The Daintree Rainforest

Friday, February 29, 2008
Port Douglas and the Daintree Rainforest

David picked us up at 7:00 for the 80 minute drive to the forest. It was a beautiful drive, much of it along the coast. We sure were relieved when we saw the Queen Victoria anchored offshore! Many people were stopped along the road to take pictures.

We arrived at Thylogale (scientific name for the Pademelon) which is the name of David's property and a wildlife refuge and nature conservancy. We were lathered up with insect repellent as instructed, but luckily there weren't many bugs.

We set off on our walk into the rainforest. Part of the area was new forest that had been cleared years ago but was regrowing due to the nearness of the original forest. This land was adjacent to the old forest, so it was good to see the contrast.

We were greeted by a Pademelon named Elizabeth. She was very tame and hopped along with her joey in her pouch. (More photos on David's website.) David fed the Pademelons sweet potato slices or something that looked like that anyway. They were very tame with him and he knows them all by name. These other creatures that look like rats were also members of the kangaroo family. I forgot their name, but they are very rare. I would say there were at least 10 Pademelons that hopped along with us at different times and many birds etc. We fell down on the photos on this trip. It was kind of dark in there and it was hard to photograph. We learned a lot about trees, fungi etc.

Toward the end we had a break for tea. David heated the water in t his little shelter and all of the animals gathered around.One of the best things about it was the slow pace and the feeling we were really being absorbed into the forest. We had a great morning and learned a lot. Sorry we didn't get more photos.

David drove us back to town and to the marina to catch our tender back to the ship.

As we were going through the marina on the tender, I saw a man sitting near us that had on a light blue polo shirt with a small NASA insignia on it. I had this urge to joke to him…”Is that shirt a souvenir or did you earn it?” It turns out that he was a lecturer that had come aboard in Sydney after we left. He is Walter Cunningham the astronaut. He is a great speaker and we really enjoyed him the next day. One of the fun facts he told us was that he figured out that he earned $700 to fly to the moon, but if he had been paid 40 cents a mile he would have made millions. He did say twice that it is a job that any of them would have been happy to do for no pay. I would really like to read his book The All American Boys, but they are out of it in the onboard bookshop.

When we returned to the ship we were greeted with a nice treat of fruit and champagne from our Marco Island friends Vince and Debbie (the drawer shoppers from our Ft Lauderdale port day).
The next day we met Bob and Cathy, friends of Vince and Debbie from Brisbane that boarded in Sydney while we were off the ship. We had a fun lunch in the pub and talked about how much we wished Vince and Debbie were on the ship with us. I know one thing, if they were we would be having SkipBo Tournaments!