Where the Rainforest meets the Sea...

Yesterday Paul and I decided to brave the increasingly soggy weather to visit the Daintree National Park. The first place we went to was to Mossman Gorge where we went on a rainforest walk to a suspension bridge over the Rex Creek. Here's me on the bridge:

After that the path followed along the Mossman river gorge back to the car park. There were signs everywhere about how dangerous it could be and how had people had drowned, but even though the river was not in flood (yet) we thought the people we saw swimming were pretty stupid!

There were also a lot of little creeks like this one flowing through the forest into the river. It was really wet from the rain but still hot and humid and it was really beautiful!!

The funniest thing was that it was so humid that when I opened the window of the car, visible steam started to come out of the air conditioning vent! I thought the car was on fire and I freaked out a bit until we worked out what it was!

After Mossman Gorge we went to Daintree Village where we took a one hour crocodile spotting boat tour. Alas! No crocodiles :(

The guide said that the water is warm enough in the summer that they don't need to bask in the sun on the banks to keep warm, so just sit on the bottom for up to four hours digesting the food. It was still a great boat ride, especially when it really started to pour with rain.


Our next stop was across the ferry in the main part of the Daintree National Park in the Rainforest Discovery center where we had lunch and then explored the area using the audio guided tours. They have a whole bunch of boardwalks going throught the forest and huge tower that you climb to get to the top of the canopy. It wasn't raining, but it was so hot and steamy that you still needed an umbrella and it didn't help because by the end we were still saturated.

The rest of the day was spent driving up to Cape Tribulation and stopping at a few beaches along the way. The weather was great for the "rain forest" part of the experience but not so great for the beaches. They would be a lot prettier on a sunny a day we think.

It was a long and fun day.