Queensland recap #7: Two days in Cape Tribulation
Mood: 
|| Rushed
Tune : n/a
Cape Tribulation
March 21: Got picked up at about 7.30am for my two-day trip to Cape Tribulation.
The drive along the Captain Cook Highway was beautiful (which runs along the coast line) and it's a shame we didn't have much time to stop at all the look-outs. Our first stop of the day was the Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary in Port Douglas, which beforehand I assumed to be just another wildlife park, but I was wrong. They had loads of birdlife there, some of which I'd never seen before which was pretty awesome. The best thing however was that a large portion of the wallabies there had little ones in their pouches (I had not seen that before) and several had a tiny little wallaby head or paw sticking out of the pouch which was just absolutely adorable. The best thing though was that at one point I saw the wallaby take the little one out of its pouch, clean the pouch and the baby and put the little one back in! That was so amazing to see. It was like an Animal Planet documentary unfolding before my eyes.
Spot the croc
Next stop was at the Mossman Gorge where we walked to a suspension bridge and look-out and after that jumped into the gorge to cool down. That was so nice to do, because even though it was still early in the morning it was already so hot outside >.< The water was freezing and it took a bit to get used to but after some minutes of turning into a popsicle it was really quite refreshing.
After that we drove for a while again (our bus driver was awesome by the way! All the commentary he gave along the way was super interesting) and had lunch at a cafe. Followed by a cruise on the Daintree River. It was called a crocodile cruise because we were supposed to spot crocodiles in the wild, but they told us it'd be very hard this time of the year. However, we saw one! It didn't do much as it was sleeping in the sand but it was pretty cool to actually see a crocodile "in the wild". We also saw a snake in a tree, some spiders, a green tree frog and some crabs (all less exciting than the giant crocodile of course, lol!).
After the cruise we took Daintree River Cable Ferry to the other side and had a brief stop at the Alexandra Lookout which was pretty cool. Then we drove further to Cape Tribulation while our driver was explaining to us we were currently driving through the oldest rain forest in the world (120 million years old!) which was incredibly impressive to listen to while you're driving through it.
We had a quick stop at an ice cream farm where they had an exotic tree garden from which they made the unique ice cream flavours. I got a sample cup with four flavours: wattle seed, jack fruit, coconut and raspberry. Wattle seed kinda tasted like coffee and normally I don't like that at all but out of the four flavours it was my favourite.
After that we just drove to our accommodation right near Cape Tribulation. While it was dorm style accommodation it still looked like a proper vacation as the beds were in bungalow park type houses. My two roommates were Sandra and Uttah and they were awesome. We spent the rest of the day/evening together just chatting and playing yahtzee (they had heaps of games in the common area).
Famous road sign. It was supposed to be just a warning for a bump and a separate warning for the cassowary but since the bird is pretty endangered nowadays someone altered the sign and the government let it be this way as a warning
This type of spider is as big as my hand and was everywhere in the park *shudders*
March 22: Uttah and I had planned to get up early in the morning and do the long walks around the area however when we woke up it was pouring rain really badly. We were in the rainforest so it was kinda suitable in a way I suppose but it was pouring down so badly that really you couldn't walk through it (we could barely hear each other talking). So instead we spent the morning sleeping in, lazing around and I started typing up some of my travel recaps as I was so behind on them.
When it started to clear up in the early afternoon we finally took our chances to do some hiking, and it was... interesting. When we were walking over the beach at some points we had to wade through fairly deep water which is not a whole lot of fun when you're wearing socks and Converse (yes, I know, I should've worn my flip flops). But we made it :) Unfortunately we didn't have the view on Cape Trib as is always shown in the travel brochures (the look-out wasn't high enough for that) but it was still pretty.
That's Cape Tribulation in the distance
These patterns in the sand our made up out of tiny balls the crab make when they dig tunnels on the beach. Aboriginal people supposedly use these patterns as inspiration for their dotted artwork
Late in the afternoon we got picked up by a coach to return back to Cairns and the driver was awesome again. We played a kind of bingo in the coach which went as follows: everybody had to write down 10 random digits on a piece of paper and then swap papers with someone else in the coach. Then we would look at cars around us and the first number on the number plate would be the number we could cross out. I had written down 4 8 15 16 23 42 and the person I gave it to was the winner! Who says you shouldn't play the numbers? ;)
More pictures can be found HERE.
|| Rushed
Tune : n/a
Cape Tribulation
March 21: Got picked up at about 7.30am for my two-day trip to Cape Tribulation.
