I am still in the sunshine state without any sunshine today. The day began early, because the bus picked me up at 6.55 am for a tour to Cape Tribulation. They advertise this as a tour to a place where Reef meets Forest, so that sounded promising.

The first stop was at Port Douglas, and I was surprised to find out that I apparently booked the whole package, this means that a visit to the Zoo and a lunch later was included. Unexpected, because I booked this trip back in August, via a company in Australia. But it was nice to have 1.5 hour in the Zoo. My german roommate Nina had booked the same trip so we hang out a bit together today. A stroll through the zoo untill we made it to the Kangaroos. They're so cute, and you can feed them here too. The only bad thing probably were those big birds, and I have no idea what they are called, but they seemed to be gooses, just as agressive these ones. We also saw a mother kangaroo with her baby, too cute for words!

After this visit, the next stop of the bus was in Mossman Gorge. We did a walk through the rainforest to the river and back. I know that this is a rainforest, but this doesn't mean it should rain most of the day! Unfortunately it did, I don't remember many dry moments to be honest. ;) Ah well, it's still tropical here, so even the rain is warm on your skin. Plus, our guide told us that they get 6 times as much rain as they get in London, in a year, so there's nothing to complain about any more. 60 cm a year in London, 4 meters here in the rainforest.

I do like those one day tours a lot, because you get to meet other people, you see a lot in one day, and the guides do have a lot of knowledge. Us dutchies have been so stupid in the past. We discovered Australia first, but they looked for trees then, to fix their ships, and when you arrive in Western Australia first, there are not many trees. So the dutch left Australia alone, although on dutch maps they named it New-Holland. This way, they did discover New Zealand too, and guess what? They gave the name New Zealand (with Zealand being some kind of translation of our province Zeeland) and again they didn't do something here. So the english came, under the command of Captain Cook, and yeah, now they speak english here and drive on the left. Pfff, if only history could be remade haha. :-)

We made our way to our lunchbreak, which was in a beachhouse in the national park Daintree forest. It's a place to really have an easy lifestyle. Teh mobile phones do not work there, and still you could see damage caused by the last cyclone that passed here. The lunch was a warm lunch, a steak with fries and salad, and the desert was a big plate with fresh fruits. Delicious. We can't go swimming these days in the sea unfortunately, because the season brings crocodiles and stingers close to the beaches. We got to take some pictures, chatted a bit with a group of girls before going back to the bus.

The afternoon program was a rivercruise to spot crocodiles and snakes in the
Daintree River. Unfortunately it only rained harder when we entered the boat, and this must have scared away the crocs too. In the whole hour trip on the boat we just saqw one croc, being lazy on the riverbank. The boat man told us that he was warming up again on the land. So it was a bit disappointing to us that we didn't see more, but the more mosquitos knew where we were. Without hiding his laughter, our guide told that they especially like the Europeans. Shame those annoying flying animals didn't listen to me when I told them it was my blood and not theirs. :(

Via a lookout we made our way back to Cairns, guided by more rain. I had a nice dinner at the seafront with my german roommate and now we're back in the hostel. I quite like the YHA's, this one even has a pool. Pity though that the social area to sit together is right in front of our room :P. But that's why one invented earplugs. :) So it will be an early night for me again, I am off to Fitzroy Island tomorrow, and I do have lunch included and snorkling gear. I never did it in my life, so we'll see how I go. Hopefully my ears won't get infected by the water, that's my only concern. I hope the rain stays here in Cairns, I want to feel the sun on my skin and work on my tan. After all, I am in the tropical north, so bring it on, this tropical sunshine!