We awoke today both feeling that we had a busy day yesterday and need to take an easier day today. Already by 8 am it is about 27 degrees and around 70 percent humidity. It is so humid that as soon as we step outside of our air conditioned cabin our glasses steam up. This is normal for this time of year back home, but usually because it is cooler outside – not hotter.
Today we are going to drive up to Daintree Village and heritage rainforest. The Daintree Rainforest contains 30% of frog, marsupial and reptile species in Australia, and 65% of Australia's bat and butterfly species. 18% of bird species in the country can be found in this area. There are also over 12000 species of insects. All of this diversity is contained within an area that takes up 0.2% of the landmass of Australia. Some of the Daintree Rainforest's addition to the World Heritage List in 1988 in recognition of its universal natural values highlighted the rainforest. The Daintree Region is home to a number of rare and endangered species, including the Southern Cassowary and Bennett's Tree-kangaroo.
We headed out to the van to get started only to have to keep returning to the cabin to get things we were forgetting. We have been used to having everything with us as we travel since our home and transportation were one and the same.
We headed out to travel this last stretch of the highway up the Cape York Peninsual. The road is a beautiful coastal road that provides incredible views of the ocean and many sandy beaches.
We stopped at the Rex Lookout which was interesting since the parking was on both sides of the road and for those traveling north we had to park and dash. This means we parked on the left side and dash to the lookout on the right side. The road itself is right on a corner and it was interesting to realize how little of a view we had of oncoming traffic – but we survived.
We continued on to Port Douglas to locate the Flagstaff Hill lookout which gives us the views of the 4 Mile Beach. The beach looked great and we considered going down to swim until we remembered that we did not want to swim with the stingers. We took a pass on the swim. Interesting enough the beach was not busy at all with only 2 people that we could see on it. However it was late morning with the full sun so perhaps it was just the time of day. At the lookout we found a display showing the direction and distances to several cities around the world including Vancouver and Toronto.
Then we continued on to Daintree Village. On this last stretch of the highway we passed many groves of banana trees, sugar cane fields and horse pastures. Imagine all these fields with the ocean as a backdrop.
We arrived to Daintree Village where the clouds had come in and rain started. This really is the end of the paved road so after we looked around we turned around and headed back to Cairns.
We stopped at Wonga Beach (a beach on the side of the road) for lunch. We walked down onto the beach with our chairs and sandwich to hang out, listen to the waves and relax. We were the only ones on the beach and after lunch we decided to take a short walk. The walk had to be short since we had not put on any sunscreen and it was mid-day in full sun.
The drive back to Cairns after that was basically uneventful except for the truck who decided to pass me with oncoming traffic. I still am not sure what the trucker was thinking since all he did was get in front of me behind the rest of the cars in the line up. However, I had to break and so did the oncoming cars so he could get back in line without hitting anyone. Oh well, it ensured we were awake and aware. Life is good.
We stopped to get information about the Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail Rainforest Cableway and that will be on our agenda for tomorrow. We got home by 3 which is early but both needed to rest and read. A quiet but nice day with full sunshine even though there was rain clouds all around.
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