Driving on the wrong side of the road takes nerves of steel - at least for the first few hours, but Mike managed to drive us, as dusk approached, up the coastal 'Cook Highway' to Port Douglas. By the time we arrived at "By the Sea' rentals it was nightfall. We could hear the surf from 4 mile beach from our room. Even though it's summer, in Queensland (Cairns, Brisbane and Port Douglas), it gets dark by 7 pm because they don't follow daylight saving. This is a booming resort town with huge yachts parked in the marina. The attraction is the combination of rainforest and reef. Lot's more barrier reef tour operators and trips to Daintree rainforest.
We found Port Douglas charming. It's much smaller than Cairns with one main street with lot's of interesting shops and restaurants. There were many young families staying in apartment rentals. The 4 mile beach is beautiful, but the swimming area is quite limited due to the poisonous box jellyfish and crocodiles that make their home in the warm surf. The coral sea is very warm here at this time of year. The water temperature has to be in the 28-30C range. Crocodiles like this temperature (according to our river guide).
The rainforest comes down almost to the coast here. A rail line devoted to transporting sugar cane runs along the highway and sugar cane fields of high grass blowing in the wind grows everywhere. This is 'the wet' and the rain is relentless at times. We drove up to Daintree and visited the Mossman gorge. The locals were enjoying a refreshing swim in cool fresh water in the gorge. Our river guide says the crocs don't like it less than 24C or they go into a 'hibernation' mode. Although he personally would never swim in the gorge because they have been known to migrate there
The crocodile expedition travels down the Mossman river. This river runs from the rainforest to the sea. You have to take a small ferry across to follow the highway up to 'the top end' where the outback or 'track' takes you on to the norther territory. Yuan, our river guide, had a healthy respect for 'crocs'. He has lived most of his life in the rainforest. He knew everything about the habits of the great predator - the crocodile. He saw a black bear when he visited Canada and it was clearly the highlight of his trip. MIke and I didn't have the heart to tell him the black bears plague the garbage dumps up north and seem to be as plentiful as skunks.
Some quick facts he gave us about this incredible predator: it continues to grow throughout its' lifespan and that can be over 200 year: it has been known to grow to over 27 feet long; it only likes the warm water and may only eat once a month. Our guide spoke of people who had been 'taken' by the croc rather than a croc attack. His view was that sharks might attack you and you could escape or live, but rarely does anyone survive a crocodile. Mike says you just have to run zig zag because they can't make turns, but that won't help you in the water. As they get older they loose their teeth and then they fall prey to younger crocodiles. They're territorial an fight to the death for their patch of the river. Old scar face was described in detail to us as the oldest living croc in the river who had exposed pieces of bone from his numerous fights with younger challengers. He reckoned he would meet his 'Waterloo' sooner or later to a younger, tougher croc who was cruising the river. When we didn't see anything larger than a 1-2 year old during the cruise, Mike suggested he put the stuffed crocodile from the jetty in the water for the tourists, I think he was a little offended because he told MIke that he could get arrested for something like that. The fascination to me was the healthy respect our guide had for this creatures ability to adapt through the ages.
The next day we drove to another rainforest village Kuranda. This is another world heritage site between Port Douglas and Cairns. The cyclone was still swirling about causing a lot of rain, but we drove up to see this village in the 'Great Divide Mountain Range' on our way back to the airport. The views of Barron falls and the forest were stunning. It's actually quite dark in the rainforest.
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