Day 181 - Tuesday 27 June - Discovering the Daintree

Day 181

Tuesday

27 June 2017

Port Douglas – Daintree                  

No alarms, bliss, screaming kids hmmm. They had us awake just after 7, not a huge issue as we were planning on heading to the Daintree again to complete the lower section we drove through on Saturday.

Once all the mundane stuff was done, we made our way up the HWY to the river crossing where we once again paid our $26 and crossed the Daintree on the ferry before continuing our journey. 

We did a quick stop at Alexandra Lookout once again just to see if the view was any clearer, it wasn’t particularly. Our next stop was the Jindalba boardwalk, another loop walk through the rainforest. We made our way along, noting the places where large trees had taken out the raised boardwalk when they came crashing to the floor. 

When we had completed the circuit we drove on to the Daintree Discovery centre and decided to stop in and check it out, though it wasn’t cheat at $35 each. We were given an audio guide and booklet and then sent out to wander the boardwalk. Before doing so, I dropped into the loo to check out the green tree frog stuck to the wall at cornice height.  

We left the entrance, passing the very loud parrots and then we made our way along, keying in numbers on our mobile devices to listen to a running commentary about what we were seeing before arriving at the 23m high platform that we climbed all the way to the top for a view over the upper canopy and down to the forest floor.  From here I spied a couple of Ulysses butterflies but not much else. 

We returned to the ground and continued walking the boardwalk. A guide pointed out a very well hidden spider before we checked out the bush tucker walk and the moving dinosaur display before heading back to the reception and checking out the reptiles. All the while I had been looking for cassowary but none appeared, bugger.

Can you see the camouflaged spider?

After completing our tour, we returned to the Getz and drove out to Cow Bay where we had our lunch before walking the beach and admiring the view. It was again a little overcast but in no way did it hinder our activity.

After checking out all of the view from every angle, we moved further north to Thornton Beach. We again left the car and walked the path to the palm lined beach, a small island was quite prominent just off the coast. We walked north first to a small point and then made our way south to check out the white trunked trees that stood out so dominantly. We couldn’t get close to them as they were on the other side of a river mouth but we could still admire their beauty from where we stood. 

After making it to Thornton Beach, we returned south, stopping briefly at Coopers Crossing to take some photos of the water and then Daintree Tea, to check out the plantation of Australian grown black tea. It was then a leisurely drive back towards home, all the while looking for the well-hidden cassowary. 

The line for the ferry was long and we didn’t make it aboard when we first arrived, having to wait in the line for it to travel across the river with its load and return to our side before we finally got a berth, it was then an easy run back to the van for 4pm.