Daintree Qld Friday 5 Aug 2022

 Daintree Qld Friday 5 Aug 2022

Shortest of all trips from Port Douglas to Mossman Gorge where we went on an Aboriginal Tour, the same one we did a few years back. 

Mossman Gorge

Aboriginal Guide telling us all about ochre and face painting

And then up to Daintree where we went on a Crocodile Tour with Bill Belcher, who even though it was a ‘crocodile’ cruise, that day he unfortunately ignored any other wildlife around with his obsession with finding ‘scarface’. Lunch was nice however and I found the River Train that went missing after being tied up near the ferry for years. It seems the Belchers that run this Croc Cruise wanted the licence to operate on the river so they bought the old River Train, but then they had to remove the said River Train from the river. Rather than take it straight to the dump, the lady decided to incorporate it into the cafe part of the business and so its been saved. The River train was conceived and built by one of the locals, it had five small raft like craft chained together in a caravan and decked out like a floating Chinese pagoda / train thing. No sooner had he floated it when he lost interest and sold up and went to live in Thailand. It languished on the river for years and years, but last time we went through it had gone. And now I know where it is.

Section of the River Train

After lunch we drove further up into the Daintree, to Coopers Creek where we went to a privately owned part of the rainforest. The couple living there had become experts on all things rainforest over 30 odd years and we were to be taken on a walk-in tour of the forrest. We chose the lady and and I'm glad we did, she was very informative and easy to listen to. We stopped at nearly every single tree over a one and a half hour period, being told all kinds of wonderful and weird things about trees, plants, animals, insects, people etc. I'll never be able to walk past trees again and not wonder what each ones story is.

How many insects can you see? A tree in the Daintree Rain Forest

We had dinner and stayed the night at the Heritage Daintree Resort which was right in the rainforest, which was ‘OK’. The thing is everything in a rainforest is always dark and damp and it must be a nightmare to keep on top of everything that’s needed for an accommodation house and keep the jungle at bay.