Day 42: Once more to the Daintree River! (13/07/12)

Rain again, but briefly. Then we set out to the Daintree River. Our first stop was at Bruce Belcher’s Daintree River Cruises (http://www.daintreerivercruises.com.au/).

Pink flower in Daintree River Cruises garden

Another flower

And another

And yet another flower

We had been there before and liked their style enough to go for a second visit. We got to see a number of crocodiles and some brahminy kites, and lots of other interesting things.

Young crocodile with one of those annoying teenager smart-alecky smiles..

Communal spider web - adaptation of the saying: many hands make light work: many spiders make sticky threads work

Young crocodile hatchling. Apparently the favourite food of the brahminy kite.

Birds nest. Hung off the branch so that the tree snake cannot get to it.

Mother crocodile

Current big boss crocodile on the Daintree River

Egret with death wish parades back and forth before crocodile. A moment later, bitterly disappointed at still being alive, and suspecting the croc of less than manly courage, he turned his tail at the croc and pooped before stalking off.

Young male keeping out of the big croc's way.

Our guide had a wealth of information to share with us. One snippet that stuck with me was that a large part of the current Daintree rainforest was being used as dairy farms only 50-60 years ago!

Relief at having survived the trip.

We drove on to Daintree village for lunch. It was sunny and very warm and we soaked it up with the chips and barra.

All smiles after the chips and barra lunch.

The Daintree River

Farmland on the Daintree River

Then we crossed the Daintree on the ferry. As it was late afternoon, we did not go all the way through to Cape Tribulation, but went to the lookout,

Renske and Joke at the Mt Alexander lookout

Daintree River mouth

Us at the Daintree lookout

and then down a side road to Cape Kimberley.

All those warnings - let's just get to that beach!

These tea-trees are enormous compared to those in Tasmania

Another thing I did, after much prompting by the womenfolk, was to check my exam results. Somehow I had forgotten about them, but as one is supposed to check them, I reluctantly had a look. Believe it or not, I got a distinction! Seeing I did 1.25 essays out of 2 in the exam, I thought that this was extraordinarily generous.

Satisfied and contented, we drove back to Mossman.

Bananas growing right next to us at the Caravan Park