Daintree

Living in Port Douglas, we are fortunate to be surrounded by World Heritage sites. We have the Great Barrier Reef off the coast, and to the north the Daintree Rainforest. 

On the advice of some nice customers I had in the restaurant, John and I decided to use one of the local tour companies to get a tour to the Daintree, as we don't have our own car and were happy to learn a lot more through a tour guide. We used the local company called Tony's Tropical Tours and the lady on the phone when I made our booking was super nice. She gave us a great discount because we were locals and working at Sea Temple. Gotta love those perks!

On our day off we were up and ready to go at 9 for our day tour of the Daintree! It was great because we had a small group of  8 of us and everyone was old--as in we were the only people under 50 on the tour. No screaming children--which is glorious after working at a resort that is full of them. Everyone was nice and there was this little old lady who unfortunately was told there would be no stairs on the tour--there was most definitely stairs. It's a tour outdoors. So yeah, she had to sit in the van a lot but the rest of us had a great day!

We had a really nice and informative tour guide named Chris, whose Thai wife works in the spa at Sea Temple! He gave us a great tour and knew heaps of information about the area, the plant and animal life, etc . . 

Our first stop of the day was Mossman Gorge, just about a 20 minute drive West of Port Douglas. Most of the land is aboriginal territory and protected land, but there is a big boardwalk that goes through it where tourists are still allowed to venture. It was a small circle track, but along the way Chris gave us heaps of information about the plant life. We learned about strangler fig trees:

We also saw lots of trees and plants with poisonous leaves, we saw banana plants--which Chris clarified were actually herbs--bananas being the world's largest herbs, and we even saw a tree whose bark you can turn into  pulp, boil down, and use to make poison dart arrows! Apparently a similar tree grows in South America and Paupa New Guinea where the local tribes discovered the poisonous nature of this tree bark, but the aboriginals never did. However, the way the poison works is that it affects all of your muscles and breathing, but not your heart. So in the early 50s they used the bark as early form of anesthesia for surgery because if someone where on a breathing machine, you could use it to put them under without stopping the heart. Neato, huh!?

The next stop of the day was a crocodile tour along the Daintree River! The tour used one of the local companies, Bruce Belcher's Crocodile Tours, as the guy has been doing them for over 30 years! He was a really nice guy and knew a lot about the area and knew exactly where the crocodiles hung out on the banks--as they are very territorial creatures. Right from the get go we saw a baby crocodile hanging out on a branch!

We also saw a mother crocodile that had recently given birth to some babies. Apparently the tour boat went past the nest for months and never knew it was there--sneaky crocodile! So we saw the mom:

And a little bit further down we saw the babies:

Now, most of these crocodiles were relatively small maybe a meter and a half to 2. But the last crocodile we saw of the day was the big daddy whose name is "Scarface". This guy was huge! 3-4 meters (so up to 12 feet) long and definitely much wider than all the other females. 

We got some video up close as well!

After the crocodile tour it was time to venture into the heart of the Daintree. First, on the way up, stopping at a beautiful lookout over the Port Douglas region called Alexander's Lookout.

Apparently scientists first though that the Daintree was one of the youngest rainforests, as it's not particularly huge. Apparently, though, after running tests a few decades ago they discovered that the Daintree is actually the oldest rainforest on the planet! It dates back some 130 million years ago, when Gondwanaland was a continent. They have even found fossil records of that rainforest in the ice of Antarctica, when the continents were still attached. It once covered a large portion of Gondwanaland. However, the continents split up, moved apart, and as Australia began to heat up much of the rainforest died off, leaving the remaining in Far North Queensland. In the 80s and 90s apparently, some developers came in an parceled up the land and tried to sell it off for developments. There were lots of local protests and a lot of people, who had bought land, eventually realized the value of pristine rainforest and kept it as is. The only "development" is in Cape Tribulation and Cooktown, but even then is not developed like Port Douglas. Now, since we were on a tour and they have good relations with some of the land owners, we were able to take a walk through the rainforest on private property. We were in a middle section called Noah Valley that scientist say is the oldest portion of the Daintree. So, we were able to walk through the oldest portion of the oldest rainforest in the world! It was really cool and once again our tour guide told us a lot of interesting facts about some of the plant and animal life.

Throughout the day we had tried to spot the elusive Cassowary, a native Australian bird that is very much endangered, with a suspected 1,000-1,500 left in the wild. We didn't actually see any, unfortunately, but we did spot this fun graffitied sign:

In case it's not obvious, it's a sign to lookout for cassowaries and speed bumps, however it was graffitied years ago and the sings have been stolen at least 5 times. Every time they put up new ones, they have to re-graffiti them. 

The cassowaries eat certain seeds and pods and as they pass through their digestive track, the Cassowary imparts them with specific enzymes the seeds need in order to grow once they are deposited back out. This is why the Cassowary is called a "keystone" species as it's survival is critical for the survival of thousands of plant species in the rainforest. One of the seeds we were shown that was very popular among Cassowaries contained a clear liquid inside that contained arsenic! We also saw a big pod with seeds inside that was discovered to have anti-retroviral properties. So when scientists discovered this, these seeds were used in some of the first AIDS medicines. We also learned that scientists discovered a few years back that most trees in the world contain hemoglobin--the same stuff that is found in our blood. They have yet to figure out why and for what purpose, but it was such a fascinating discovery. It was a really neat walk and we were learning heaps. 

It struck me as we were walking through the rainforest and learning all the facts about the delicate balance between man and nature. Our tour guide Chris even pointed out the fact that as humans, we rely and benefit so much from the world around us/nature and that it without it--we could not thrive. The reverse, however, is a different matter. Without us, nature, the environment, would be just fine. 

The second to last stop of the day was the northernmost point you can get on the East Coast without having 4-wheel drive (if you want to drive along the coast that is--there is an inland road to Cooktown further north, but it takes much longer)--Cape Tribulation. It was a beautiful crescent beach, descent size, and not nearly as crowded as Four Mile can get at Port Douglas. We took a short walk up to the lookout point:

After a short walk along the beach it was time to leave and make our last stop of the day--ice cream!

On the way back to Port Douglas we stopped at a local ice cream store on a huge area of land with all kinds of tropical fruit growing. It was called the Daintree Ice Cream Company and they have 4 flavors of tropical fruit ice cream fresh everyday. You don't choose your flavors, they come in a cup with all four flavors to try, so John and I decided to share one and it was delicious. Most of the fruit I had never heard of before: jackfruit, soursop, wattle seed, and then the final flavor was blueberry. It was so yummy and a wonderful end to our informative and adventurous day!