The Daintree

Zip lining through the rain forest!

Day 2 in Port Douglas : adventure tour. We were picked up in the morning by a rather jolly fellow by the name of Murray. Murray used to live in the daintree (nearly without electricity), so he had heaps of information for us. Turns out the Daintree is the oldest surviving rainforest on earth! Therefore, the plants- and many of the animals- are extremely primitive and the ancestors of a lot of the other animals in Australia. The coolest and craziest one by far is the Cassowary-

Crazy looking, isn’t it? We didn’t get to see one out in the forest, or hear one, sadly, but apparently they sound like the T-rex in Jurassic Park (not the roaring bit- the deep calling bit). This thing looks like it could walk amongst the dinosaurs (and, in fact, it actually did!).

The Daintree is also a major source of medicines (I think Murray said something like 90% of the worlds medication ingredients come from the Daintree?). Pretty cool, huh?

Also on the tour with us was Laura, who is a relationship columnist who gets paid to travel around the world and write about the dating scenes in the cities she visits. Can I have that job please? Except, instead of writing about relationships and dating, I will write about beer. Great, it’s a plan.

After checking out the forest with Murray, he dropped us off for some adventure jungle zip lining- woot! Our guides, Gordon and Lee, were quite the pair- we had a good time with them. First they started by assigning us helmets that had names on them (so they wouldn’t have to try to remember ours, presumably)- I got Little Miss Sunshine, JR got King Kong and Laura got Barbie. Now, they swear that there’s no rhyme or reason to how they assign each helmet, but I don’t believe them. There’s a helmet called “Stiffler’s mom” that I’m pretty sure they reserve for certain hotties that come along.

Anyway, zip lining was awesome! And way too short. Here are some pictures:

Next up on the adventure tour: crocodile river cruise! Murray took us out on a little cruise of the Daintree river to hunt down some crocs. We found a few babies and one big mamma, but no big daddies. Still, it was pretty cool to see them out in their natural habitats from the relative safety of our boat. (I am no Steve Erwin. Who the aussies still mourn, by the way.)

Overall a really fun day! We’d definitely recommend this tour to anyone who finds themselves in the area.

Later that night we met up with Nick and Amy for some din din. We went to a place called Bistro 3, which was very good. I had the duck. I always have the duck. If duck is on the menu, it’s mine. I’m such a glutton. Why is it that duck and pork belly, the two fattiest fatty meats, are my favorites??