Cairns day 3 - Cape Tribulation

I thought we would just be going to Cape Tribulation and stay there all day, but we got to see a lot of other things as well.

Our first stop of the day was the Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat. They had mostly birds.

This owl was giving me the evil-eye!

It was divided into 3 parts. The two first ones had a net over them so that the birds couldn't escape, but the third one, where they had the animals like kangaroos and wallabies, was open so the birds could come and go as they pleased.

Most of the birds in the third part was wild one that go there to seek shelter and refuge. They also have water all year round at the Wildlife Habitat so the birds like that. I liked that part the best. It was nice to see everything in there though, they had some animals and birds that they didn't have in Australia Zoo. It's also smaller than Australia Zoo, so if you don't have a whole day to go to a zoo then it's a good option (if you're close to it of course!).

Our second stop of the day was Mossman Gorge. It was very pretty there. We just wandered around on our own for half an hour I think it was. I think it would have been nice to have a guide or something there so that I could have actually learnt something though.

We then took a cable ferry across the Daintree River. I've never taken a cable ferry, all the ferries I've takes has had a "normal" engine.

After all this we got to Cape Tribulation where we had lunch at Cape Trib Beach House and some extra time to do what we wanted. I had the vegetarian option for lunch, which was a huge portion of very nice pasta with vegetables. After lunch I walked down to the beach. It was beautiful! The sea was almost as warm as the air. I wouldn't have minded staying there longer. There was hardly any people on the beach so I could probably easily have found a spot with no people at all if I wanted to.

When our time was up at Cape Trib we turned our noses back towards Cairns. But we weren't finished!

We stopped and walked the Marrja botanical walk, or parts of it anyway as some of it was closed due to the cyclones a while back. This time the driver walked around with us and told us about the different trees and stuff.

A "strangler" where the tree inside has died.

We then made an unscheduled stop and got some yummy ice cream from the Daintree Ice Cream Company. They make their own ice cream and the flavours depend on which fruit they have growing that season. If you're ever in the Daintree Rainforest, this is a must-stop! This Sunday's flavours was Jackfruit, Black capote, Mango and Wattleseed.

Jackfruit is the big one, Black Capote the little one and in the cup there's wattleseed

They tasted different but very nice. The Black Capote tasted quite a lot like chocolate. YUM!

Brown=black sapote, light brown=wattleseed, yellow=mango, white at bottom=jackfruit

As we were eating out ice cream on the bus we drove to our next stop, which was Walu Wugirriga, or Mount Alexandra lookout. Very pretty view from up there.

Our last stop before going back to Cairns was a Daintree River Cruise. I thought we were just going to look at the river and the trees just to cross by something else than the ferry, but we were actually going to see if we could spot some crocodiles!

It turned out to be more of a river and tree looking cruise though as it was too hot for the crocodiles to come out! We saw one. A little baby one. It was only one year old and really cute.

We then went back to Cairns where I packed my stuff and made sure I would be ready to leave early Monday morning.

Monday:

I left my last two ReadItSwapIt books that I had prepared for someone to find on Monday.

The first one, To the moon and back, I left on my bed at the hostel. At least I'm sure someone will find it there.

The second one: The Vanishings, I left in my seat pocket on the plane. I wonder if someone has found it yet?

The landing in Brisbane was actually slightly scary. There was some turbulence as we were coming in for landing, not too bad really. But just after we touched down we all got "thrown" to one side. You know like when you take a sharp turn in your car? Everyone was okay, and as far as I could hear no one freaked out or anything, but it was a bit scary. We didn't go off the runway or anything. I have no idea what happened. It was just a bit: "Whoa!"