Sunday, May 15 - This was a nice, easy morning because we weren't leaving the hotel until 12:45, and we were traveling by coach. I woke up early and again went to the gym (what's up with me?) to get a bit of exercise, as usual joined by Connie. We seem to be the only ones in the hotel who use the gym. After showering and finishing my packing I had a late breakfast and then went on a walk down to the beach behind the hotel. It was just beautiful. I don't think I was prepared for how peaceful and lovely it was. There were some paragliders/windsurfers on what looked like snowboards, and the ferns and palms were really lush and lovely. Of course I thought about Dan and how much he would love to be there, looking at the beautiful scenery and walking along the beach. It is times like these that I really ache for him. The wind was blowing but it wasn't cold, and I stopped and sang a song into the wind.
We all met up in the lobby and the bus finally came. It was a small bus with a luggage carrier hooked onto the back. Having experienced the ride from hell the other night I got on and chose the seat right up front behind Roxy, who said we would be having a surprise Learning and Discovery stop. We passed by many sugar can fields and saw train tracks right alongside them. These are for the cars that take the cane that has been cut and deliver it to the right places. We took a tiny detour to see a cane cutter. Roxy showed us Brazilian rain trees as we went through the small town of Mossman, past the Mossman River and out to the Daintree rainforest area. Roxy pointed out the banana trees that had bags on them and asked why we thought there were bags on the bananas. Naturally some people said it was to protect the fruit from insects, weather, etc, but Roxy said, "No, actually Queensland is quite conservative and they felt the bananas looked too phallic...." There was a pause while everyone wondered how that could possibly be and then of course she said she was just joking, but she had said it all in such a serious voice, just like the rest of her guiding, so she had many people going for a while. She has a great sense of humour and fun, and is a wicked mimic.
We saw a field of Brahmins (cattle) and a barramundi farm (this is a wonderful fish that I have eaten a lot of here), and then we took a cable ferry across the Daintree River. There are crocs in the river but we didn't see any on this occasion. The area was discovered by George Dalrymple and he named it for Richard Daintree, who was a botonist but never actually was able to come here. There are lots of feral pigs, poisonous snakes and poisonous plants in the area, and the Kukkalongi people are native here. We tried to look for the flash of blue that can signal a cassowary, a large, flightless bird that lives in this area and is protected. There are many of the diamond-shaped road signs so common throughout Australia but in this area depicting a cassowary, and we kept our eyes peeled but were not successful in sighting any. This became a running joke throughout this part of our trip, with people accusing Roxy of making the whole thing up and having signs put up to make us think these were real birds.
Our Learning and Discovery stop was to an ice cream place where they make their ice creams using unusual fruits native to the area. For $5 we got a cup with four flavours. There were lovely gardens there and some small sugar bananas that some people bought, and also Daintree tea. Got back on the coach and drove through a tea plantation, past Noah Creek and Noah Range. This area can flood very quickly. Roxy told us about an OAT trip that was here and they heard a cyclone was coming - the news and events seemed to warrant action and she arranged for them to be helicoptered out a day early to Cairns, which turned out to be a very good idea. Just before reaching our hotel we saw an echidna by the side of the road so we all had to get out to try to get a photo. Alert readers may remember that the echidna looks a bit like a porcupine, but with soft fur rather than quills.
Our hotel was the Ferntree Rainforest Lodge and we each had "cabins". Nothing fancy but not too primitive either, though no TV or phone. Some of us had a bit of wildlife sharing our quarters. I had a couple of cute geckos, which was fine with me, as they eat mosquitos. My friend Susan had GIANT cockroaches - not a good surprise. What WAS a surprise was seeing Mary Ann, another older member of the group, "eliminating" the unwanted visitors without batting an eye. After settling in we met Roxy for a walk to the beach and a cricket lesson. She had brought one of those kids' cricket sets but it was pretty windy, so after trying to explain cricket (never an easy job!) she decided to teach us beach cricket, which was lots of fun and considerably easier and has basically nothing to do with cricket except you use the cricket bat. We had a really fun time playing, and I noticed that people have become much more comfortable with one another, which is really nice.
Our dinners at the lodge were outdoors under cover at a long table in an area to ourselves. Roxy was saying that most tours do not come to this area and many people have never really heard of it. There is virtually no advertising for the area so few people know about it or can take advantage of the opportunity to come here. It is a somewhat isolated area and not an easy place in which to live, so many of those peopel who do live here are very independent and not inclined to work with others, so there is little cohesion and cooperation for getting anything done that can benefit the region and bring in more business.
Tomorrow we will go on a hike in the rainforest and will also be looking for crocodiles!
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