Cape Tribulation (Day 2)

If any of you have read Bill Byrson's book Down Under, you will probably remember the part where he describes the pain from the Sea Wasp/ Box Jelly Fish/ Marine Stinger. Call it what you will, it is one of the deadliest creatures in the world. Bryson descibes, what is probably an "urban myth," the story of a man still sreaming after falling unconscious from the pain of the stingers. I reckon that's true pain. And as if that wasn't enough there's also the Irukandji Jelly Fish which is a lot smaller but just as dangerous. If you don't believe me take a look at the pic of the sign on the way to the beach below.

Cape Tribulation gets it's name from the explorer Cook who's ship the Endeavour ran a ground in the bay. You'll notice as you go through the pics that there's not many people out swimming! Although this changes in the winter when the water gets too cold for the jelly fish.





There's also a look out to one side of the bay. Here's a picture of the walk and one or two from the look out.




We came back a different way and noticed that the water in a stream was bright red. On closer inspection it seems that vibrant red leaves had fallen off the trees overhead and the light reflecting off these gave the stream an incredible red hue.



So todays lesson is quite a simple one, unless you want to contribute to the red coloured waters of Australia, think twice before venturing into any, salt water or otherwise. If the jelly fish don't get you the crocodiles or sharks just might!


Cathal

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