winter holidays week 2Aug 8, 2012
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touring the rainforest at Mossman Gorge - ancient nutcracking rocks
Mossman Gorge
dinosaour rock
| If week one of the holidays was barren and dry - week two was lush and moist!!! Queensland. We flew up to Cairns where we spent a night at the hostel. The next morning we headed out on the Coral Dreaming yacht for a night on the great barrier reef!!! Oh my gosh how lucky am I? IT WAS AMAZING!!! It took us a couple hours to get out the the outer reef...upon arriving we had lunch and suited up for our first snorkel - WOW!!! We snorkeled at 3 different locations, morning, noon, evening...whenever we wanted to...it was amazing. Maya and I also tried scuba diving...on my first dive I got a bit weirded out and resurfaced....but Maya said it was amazing and that I should give it another try...so the next day I went down again...and it was amazing ....my only regret was not finishing my first attempt...but never mind...I gave it another go!! I got to snorkel with sea turtles and a gazillion different kinds of fish...the pictures don't really show the amazingness of what we saw...it was hard to hold the camera steady when being pushed about by the wind and waves....the evening and early morning snorkels were the most amazing with regards to all the fish.... After returning to shore we headed north to Port Douglas. We stayed at a backpacker place called Dougies, which would be perfect if you were in your 20's...we were the oldest ones there...but the accommodation was cheap and sufficient. From there we explored Mossman Gorge where we went on a 2.5 hour hike through the rainforest with an amazing aboriginal guide. I learned so much. The nut cracking rocks have been used for 1000's of years...the shape of the nuts has been worn into the rocks...the aboriginal people would just locate them near nut trees. We also learned about heaps of other plants - including a natural soap plant...which actually sudded up!!! We went on a river boat cruise with a true Aussie, who loved the Daintree River. I learned so much about mangroves from him...including how they breathe through their roots! We saw crocs, snakes and heaps of birds. The most amazing were the thousands of egrets that flock from all over, to roost for the night along the river. We hadn't had enough of the reef yet...so we moved camp up to an amazing camp in Cape Tribulation - we had a beautiful bunkie in the middle of the rainforest - amazing. Our goal was to go out for another afternoon of snorkeling....unfortunately mother nature disagreed and whipped up one heck of a wind...so the boats weren't going out! Instead, we found 3 available spots for 'jungle surfing' so the kids got to go...zip lining over the rainforest. They had a great time...the grownups went for a hike through the forest. Sadly, it was time for us to head back to Adelaide, and back to work....but just 10 weeks til the next holidays....oh where shall I go this time???? |
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