DAY 19 – We had to wake up early today and I hate waking up early on holidays. It seems by body rejects the notion with extreme prejudice. On this day, I woke even earlier than the 6:30am wake up call because I could hear the rain outside and I love the rain when I can lie in bed with my eyes closed and just listen to the raindrops hit the leaves or rooftop. Today, the Maple Maniacs would spend the day in the rain…or should I say rainforest!! We were led into our waiting buses by our fearless and knowledgable guides Ben and Peter for a tour of the Daintree Rainforest that included the crocodile infested waters of Cooper’s Creek, another UNESCO world heritage site of Cape Tribulation, and the Mossman Gorge. There is so much I can say about this day. The colours were nothing short of spectacular. How does one describe being engulfed by 10,000 shades of green and what that looks like when painted in the rainforest amongst leaves that only exist in that particular corner of the world? Did you know that the world’s rainforest make up on 4% of the earth’s land mass? And in Australia, 50% of the country’s animals and 75% of it’s wildlife live in that tiny Daintree Rainforest (thanks for that nugget of info, Ben!) So, it won’t surprise you that we saw a lot of other species. We did see a croc…I’m pretty sure he had a name that I can’t presently remember, so I’ll call him King, because he was GIANT! Our guide was pretty convinced he was a least 100 years old and I’ve got to say when we all got a look at him we pulled our hands away from the edge of the boat. Word from our guide was that he could swim close the 60km/hr…eek! Then on our drive through the rainforest we saw not one, not two, but FOUR Cassowaries. This is actually pretty amazing given there are only estimated to be 2000 left in the world, so our guides thought seeing four would never happen again in their lives. It took one of the guides over 6 years to see his first! I’m sure you are wondering what the heck a Cassowary is, so I’ve attached a picture. It’s that ugly looking bird that is a cross between a turkey and emu, but according to Marcia, it is a Veloco-raptor in disguise (I’d say that is a fair description). They are mean and fast and don’t especially like people. That’s how close we were…no zoom required. Of course, we also saw lizards and spiders and other fun bugs too and amidst the fun and exploration we paused at the hidden utopian restaurant in the middle of the rainforest perched on a hillside overlooking a fresh water creek with green all around…and some of us even took a little dip. The lunch was so satisfying and with our bellies still full we drove a little further down the road to the Daintree Ice Cream Company for dessert. I’d say most, if not all the kids, had eyes much bigger than their stomachs, but who can say no to a taste of ice cream made from rainforest fruits of mango, jackfruit, and wattleseed. Now in a semi-comatose state from all our eating and hiking, we dozed on the bus to Mossman Gorge. This would be our last stop on our tour and while it continued to rain gently our kids couldn’t resist the urge to take another dip – albeit quick – in the Gorge’s water. Finally, we returned home after almost 10 hours on the road. We were exhausted, but as this marked our final night in Port Douglas we rinsed off and collected for our last meal together in Australia – fittingly, eaten by the waters edge. It seemed appropriate to start and end with water. So, perhaps water was the theme of the day. It only takes a walk through a rainforest to understand just how important water is to keeping an ecosystem going and I suppose, the Maple Maniacs have been a little system of its own for the last three weeks.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:50:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015