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The Daintree

May 5, 2007
For our full first day we took a full, and by full I mean 12-13 hour, tour up to the north to go explore the Daintree rain forest. After our morning tea and crackers, we took an hour boat ride down the Daintree River.



At first it was very exciting to hear about how the wildlife and the ecosystem worked together. It was cool to see some birds and other wildlife. A close up encounter with a tree snake heightened the experience, but you could tell that people were beginning to get anxious. We all wanted to see a croc.

Thirty minutes or so passed, and our boat driver threw the boat in reverse as he spotted on through the trees.




There it was. A croc in the wild. At this point, some people might be thinking, "Where in that picture?" If you look just a little above and to the left of where the tree makes a "V" into the water.

So, this was cool and all, but everyone wanted to see a croc. They didn't want to see a 2 year old "come back in 5 years and I'll be huge" baby croc.

Our tour is about to end and all of the sudden we see him. A fully grown male croc just sunbathing right in front of us.




Hopefully you can see this one a little better. He's the only thing in the picture trying to hide under that red leaf.

After that was done, we were off to our ironic lunch (will explain later) as we rest up to hike through the rain forest and get ready to see something that is no where else on earth.

While our meal was being prepared, we got a chance to go and feed some kangaroos and a baby wallaby named Ninja. Kangaroos are awesome animals up close and apparently have a strong hunger for sweet potatoes, as this is what we were allowed to feed them.

  


After our up close encounter with Australia's most recognized animal, it was finally time to eat. Our whole tour group was pretty hungry, and pretty relieved when we heard that we were getting steaks. They were thin, but very big, and they hit the spot. We didn't find out until later that their steaks don't come from cows. They come from kangaroos. So, as we were so gently petting and feeding them a few minutes earlier, we were probably just plumping them up for some tour group in a month or so.

Our next drive took us inside the Daintree rain forest. We spent over an hour in there and learned a ton about how stuff grows, what factors are eliminating part of the rain forest, etc. We got to see a little wildlife, but it was more than ok with the massive trees we were walking under.

We then had a nice stop on a river in the rain forest where we had some more tea and some of the best fruits that we've ever experienced. After that, our last stop took us to the place where "the rain forest meets the reef." It's called Cape Tribulation and it's the only spot in the world where two world heritages touch each other: Daintree rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef.

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