Daintree Rain Forest (Day 2)

I mentioned our hectic itinerary in the last post and the predicament it caused. I have decided to break our more hectic days into different posts, as we have some interesting photos and I wanted to show you them in order to do justice to our destinations. Besides we went to the bother of taking them, so you can go to the bother of looking at them!

Not only did we cram a lot into our 26 days in Aus we also crammed in a lot into each day. The first thing you learn about Cairns is that it is the gateway to some of the most interesting places on earth. The second thing you learn is that Cairns is not the place for sleep ins!

Our second day started early enough considering we had arrived into Cairns late the night before after traveling all day from NZ. We were waiting outside our hotel at 6.30 am waiting for our 4 x 4 bus. It was pretty impressive and built for comfort, not for speed.





Our first stop was the Daintree Rain Forest and our first visit to a UNESCO World Hertitage Site . As part of the tour you stopped off at the Daintree Rain Forest Discovery Centre for morning tea and a guided tour. It was there that we saw our first Cassowary. I have watched my fair share of nature programmes and to be honest I didn't think there were many animals that I haven't heard of or seen, especially at 34, but Australia was to change all that. Here's a pic of a model of this rare and endangered flightless bird, unfortunately we didn't get to see the real thing on our walk.

They are real however and quite large, Australia's second largest bird after the Emu. The sign below explains what to do if you bump into one, which is not very scientific, you just scream your head off and hope for the best.

To our surprise we did see a real one later on in our travels, ok in a zoo, but it counts doesn't it? Here's some pics we took of the real McCoy. We will show a few more pics when we get to the Zoo in question later on in our travels.



We also saw a good few of the Blue Ulysses butterfly, but we didn't manage to get a pic as, like all butterflies, their flight patterns are quite erratic. Here's a picture, if it looks familiar it might be because it was in the film Papillon. According to our guide one of the convicts in the movie has a tattoo of one?

On the tour you climb a four storey wooden tower and here's a view from the top, a view from our walk and a close up of a native plant.

So that was our morning, the tour ended in a shop, which is typical enough. Then it was back onto our bus and off we set to the meeting point of two world heritage sites.


Cathal