F is for Forest (not Fish as originally planned)

 Today was supposed to be my reef trip but as the tail end of a cyclone was hitting the coast today they were cancelled. Instead I booked on a tour to go further North. 

This consisted of a 7:30am pick-up from a street over from my hotel. We had an air conditioner 28 seater coach, which was full because everyone had booked when their reef trip was cancelled. 

The trip follows the highway north, which was very pretty but quite start-stop-y as there are roadworks rebuilding from a bad cyclone in 2023. 

Our first proper stop was at Mossman Gorge. We had a brief chance to speak with one of the Kuku Yalanji. Who showed us some of the medicines of the rainforest. Including Sarsaparilla which can be used as (amongst other things) a detergent and is good for muscle pain. Then after a short shuttle bus we had about 50 mins to have a little explore and swim in the gorge, a 10 min walk away. It wasn't quite enough time really but was great. I didn't take a picture of the swimming space because there were lots of children around.  

 

 

From there we travelled to the Daintree river. With some locally grown iced tea. Onto a river cruise and we saw not 1, not 2, but 4 juvenile 'salt water' crocodiles (15 months old), we broke the tour guide/captains record for the number of juveniles he'd seen in one trip. There was originally over 40 (an average clutch), there are at least 4 left now! 

croc # 1

croc#1 (again, no photo of #2)

croc #3

croc#4

There are mangrove 'snorkels' at the side of the river. 

This is the boat after we got out

We didn't see any of the big crocs but they all have names, the big alpha male is 'scar face' who is maybe 80 years old and only has a single tooth left but is still in charge. We also looked for 'Bruce' who turned out to be the mum of the juveniles we saw. 

We picked up our bus tour guide on the north side of the Daintree river. This is only accessible by ferry which has only been in operation for two weeks since a dislodge pontoon took it out in a flood 8 weeks ago

This allowed us to drive further North for lunch (where we saw bats) and a rainforest walk to the beach in the rain. As we did this as a group on a fairly narrow boardwalk it was a little tedious but our guide did point out some interesting plants and facts and we saw peppermint stick insects (didn't get a photo as too many people).  

The weather was fairly 'British day at the beach' but much warmer 

A short photo opportunity 

Our final stop was the Daintree Ice Cream Company. Where they do a number of ice creams made from locally (on-site) grown ingredients. They do a special which is four prescribed flavours, this time was coconut, mango, black sapote (a bit chocolatey) and wattleseed (nutty and coffee).

This completed an almost 12 hour round trip. We managed a spectacular amount for a single day and at quite a good pace. Most of which our guide was working for, though they did have a few short breaks whilst we did other things.