As you probably already gathered from my previous blog, I’m back in the UK, where it really has been freezing (as opposed to the “freezing” in Australia, which apparently happens already at 10℃): I have had to scrape the car already. And I can freely use the word “sorry” again. As often as I like… Which is getting the very familiar response again: “sorry”… On this island we just don’t sort out who was at fault when bumping into each other (which happens a lot in a busy city like London), we just say “sorry” to each other and get on with our lives. As a Dutch person I had to learn to say “sorry” a lot (yes, I know, we are rather impolite by British standards…), whether I’m really sorry or not, so when I was in Australia I still said “sorry” a lot. Which wasn’t greeted with the same word back, but with a “no worries, mate”… Well – to all the Australians out there: no worries, mates, I didn’t really worry… it was just part of my adaptation into the British society.

Enough rambling, and back to my amazing time in Australia. The other thing I did when in Port Douglas, was visiting the Daintree National Park. Another interesting day. I took a tour with Tony’s Tropical Tours: I can thoroughly recommend them!

Mossman Gorge

Our first stop was at Mossman Gorge, a rainforest located in the southern part of Daintree National Park. As can be expected from a rainforest, it was warm and humid… but again, the flora and fauna was very impressive indeed:

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Cauliflory is a term referring to plants that flower and have their fruit from the main stem, rather than new off shoot (begs the question: how did the humble cauliflower get its name…?). I believe the example above is a fig tree. Native ginger… rather large! And the bird’s nest fern: the brown “signature” on the leaves are the spores, which is how the plant is reproduced.

The ground around Cairns and Port Douglas is very fertile, and there are many large farms growing sugar cane all around.

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The sugar cane is made into sugar at Mossman Sugar Mill, which serves an area over 8500 hectares. Sugar cane has to be processed rather quickly after harvesting, and in order to get it transported easily over such vast distances, there are narrow gauge railways connecting the sugar cane fields, and the freshly cut sugar cane gets a train ride to the mill.

Daintree river cruise

Next we did a cruise on the Daintree river:

In search of some wild life… which we found… how about the following:

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Yes, indeed… crocodiles… The one on the left, poking his head just above the water, is a fully grown example. The one on the right, sunbathing on the bank, was only a small baby croc. Very impressing to see nonetheless!

And then this lovely flower:

A lovely flower, but it lasts only a day… made me think of Psalm 103:

15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children;
18 To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.

Psalm 103:15-18 (KJV)

The vegetation along the banks is generally just rather nice:

The brown spikes at the bottom of the photo are extensions from the trunk of mangrove trees. These extensions anchor themselves in the soil, and help stabilise the tree in the wet, muddy soil at the water’s edge.

Kulki track and lookout

Our next stop was the Kulki track and lookout: the place where the rain forest meets the reef – the only place apparently where 2 World Heritage Areas meet… And indeed, the rainforest goes as far as the beach (see top-left photo)… couldn’t see the reef, but am sure it is in the water there somewhere.

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Furthermore, lots of palms and ferns in the rainforest. The Fan Palm is endemic to the rainforests in North Queensland, including the Daintree. And the King Fern can grow to a height of about 5 meter when fully mature – the one in the photo isn’t quite that large, but still quite impressive. It also seems to be “one of the most ancient” ferns in the world…

Noah Valley

Noah Valley – our next stop – is a World Heritage listed private property, only accessible to people on our tour. It, again, had some interesting plants:

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Since the soil of rainforests is generally rather poor, many trees generate really large and wide root systems, known as “buttress roots”. Not only does this give the tree more chance of extracting nutrients from the soil by spreading over a larger area, but it also gives more stability as the roots are generally not very deep. The fishtail palm indeed grows like this – the leaves are seemingly torn off, but this is not the case…

And some spiders…:

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And some other crawlers and jumpers:

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In the afternoon we went for a nice and refreshing swim in a rainforest stream – look how clear the water is…

Cape Tribulation

Cape Tribulation was so called by James Cook, after his ship scraped a reef and then got stuck at another reef nearby. He called it Cape Tribulation, because “here begun all our troubles”. We visited the beach in the national park:

At the beach our guide found some green ants that apparently can be eaten… Or at least, the stomach is edible, and is said to taste like lemon… Probably not surprisingly, I have politely declined the delicacy…

I scream, you scream, we all scream, for…

On our way back, we went for a nice cold treat – ice cream. From the Daintree Ice Cream Company. Very nice indeed:

Alexandra Lookout

Our last stop was at the Alexandra Lookout where we had great views of the Daintree river Estuary:

And finally – on our way back we were told that this was a special traffic light:

According to our guide, this is the only traffic light north of Cairns… To put it in perspective, from Cairns to Cooktown – which isn’t even the furthest north in Australia, but it is pretty much where all roads end – is about 327 km, or 203 miles…

It would be a fun fact if it was true… On my way back to the airport in Cairns I discovered that there are indeed very, very few traffic lights, but there are some between Cairns and Port Douglas… Very few anyway, so we’ll take it as a “fun fact with a pinch of salt”…