March 12 – Daintree Rainforest

March 12, 2016 – Port Douglas and Daintree Rain Forest
We started out at 7:30am to drive to Daintree. We will be hiking and visiting a privately owned part of the forest.
On the way we passed many acres of sugar cane. We got to take a car ferry pulled by a cable across the Daintree River. We saw a statue of a Cassowary. Troy said it might be the only one we saw. It turns out he was right.
Finally we arrived at Neill and Angie’s for a nature hike. Neill’s mother bought the land 30 years ago to start a tropical fruit farm. It didn’t work out because of the rain forest and preservation laws. They now do nature hikes to make an income. We were divided into 2 groups and I was in Angie’s group. We went to the forest and she told us about the trees and animals and how each helps the others. She also explained how outside animals like the feral pig are hurting the rainforest. The hike was 1 1/2 hours long and we learned alot.
Leaving there we stopped for coffee, tea, and biscuits before boarding a boat to do a mangrove cruise. The river has about 30 crocodiles so, of course, we hoped to see one. Finally we could see one resting behind some trees.
We had lunch at a lovely restaurant on a stream. Troy went swimming but the rest of us just watched. On the way back to the hotel we stopped for tropical fruit ice cream. They serve 4 flavors in a cup for $6.50 AUD. The flavors today were pineapple, waddleseed, black sapote, and passionfruit. They were all delicious.
We drove through Port Douglas. Tonight after dinner some of us are joining Troy on trip into town to watch Cane Frog Racing.
Tomorrow we fly to Sydney. This is our last Australian stop. Next Wednesday we fly to New Zealand to finish the tour.