2020-03-22 – Daintree Rain Forest National Park

It is rather overcast and dreary and a bit rainy but we are off again anyway.  With all of the rain in this area it is very green.  

The countryside north of Port Douglas is sugar cane country…and we saw lots of sugar cane fields.

We had a stop for morning tea in the sugar town of Mossman.  

After tea we had a brief stop at the Church of St. David.  It is a tiny church but it took over 100 year to build it because of two world wars and a depression…they kept running out of money. 

The Mossman Gorge (supposed to be gorgeous) was closed due to construction and also due to shutdowns because of the virus. So, our first stop was for a river cruise.  The shop had specimens of various butterflies, a giant moth and walking stick insects that are found in the rainforest. 

They also had a giant Golden Orb spider, with its web, just outside the door.

The cruise on the Daintree River was very wet at times but very beautiful.  

We later also took a hike near Cape Tribulation.  

Near the beach at Cape Tribulation we saw this warning sign. 

Between the the cape and the cruise there were a lot of things to see.  We saw sunbird nests,

and lots of mangroves.

There was a large stretch of mangroves that had had the leaves pretty well stripped from the tops of the trees.  This was the work of bats.

  snorkel roots (from the mangrove trees so they can get air through these roots),

We also saw mangrove apples,

cannonball mangroves,

staghorn ferns

mangrove seed pods,

termite nests,

white fungi,

basket ferns,

a lattice work strangler fig (the tree it had grown on had died and decayed away),

fruit bats,

and green butt ants.

Shortly after setting sail we spotted our first logodile (a log mistaken for a crocodile).

We also saw a couple of crocodiles although one was so far back in the mangroves he could barely be seen.   

Scarface, on the other hand, was right out where we could see him.  He is one of about 50 alpha male crocodiles on the Daintree River.  He is estimated to be about 70 years old and is about 4.5 meters long (~15 feet).  We couldn’t see much of him but what we could see was pretty formidable.

We also saw a few little birds including an azure kingfisher,

a shining flycatcher,

and a welcome swallow.  This one we saw sitting a railing on the ferry, just outside our car window.

The guide also spotted a Goliath Stick Insect on a leaf.  It's amazing that he was able to see it because it blended in perfectly with the leaf.

We also saw a cassowary with two chicks.  The male was buried in the brush and could only see him by movement but we saw a tiny bit of the chicks.

We saw another cassowary later in a parking lot.  She wasn’t interested in posing for pictures. 

Someone got creative with some road signs. As in the US, the roads have warning signs about the presence of animals. This one was warning about the cassowaries in the area and also an upcoming speed bump. The editing was pretty funny.

The entire rain forest was experience was amazing.

Our afternoon tea break was at a tea and fruit farm where we had interesting flavored ice cream.  Their flavors are from the produce and products from the farm and surrounding area.  We had Davidson Plum, banana, wattleseed and jackfruit (if we remember correctly).
  

What we could see of the coastline on the way back was pretty...but somewhat obscured by all the rain.

We had dinner at a restaurant on the main street of Port Douglas.  On the way home there were thousands of birds settling into some trees for the night.  No one could tell us what type they were.

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Video of night birds
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