, there was nothing to do and my favorite person to watch the rain with was not there. I guess you'd expect rain in a rainforest considering this one has already had over 4 meters of rain since January!

Coolest part of the trip: We saw a male Cassowary and his chick walking along the road and it blocked traffic for about 10 minutes. There are only about 1200 of them left on the planet and we saw a wild one!! Awesome!