Cairns: Part 2 of 3

Daintree Rainforest

The Daintree Rainforest is the oldest continuing growing rainforest in the world. Or so that is what they claim. The heart of the Daintree is about a 2 hour drive north of Cairns. We also stopped in at Mossman Gorge which is in the Daintree.

We rented a car to get us up there. R and I enjoyed playing together, but I had to drive after 15 minutes of riding in the back. 2 words for you.... CAR SICK!!!!! I hate it, but I get car sick really easy. This car and the road made it even worst. The front seats head rests were HUGE and you couldn't see the road, and the road was really twisty following the coast.
Along the way, we stopped in at Palm Cove. BEAUTIFUL! The water, the sky, the palm trees BEAUTIFUL!!

See what I mean

But I think the most cruel thing is this sign which was just behind this beautiful place!

See, all you can do is look at this place. You can't enjoy it. Who wants to get stung by jelly fish, or eaten by a crock. Not worth chancing it!

Along the way we stopped at a fruit stand. Most of her stuff wasn't available because of the cyclone(hurricane) that just went through the area. But here is R with some bananas.

This post has a lot of signs. Make sure you read them, pretty entertaining!

Again not worth chancing it!

Ok, these next few pictures need some explaining. Up in the tropics they have this HUGE bird called a Cassowary. They are the most aggressive bird in the world and have killed a person. Yes a freakin' bird. This is a picture from Featherdale(kind-of zoo) when I went with my sister. These birds on steroids can even grow up to 2 meters tall(which is about 6.5 feet). Ok, on with my story.

We asked an information place a good place to go see the rainforest. The lady told us a popular place with boardwalks. So this was the sign at the beginning of the trail. I will type what it says at at the top right, "if confronted by a cassowary".

"1. Do not run 2.Without turning retreat slowly 3. If the bird becomes aggressive place a solid object such as a tree between yourself and the bird. If nothing is available, hold an object such as an item of clothing or a back pack in front of you and continue to back away slowly."

So I freaked myself out. There wasn't anyone else there besides us at a so-called popular place. The cassowaries have been known to walk on the boardwalk because its an easy walk. So why would we, being alone, be the targets. I think NOT!!!! I made it about 1/2 way and freaked myself out so much that I was SET on turning around and leaving. So we all walked back to the car, but Jared wanted to finish the "death walk". I told him, "go ahead, but no way are you taking our children down with you". R threw a fit because she wanted to go with dad. So Jared said "If I carry her on my shoulders, will you let me take her?" I gave in and reminded him to be careful!!! So P and I stayed in the air conditioned car (remember this is the hot humid tropics), and guess what.... they made it out alive. While they were on their walk, more people showed up. I am set to believe that they were the smart ones, and waited for some other fool to go and scare off the cassowaries. Anyways, that's my Cassowary story. Because of this adventure, I didn't care for the Daintree all that much. As you can tell by the lack of photos!

It didn't help my uneasiness that these signs were all over!!

This was at the half way point on the boardwalks. This was as far as I got. Beautiful, but I had seen the trees, and the river, and I was done!!!

The cool thing about the rainforest was that the trees were covered in vines. This was a cool one!

This was the stop on the way back called Mossman Gorge. Boardwalks again, but they were elevated FAR off the ground. Plus there were plenty of people around.

My family all alive and unharmed at the huge river.

Beautiful

We did go for a little hike, but I kept talking myself out from believing that Cassowaries were in this area.

R playing in the river. I LOVE her face here!

So this is my part 2 of the blogs. Warning again, the next post is going to be HUGE. For those who can't wait its The Great Barrier Reef!!! I am SOOOOOOOOO excited for this post because it was by far my favorite part of the trip. (Plus I didn't have to worry about cassowaries!!!)