The drive along the Captain Cook Highway was beautiful (which runs along the coast line) and it's a shame we didn't have much time to stop at all the look-outs. Our first stop of the day was the Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary in Port Douglas, which beforehand I assumed to be just another wildlife park, but I was wrong. They had loads of birdlife there, some of which I'd never seen before which was pretty awesome. The best thing however was that a large portion of the wallabies there had little ones in their pouches (I had not seen that before) and several had a tiny little wallaby head or paw sticking out of the pouch which was just absolutely adorable. The best thing though was that at one point I saw the wallaby take the little one out of its pouch, clean the pouch and the baby and put the little one back in! That was so amazing to see. It was like an Animal Planet documentary unfolding before my eyes.
Spot the croc
Next stop was at the Mossman Gorge where we walked to a suspension bridge and look-out and after that jumped into the gorge to cool down. That was so nice to do, because even though it was still early in the morning it was already so hot outside >.< The water was freezing and it took a bit to get used to but after some minutes of turning into a popsicle it was really quite refreshing.
After that we drove for a while again (our bus driver was awesome by the way! All the commentary he gave along the way was super interesting) and had lunch at a cafe. Followed by a cruise on the Daintree River. It was called a crocodile cruise because we were supposed to spot crocodiles in the wild, but they told us it'd be very hard this time of the year. However, we saw one! It didn't do much as it was sleeping in the sand but it was pretty cool to actually see a crocodile "in the wild". We also saw a snake in a tree, some spiders, a green tree frog and some crabs (all less exciting than the giant crocodile of course, lol!).
After the cruise we took Daintree River Cable Ferry to the other side and had a brief stop at the Alexandra Lookout which was pretty cool. Then we drove further to Cape Tribulation while our driver was explaining to us we were currently driving through the oldest rain forest in the world (120 million years old!) which was incredibly impressive to listen to while you're driving through it.
We had a quick stop at an ice cream farm where they had an exotic tree garden from which they made the unique ice cream flavours. I got a sample cup with four flavours: wattle seed, jack fruit, coconut and raspberry. Wattle seed kinda tasted like coffee and normally I don't like that at all but out of the four flavours it was my favourite.
After that we just drove to our accommodation right near Cape Tribulation. While it was dorm style accommodation it still looked like a proper vacation as the beds were in bungalow park type houses. My two roommates were Sandra and Uttah and they were awesome. We spent the rest of the day/evening together just chatting and playing yahtzee (they had heaps of games in the common area).
Famous road sign. It was supposed to be just a warning for a bump and a separate warning for the cassowary but since the bird is pretty endangered nowadays someone altered the sign and the government let it be this way as a warning
This type of spider is as big as my hand and was everywhere in the park *shudders*
March 22: Uttah and I had planned to get up early in the morning and do the long walks around the area however when we woke up it was pouring rain really badly. We were in the rainforest so it was kinda suitable in a way I suppose but it was pouring down so badly that really you couldn't walk through it (we could barely hear each other talking). So instead we spent the morning sleeping in, lazing around and I started typing up some of my travel recaps as I was so behind on them.
When it started to clear up in the early afternoon we finally took our chances to do some hiking, and it was... interesting. When we were walking over the beach at some points we had to wade through fairly deep water which is not a whole lot of fun when you're wearing socks and Converse (yes, I know, I should've worn my flip flops). But we made it :) Unfortunately we didn't have the view on Cape Trib as is always shown in the travel brochures (the look-out wasn't high enough for that) but it was still pretty.
That's Cape Tribulation in the distance
These patterns in the sand our made up out of tiny balls the crab make when they dig tunnels on the beach. Aboriginal people supposedly use these patterns as inspiration for their dotted artwork
Late in the afternoon we got picked up by a coach to return back to Cairns and the driver was awesome again. We played a kind of bingo in the coach which went as follows: everybody had to write down 10 random digits on a piece of paper and then swap papers with someone else in the coach. Then we would look at cars around us and the first number on the number plate would be the number we could cross out. I had written down 4 8 15 16 23 42 and the person I gave it to was the winner! Who says you shouldn't play the numbers? ;)
More pictures can be found HERE.