Sunday afternoon
we crossed the vehicle ferry over the Daintree River (a full 5 minute ride),
and were submersed into the Daintree Rainforest for our 2 nights of
off-the-grid living.
We found our
accommodations and marveled at it’s simple beauty as it reminded us of one of
our favorite getaways back in the States. Here we were drinking and showering in collected rain water and using electricity powered off solar. We already wished we had booked more than two nights.
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| Daintree Ferry |
We headed out to meet Dan, our sunset boat tour driver who taught us about the mangroves along the Daintree River.
It felt so good to be riding in a pontoon boat at sunset and we all thoroughly enjoyed this tour.
Dan was actually a medical researcher from Oklahoma who had moved to Australia 25 years ago.
He was very educated, science-minded and did an excellent job of keeping the kids engaged and explaining nature in a way that they could understand.
Even though we had toured mangroves in Ecuador and the Galapagos, we learned so much on this boat ride.
As the sun went down the bats came out like crazy.
These were not the small bats (known as Micro bats we learned) we are used to at home but rather referred to as Mega bats. Mega bats are larger, don't use Sonar to navigate and feed on fruits instead of insects.
We were also able to observe tree frogs, crocodiles, and a stunning night sky as we cruised along in the dark.
By the time we got back home, we were exhausted and decided to skip dinner and all go to bed.
Most of us crashed right away, but Dad and our youngest son snuck out to enjoy the stars.
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| Beautiful rainforest flower |
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| Mangroves |
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| Daintree River reflections |
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| Sunset on the Daintree River |
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| Sunset on the Daintree River |
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| Crocodile! |
On Monday morning
we had breakfast and realized that in addition to the cockroaches that we are
realizing exist everywhere in Australia, we had another roommate!
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| Our roommate (or should we say roommateS?) |
We
cleaned up and headed north to Cape
Tribulation for a canopy tour that our whole family could participate in.
Just as we were getting harnessed in, it
started down-pouring.
While this wasn’t
ideal as we were unprepared, we were in the rainforest and therefore required to have a sense
of humor about this. We were just thankful that it was not chilly.
We enjoyed flying from tree to tree and the
amazing views of the ocean from up in the tree canopy. Unfortunately this did not turn out to be as educational as we would have hoped but it was fun nevertheless.
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| School field trip in the Rainforest Canopy |
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| Just swinging through the rainforest! |
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| G enjoying a change of view! |
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| Yep, that's Mom! |
Afterwards we ate
our picnic lunch in the parking lot before heading for a walk through the
rainforest to the beach.
We enjoyed spotting
some large lizards along the way and were fascinated by watching the minute
crabs scurry around the beach with these ball formations they had scattering
the beach.
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| He's climbing down the left side of the tree! |
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| Mixture of rainforest seeds and berries |
At dusk we walked
to the local beach and enjoyed the sunset.
We came back and grilled, which is a treat as it's rare that the places we stay have a grill!
Unfortunately some of our wet clothes had
fallen on the ground and while moving them Dad was attacked by fire ants. However, most of us slept well as we were blessed with amazing rain showers our last night in the rainforest - what a treat!
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| Dad & our oldest grilling |
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| Last Daintree Rainforest family dinner |
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