From Crocodiles to Wallabies

Hey folks,

We just spent 4 amazing and relaxing days in the Daintree Rainforest up in Cape Tribulation, Far North Queensland. The first full day there (Saturday 30 August) was basically spent exploring the area close to our B&B. We took the shortcut trail down to the beach and almost immediately we saw what looked like a moving brown clump about 30 feet in front of us. The brown clump looked up and we were face to face with a feral pig! The little guy looked at us with his mouth full of plants, gave a little snort and ran in the other direction. Turns out that feral pigs can actually be pretty aggressive when provoked. They're also detrimental to the cassowary habitat.

After our encounter with the pig, we went to the Bat House, where volunteers rehabilitate bats and flying foxes. We met the very cute Sunshine, a spectacled flying fox, who cannot fly anymore due to an accident at a very young age, but who still can mate with other flying foxes at the bat house.

And no we never saw the randy antechinus. However, coincidence of coincidences, it turns out that our host at the Exotic Fruit Farm, Digby, did his master's thesis on the antechinus! He was very surprised that we had even heard of the marsupial. Digby posits that the reason you don't see a lot of dead male antechinuses about is that after mating (and thus doing its evolutionary purpose) the female eats the male antechinus. Yikes! Digby and Allison, our hosts, were just lovely and bent over backwards to make sure we made the most of our time in Cape Trib.

On Day Two in Cape Trib, we drove down to the Daintree Discovery Centre. This place has built-in boardwalks so that you can literally walk up in the canopy section of the rainforest. Very informative, but we didn't see a whole lot of wildlife here. After having been seeped up to our eyeballs in rainforest info at the Discovery Centre, we boarded the Cape Tribulation Wilderness Cruise in search of estuarine crocodiles. Along with the rainforest, Cape Tribulation boasts a wonderful display of mangroves, trees that grow along estuaries and can support salt and fresh water. The same goes with the crocs. The cruise lasts an hour and we were pretty close to the hour's end and no sightings of crocs! But then we turned a corner and there they were -- two crocs (a male and female) basking in the sun along the creek's banks! The male was enormous -- almost 15 feet in length. Shortly thereafter we saw a female croc enter the water near our boat -- apparently they are used to the sound of our boat and don't shy away. It was pretty amazing!

Our final tour of the day was the Cooper Creek Wilderness Tour, given by a wonderful old lady named "Pru." Pru and her son own this part of the Daintree Rainforest and because it's a World Heritage section, they aren't able to cut down any trees or kill any wildlife. As a result, the rainforest on her property is pristine -- trees that have existed for 160 million years or more and can't be found anywhere else are plentiful there. The only thing that we didn't see, despite plenty of fresh droppings, is the cassowary. Oh well. The tour was wonderful and Pru was simply hilarious. She also spotted spiders that we would never be able to see otherwise -- such as the "bird dropping" spider that literally looks like bird droppings and the lichen spider. With spiders like that, who needs to see the cassowary!

After our very eventful day, Chris and I spent the last day relaxing on the verandah of our cottage. We attempted a very difficult hike set up by our hosts, but we really needed a machete to get through the dense rainforest. We sat reading, watching the brilliant blue Ulysses Butterfly float by (after unsuccessfully trying to take pictures of this butterfly, we were told by Digby that the pictures on postcards were of dead ones...) and then we saw a Lace Monitor! It's like a cross between a lizard and a croc and about 5 feet long head to toe. Pretty amazing.

Our four days were spectacular and although all of our clothes are damp and musty as a result of the very wet rainforest, we wouldn't change a thing.

We are now posting from Kangaroo Island in South Australia. It deserves a completely new post -- let's just end by telling you that we can see wallabies from our hotel room. Unbelievable!

Cheers,
Stephanie and Chris