My transport arriving.
There were already other people on board who were a young couple from California. Before leaving Cairns we picked up another elderly couple form Minnesota and a few kilometres north of Cairns we picked up a couple of young women at a beach called Yorkeys Knob . They were travelling to Melbourne in a Camper Van/RV and just left it parked on the esplanade for the day. This was the lot for our little vehicle but later we would meet up with another group on a bigger four wheeled drive vehicle with about fifteen people on it.
Our first stop was at Rex Lookout. This has magnificent views of the coastline which we followed for an hour or so.
Views from Rex Lookout and our FWD waiting for us.
Our next stop was at Mossman theoretically to get a cup of tea or coffee but really the last chance to use the loo for a little while.
Our tea stop
We didn't explore area but nineteen years ago Margaret and I visited Mossman Gorge and it swimming hole.
We continued on until we reached the Daintree River where we stopped for more tea the went on a hour long river cruise.
I had done one of these cruises with Margaret and much to her disappointment we never saw a Saltwater Crocodile. Today I saw three admittedly two were only 24 and 50 centimetres long but the third was 2.5 metres and sunning itself on the river bank.
The big crock on the bank.
Mangroves
A cruise boat
The Daintree River
We also saw other wild life such as frogs and fish. The river bank is nearly all mangroves.
The cruise ended on the north bank of the Daintree where our FWDs had crossed over on the cable ferry.
The cable car ferry
We travelled in convoy further north to climb the Alexandra Range and stopped at its lookout. There are some good photos on the link.
We continued north to our lunch stop near Cape Tribulation where we had a barbecue and i bought a glass of quite nice red wine to go with it. I sat with the couple from Minnesota during lunch and found out that, like me, he was an electrical engineer who has ended up working in computing. They received several text messages from home telling that their house was OK in spite of there being 30 inched of snow all around it. We were sitting in 32degrees centigrade hat with a humidity of about 90% and it all seemed a bit unreal.
After lunch we drove up the Bloomfield Track ( which is a rough unmade road until we came to the Emmagen Creek where we stopped. Several people from both FWDs went swimming in the water hole and we all had Billy Tea, a glass of wine and sampled some of the tropical fruit grown in this area.
Next we drove back to Cape Tribulation and took a short walk to the beach.
Cape Tribulation
Then it was back down the track where we stopped at the Daintree Ice Cream Company to sample one of their specials. These are a selection of four ice creams made from locally grown tropical fruit and were very tasty.
Next we headed back to the Daintree River and crossed it on the cable ferry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daintree_River_Ferry and drove back along the coast to our hotels where I was dropped off at 6.30pm.
It was a long day and we had seen some tremendous rain forests and beaches.
I ate dinner at the Night Markets and had grilled barramundi, grilled potato and salad accompanied by a nice Chardonnay. I was in bed by 9.00pm
End of Part 3
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