So I arrived in Cairns all lonesome and with nothing to do. While buying eight pairs of sandals shaped like alligators and shipping them all home to random friends was pretty appealing I opted instead to book a two night trip up to Cape Tribulation which is a National Park and Rain forest. Even though it didn't stop raining since the moment I left, I had an amazing time and saw quite a bit of the local wildlife! The first stop was an animal sanctuary where we got to see injured animals crawling around and still surviving on their broken wings and severed limbs .....sort of like reverse Darwinism at it's finest.
Yes....that is a snake in my pocket.
AAAWWWWWwwwwwwww!!!!!!!
Even though this looks like your typical "drop" bear...heh heh..little Aussie humor there....it's actually a tree kangaroo. Which is funny because I thought it looked like Paddy Scace after a big night out.
Pretty bird......
Pretty bird.....Polly want a cracker?
After that it was time to head up to Mossman Gorge which is a rain forest about a half hour's drive north of Port Douglas.
This is a bridge. Yes, they have those in Australia too.
Whoo hoo, look out Group of Seven!!!
I couldn't resist!
After the nature walk, (in which I and a guy from the Checz Republic got totally lost and ended up getting screamed at by the bus driver for holding up the tour for half an hour,) we departed for the Daintree River Cruise in order to get into Cape Tribulation which is one of the only world heritage rain forests in the world.
This is our guide who was quite entertaining. He told us all about the stupid tourists who'd tried to get that "perfect picture" in the river and ended up having their asses handed to them by a croc!! HA! Stupid tourists! (Remember that for later on.)
Croc!
Red bellied snake! (Very poisonous!)
The first night I got to the lodge I decided that if I was really to experience the natural wonder of the rain forest then I would have to get in touch with nature itself. And what better way to do this than to go on a guided nature walk in the middle of the night?
What I didn't know was that even though I was sweating my balls off it was apparently still too cold for a lot of the animals to come out and play and all we saw were bugs and spiders. Still it was pretty interesting, especially when we turned off all our lights and all you could see was black and hear the the noises of the wildlife all around you. The spider featured above is a "throw" spider, it differs from your traditional spider because it weaves a tine web in the shape of a net and throws it at its victims. Maybe we finally found a way for Fleming to get a date!
I couldn't get a shot of it but two seconds after this pic was taken the frog let loose and pissed all over the guide! Definitely the highlight of the nature walk!
Since I had some time to kill in the morning I decided to grab a few people and hitchhike into the brush to become one with nature!
The Rain forest was really amazing but you had to keep reminding yourself that you were in a rain forest with real animals that could in fact kill you. Australia is home to eight of the ten deadliest snakes in the world. Now include all of the wild boars, frogs, lizards, spiders and crocs and you begin to understand why the Aussies are a little funny...
Ah haaaaaaaaa........Seriously I think I'm getting dumber.....
