August 9, 2012

August 9, 2012

From Cairns we drove up the coast passing sugar cane fields in the process of being harvested. After a while the flat coastal land disappeared and we drove along a narrow winding cliff road. This area is famous for being the only spot where two World Heritage Areas come together. The Wet Tropics of Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef. After a half hour the shoreline flattened out again and we turned inland to the Mossman Gorge section of Daintree National Park. There we board a shuttle bus for the final 1.5 miles to the park trailhead.

We spend an hour hiking a boardwalk thru the rainforest. This jungle is right out of the Tarzan movies. There are vines everywhere. Sunlight is a precious commodity in rainforests. The canopy of the tall trees almost completely blocks sunlight. My camera can attest to that. It is very hard to take photos in the rainforest. It is too dark. I should have lugged a tripod along with me on this trip.

Rainforest plants have to fight for their share of sunlight and they have come up with amazing strategies. Some plants, whose seeds are dispersed by birds, germinate in niches and cracks of trees and then grow as vines upward and downward. Some vines grow to tree-size. The strangler fig, my favorite, ends up completely wrapping itself around the tree to the point the host dies, leaving the fig looking like a hollow skeleton. The basket fern grows a large bowl-like structure high up in trees to collect all the rainwater and nutrients it needs. The huge amount of rain that occurs in a rain forest causes trees to develop strategies to remain upright. Most end up growing wings mimicking the flying buttresses of medieval churches.

From Mossman, we continue our journey north to the wide Daintree River. We cross it by ferry to enter the Cape Tribulation section of Daintree National Park. The next thirty miles are mostly narrow winding roads. We stop at the Jindalba and Marrja pullouts to hike hoping to spot a Cassowary. We see lots of the large colored fruits they eat, but no sign of the elusive bird.
The rainforest has amazing diversity. The Wet Tropics Rainforest heritage area here is especially unique because it lies in Australia, which has been isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years. As a result many of the plants here are living fossils, thought to have been extinct but surviving only because of the isolation.

Our final hike is at Cape Tribulation beach. This area earned its nickname from the famed English explorer Captain Cook who had the misfortune of discovering the Great Barrier Reef the hard way. With his ship damaged, he limped ashore here to make necessary repairs. Cook really got around. We have run into his exploits on previous travels to Alaska, Tahiti and Hawaii.

Australia is full of beautiful sand beaches. But nobody gets too close to the water. The world’s deadliest animal, the box jellyfish, swarms these waters in the summer. That is why I wore a stinger suit on my reef dive. If the jellyfish don’t get you, the saltwater crocodiles will have you for lunch. This brings up my third reason not to come to Australia. It is dangerous. Australia has the most dangerous version of every animal in the world whether it is snake, spider, seashell, octopus, fish, or shark.

Since it is late we spend the night at the Ferntree Rainforest Lodge. We have one of many cabins in this resort nestled in the rainforest. We celebrate our arrival here by drinking a bottle of Australian wine on our cabin porch. That evening while dining al fresco in the restaurant, I hear some familiar screeches in the surrounding trees. The flying fox! We watch them one by one take off for their nightly routine. Welcome to the jungle. For dinner I had the fish entree, barramundi. Barramundi is a large fighting fish that is on every local sportsman’s list to catch.