The Wet Tropics

I am writing this in the world’s oldest rainforest. Three million years older than the Amazon. However here is where the rainforest meets the reef. Two minutes away is the golden beach, however you can’t swim in it for two good reasons. Crocodiles and box jellyfish. It’s a shame really, because its 35 degrees outside and the water looks so inviting. Crystal clear and warm. There are no crocodiles in the bay where we are tenting, which is called Cape Tribulation, but in the bay next to us is apparently a 3 metre crocodile. Waiting. Cape Tribulation is the place where James Cook came on land in Australia for the first time. You have to catch a 2 minute ferry across the Daintree river to our camp ground because of the crocodiles. There are warning signs everywhere along the beaches and bottles of vinegar just in case you get stung. The box jellyfish are deadly, and their tentacles are invisible in the water, so it’s best to keep out! Esmee and I dipped our feet in the water though. You can see the swampy mangroves off to the left and right of the bays, which is where the crocodiles like to live. Mum and I were brave enough to check them out and snap a few photos. Didn’t see any crocodiles though!


Us at the beach!

We took some short walks through the rainforest to see the wildlife. Its so tropical and exotic in the forest. There are thin tall trees with fan shaped fern leaves, and spaghetti vines twirling themselves around them. We saw some turkey’s, which we wanted to catch for Christmas lunch (just kidding!), and also we think it was a small boar pig type thing. Heaps of lizards. We’ve seen small skink like ones, and I even spotted a huge yellow spotted 1.5 metre lizard crawling through the edge of the forest in the campground. The butterflies here are beautiful. Bright orange and blue, reflecting in the sun light. The cicadas are very very noisy! It’s amazing because they all suddenly stop at the same time, and start again at 6am. Its like your morning alarm; that’s how loud it is!


Our tents

There is no air conditioning or power at the camp ground, except for a fridge; so its very hot here in the shade and out of the shade. In the shade is 28 degrees, so imagine how hot it is in the sun. We pitched up our two tents without the outer cover on it because its too hot. You can see right into our tents, and when you lie down, its like you are sleeping outside. Looking up you can’t see the sky because all of the trees are in the way, but you can see the leaves on the trees, and hear small animals lurking through the forest 2 metres away. Mum read that there are python snakes here; but I haven’t seen any snakes, yet. Last night when Esmee and I were going to brush our teeth, we saw a giant frog sitting next to the fence. It didn’t move as we came closer, but eventually jumped away. I have never seen such a huge frog! It was bigger than my fist.



Christmas morning Sunrise

Esmee, Camiel and I were so hot, so we asked mum and dad to drive us down to the swimming hole (which had no crocs in it). The swimming hole was a big pool of fresh water in the rain forest. There was a swing, and most of it was covered by the canopy, so it was really refreshing. We saw heaps of fish in there, some of them huge! You can do sea kayaking here, but I wouldn’t even dare too, just incase of a croc jumping at you! The mosquitoes here drive us nuts. There are hundreds, and even with insect repellent, they still decide to come and attack you.


The swimming hole

We drove up to a look out which looked over the sea. There were two small islands close to shore. This bay was where Steve Irwin got stung by a sting ray and unfortunately died. He was taken to one of the small islands, but they could not save him. It makes me wonder why he didn’t wear a stinger suit. You can hire stinger suits for $10 a day which protect you from the jellyfish and stingrays. It was kinda freaky and surreal that I was looking out into the exact water where Steve Irwin died. Definitely not a good place to swim.

Here we are also just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. I had to get dad to explain to me what this actually is. Basically, at 12pm the sun will be directly over head of you, minimising the shadows, and making it extremely hot. If I look up to the sky, the sun is directly on top of me, rather than in Wellington where It will be off to the side a bit. If we drove north for a few hours, we would reach the tip of Australia, where we would then be able to see Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, which would be even hotter than it is here because they are closer to the equator.

This morning we went and watched the sunrise on the beach. It was a really nice start to Christmas morning as there was the bright colour of orange reflecting through the forest. This rainforest is home to the native Cassowary bird. They are big birds the size of emus and are endangered as there is only 1500 left. There are warning signs about how to act if you come across one, as they are very defensive birds and will run after you and attack you by jumping up and using its long legs and claws to attack. We didn’t see one. Towards the evening the clouds started to look a bit dodgy, and seeing as we didn’t have the tops of the tents on, we would get soaked if it rained because here in the rainforest when it rains, it rains cats and dogs. To be on the safe side we put the tops of the tents on and half an hour later it started hosing down! We were just in time!

Camiel and I set up my laptop in the tent and started watching James Bond, but fell asleep after half an hour. It was too hot to watch and we were tired from all of the days walks. Tomorrow we will start heading south - don’t know where to yet!

Merry Christmas!
Fem
xox