In other news – I have had an AMAZING last few days. Well, Saturday was pretty standard. We didn’t manage to book anything too interesting or exciting to do. So I ran for the longest straight run I’ve ever done (half hour straight of running, about 4km) and then my sister and I ran around the town and did some cheesy souvenir shopping for people back home. Its always a combination of feeling way too touristy for comfort and super amused at all the “awesome” touristy junk they sell at some of these places. I was relatively successful in my endeavours that day so some people back home should be expecting some super exciting things (not that I expect them to really read this
)But Friday and Sunday were probably the best days of my trip. Not “so far” no, best days period. We’ll start with Friday seeing as its chronological and all.
So FRIDAY was the day I did something I have wanted to do since I knew there was, frack I don’t even know how small. FRIDAY we went snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef. FRIDAY was absolutely AMAZING. I want to say Friday was the best day of my trip, but between that and Sunday it’s really hard to compare.
So we got up early on Friday to catch a shuttle bus from our “holiday apartment” to the marina. Which was relatively pointless because we could have walked there in the same amount of time since it’s so close. The tour we went with was called Aristocat, and for a generic Reef tour it was great. Of course, now that I’ve done it once I want to do it again – but this time not on a crowded tour that only takes us to the “tourist” sports that are apparently not to the same quality of reef. But I digress (… which is pretty normal for me). Aristrocat is a smaller company with a boat that only holds about 100 or so people and gives you the opportunity to dive or to snorkel in three different locations around the reef, depending on how much money you wish to spend. If you’re travelling to the Port Douglas area and want to find out more about them, their webpage is here: http://www.aristocat.com.au/rates_snorkel_Port_Douglas.htm
So my sister sat out on the upper deck the entire time and met a very interesting couple who we sat with for the rest of the trip. The Guy, Pete, was from Yorkshire, England originally but now lives in France and works as a tour guide. The girl, Sarah, springs from Melbourne. They met when she went on one of his tours last year and are now having one hell of a long distance relationship lol.
But as lovely as these people where, the best part was hands down the reef! Each site was increasingly deeper and contain increasingly more diverse flora and fauna and all were just BEAUTIFUL. It’s hard for me to describe exactly how it looked. LUCKILY my darling sister is a hot, spunky redhead with a scubadiving camera. Why, you ask, is that lucky? Because it attracted the attention of the professional photographer on board whose job it is to take pictures of people in the reef and sell them at the end of the trip. He spent much time trying to, um, educate my darling sister on photography. And at the end of the day, gave her a CD with every single picture he had on his computer of the reef. So we ended up with pictures like
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| Sea Tutrle we ACTUALLY SAW! Picture by Brice Bastier |
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| Great Barrier Reef Picture by Brice Bastier |
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| Coral and Fishies Picture by Brice Bastier |
Aside from all the amazing things we saw in the actual reef, we saw a few pretty cool things while on the boat as well. And by that I mean on three separate occasions we saw whales! That was a dream come true for me, hands down. On the way to the reef we saw a mommy and baby Humpback whale that had decided another tour boat would be fun to play with for a while. Leaving the third snorkel site a Minke whale swam by us and oh the way back into the harbour we saw three more humpback whales. If I never made it into the reef that day, the whole thing would still have been worth it just for that reason! I want to do it again!
And then there was SUNDAY. SUNDAY was super fun as well, but for completely different reasons. SUNDAY we went to the Daintree Rainforest. The tour group we went with was called Daintree Discovery. They’re also a smaller group but I don’t think we could have had a better one. Our tour guides name was Chris and he was amazing. Very chatty and funny and had an obvious passion for the rainforest. He had all sorts of little tidbits about the rainforest, could tell you its history from the time it used to be an ocean floor right up until it is what it is now, a collection of mountainous rainforest. And he is a HUGE conservationist. He made so many very passionate arguments for the saving of the rainforest. Many many many passionate arguments for the saving of the rainforest… in fact, it was his main topic of conversation. Honestly tho, he was awesome and if you ever take this tour, try and get him. Its worth it. If anyone is interested in learning more, this is their website:http://www.daintreediscoverytours.com.au/ and this is their facebook: http://www.facebook.com/daintreediscoverytours.
This tour started early as well. First place we went was Mossman Gorge, a big tourist haven. It was very very pretty (GORGE-us if you will. I am way over-using that joke) and we managed to beat the tourist rush since we got there so early in the morning.
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| Mossman Gorge |
.Then we headed up into the hills. Unfortunately we couldn't go in too far as we were driving so we had to follow the road. The horrible, evil manmade road that cuts right through the forest and causes landslides and forest degradation. But you know, since its there we might as well use it. We were brought up to a view that in my opinion has to be one of the best views in Australia. So pretty!
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| Veiw of Daintee to Ocean |
After that we piled back in the car and headed off to Cape Tribulation. It’s a beach point where Rainforest meets ocean, a very rare occurrence as Rainforest cannot survive off salt water. The water is stopped by Mangrove trees whose tangle of roots will trap and use ocean water or run-off rainwater from the hills. While we were there we saw some awesome insects, including a blue stick bug, a spider about the size of my hand, green ants whose venom is vitamin C and a bright yellow caterpillar that stands on end when threatened. Unfortunately I’m really bad with nomenclature and don’t actually remember the names of these creatures. But they were really cool.
After that was a lunch and a walk in the forest in our secluded little picnic area. Honestly, I could just watch in that forest all day. We were told there was a change of seeing Casowaries (iconic bid of the forest) but alas we did not. We saw a lot of their droppings however. We then went to an ice cream place for a quick stop before heading up to the grand finally of the trip, off-roading up to Casowary Falls! Off-roading wasn’t REALLY all that exciting as we were with a bunch of old people (
) who didn’t want to go fast, but the falls were just amazing. This gorgeous swimming hole under a cascade of water. Water was slightly frigid, but totally worth swimming in and you got used to it after a while. |
| Sister and I diving into Casowary Falls |
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| Our Tour Group |
I have to say Internets, this was one of my hardest blogs to write because there is SO much detail I am editing out (such as how AMAZING the Rainforest smelled). I figure it’s long enough already and I’m sure you have more to do with you day than read overly-detailed accounts of my trip. So I shalt babble at yous laters! Au Rivour!
That sounds amazing. I hated Daintree when I was there, but now I think it was probably because of the tour I was with, because your tour sounds awesome :)
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