August 8-9 Shayna arrives & Daintree Forest

Shayna got in during the evening and I met up with her at the greyhound station and then we walked over to Mad Monkey Sheridan to eat at Lush because I had a voucher to use up! We got pasta and pizza, and were so excited to see one another and kick off the end of her trip in the best way possible. We had an early morning the next day so we got to bed early.

The next morning we woke up early to go on the “Cape Tribbin’” Uncle Brian’s Tour of Cape Tribulation in the Daintree Rainforest. The draw to these attractions are that they are where two world heritage sites meet. The Daintree Rainforest is estimated to be 180 million years old which is tens of millions of years older than the Amazon rainforest (https://www.discoverthedaintree.com/daintree-rainforest-6/) The Daintree sees the most rainfall in February, with an average of 18 inches… that may not sound like a lot.. but think about the state of Illinois having 40 inches of rainfall all year.. The Daintree sees half of Illinois’ annual rainfall in one month. That’s a lot of water! The green, lush rainforest definitely shows that.

Different things we did on the tour: breakfast at Port Douglas 4 mile beach, crossed Daintree river on a ferry and drove through some of the oldest rainforests in the world, lunch at PK’s Jungle Village at the beach, swim in freshwater tropical streams, a walk through mangrove nurseries. A few lookouts and an awesome saltwater crocodile cruise. The moment we got on the tour bus filled with people our age from all over the world, we were greeted with songs and cheers.

a real spider inside PK's Jungle Village. It was bigger than my face!!

cape tribulation really looks like jurassic park!

smiling because our towels matched the beautiful landscape

thousands of mangrove trees!

think I'll just stay in the boat for this croc cruise....

This was the start of a fun filled day! We made great friends on the tour, but two definitely stood out to us. We had a pair of long lost sisters on the tour that had just met in their adult lives. If I remember correctly, they have the same biological father. One of the girls was from Scotland, and one was from Melbourne, and they had the same quirky pop punk vibe going on, same mannerisms, same smile and laugh, same dyed hair and tatted look AND had just found out about each other this year. I took this picture of them below :)

They are now making a script for a documentary about their crazy story. Anyways, seeing the rainforest was beautiful but we didn’t have a long walk through it. There isn’t much to do in the rainforest besides seeing the rainforest and beach, but learning about the people who live out there was pretty cool. It is super remote and there is no service there whatsoever- that’s why tour companies make so much money because people don’t want to be driving out here without much communication or GPS signal, ESPECIALLY if it is during the wet season. The flooding is horrendous. My favorite part was going on the croc cruise, beer in hand we were feet away from these dangerous animals, learning about their habitats and temperament. When we got back we were exhausted, the bus ride is over 2.5 hours from Cairns city. We rested a bit and then got ready for some trivia.