Family encounters the Tropical Rain Forest!

Hi all,

This post was written July 1st and is about our experience in the tropical rain forest of Cairns! Hope you enjoy!

Today we went and explored the Daintree Forest! We woke up early, had another great breakfast at the hotel and were picked up in our 4WD tour bus at 7 am. After picking up other people at their hotels, we were off with George our guide as a group of 21. We drove north up the coast to reach the rainforest. We crossed a river by ferry (which was basically a platform with a cord pull). After the ferry we made it to our first stop: Alexandra lookout. At the lookout we had a great view of the lush forest and the beach and coral sea below. We even saw this awesome palm tree with huge leaves. Then we made it to our first real stop: the Daintree Discovery Environment Centre. We first got morning tea there which consisted of Daintree tea (or coffee) and delicious anzac biscuits. After morning tea we began our guided tour. Our tour guide, Chris, was great and he took us along the aerial walkway. We were about halfway up the canopy so we got a great view of the forest floor and the trees above us. He told us all about the Daintree rainforest and the different animals and trees that live there. The Daintree forest is a national and world heritage site and is the oldest rainforest in the world – dating way back to the dinosaurs. We then went up the canopy tower to get to the top of the canopy and see the forest from up there which was also really cool. We saw a huge spider and learned about how the aboriginals use the forest. Then we were back on the bus heading for our next destination: Cape Tribulation. At Cape Tribulation we had a guided walk by George. We saw a huge lizard on the walk to the beach which was pretty cool. Then the beach itself was simply magnificent! Cape Tribulation was discovered by Caption Cook and got it’s name because Cook encountered many hardships around this area. Cape Tribulation is special because it’s one of the only places where coral reef meets rainforest in the world. From the cape lookout we could see where the reef is and it’s pretty close! We then piled back on the bus and headed to a different section of the rainforest for lunch. We hopped out of the bus and took a quick walk through the forest along the creek to our lunch spot. Lunch was really delicious and consisted of BBQ fish, Daintree tea, dense bread, salad and fruit. After lunch we went to Daintree ice cream which was so delicious. Everyday they make 4 different flavors from plants and fruit grown in the rainforest. They give you all 4 flavors in one bowl. Today they had one that tasted like chocolate pudding, one like cappuccino, banana and macadamia nut – they were all really good! It was also cool to eat since they are all good for you and totally natural. We then went back on the bus and got on our Daintree River Cruise. On the cruise we had another tour guide, Bruce, who took us around the Daintree river and we went looking for snakes and crocodiles along the riverbanks. We saw cool mangroves with huge roots. We saw quite a few crocodiles from tiny ones (we saw a really small one!) to huge 5 meter long ones! We saw both male and female crocodiles, young and old. We saw one tree snake as well. We then got back on the bus and went to Mossman Gorge where George gave us another guided tour. Mossman Gorge is another section of the Daintree Rainforest and was really cool because we were able to see some of the plants and trees that date back to 145 million years ago! Daintree rainforest is the only place in the world where some of these trees still exist in their living form (others they are just fossils). The forest used to be huge but the government knocked down 75% of the forest to build sugar cane fields 100 years ago, and just in 1980 was selling some of the forest off to private property. Luckily the government and world recognized how important Daintree forest is and today it is a world heritage site and is thus protected. Anyways, the gorge was really awesome: we went over a swingbridge, saw cool boulders, saw a special turkey in addition to seeing the gorge! After the gorge we got back on the bus and headed back to Cairns. It was a really long day (11 hours!) but was completely worth it: we saw such incredible things and I feel that I have a much better appreciation of Daintree forest now. Once arriving back at the hotel we headed to the Esplanade again for dinner at an Italian restaurant which was really good. Now we’re just packing up before our early flight tomorrow to the Outback!