Daintree Rainforest

Sorry for the long interlude between blog posts!  Not to worry, I have one or two things that I can fill you in on by now.  I'm currently half asleep, almost finished with my laundry, and not even close to unpacked after arriving from Cairns this morning.  Cairns is in tropical north Queensland, and it was our spring break destination.  I still don't really understand that a) spring break ended in October and b) it's October already.  Happy October.  Also happy daylight savings time in Australia - step one to making the time difference even more confusing.

Our whole Colgate group flew up to Cairns early Sunday morning.  Early as in a 4am pick-up so we could get to the airport in time for our plane to be delayed two and a half hours.  Fortunately we had nothing scheduled Sunday - we just settled into our hostel, walked around town a bit, and caught up on some sleep.  Sleep, however, was not easy to come by, given that our hostel (Gilligan's) is a bona fide party hostel, currently housing eleven football teams.  We managed to come back with a few memorable stories.

Our first real day was spent at the Daintree Rainforest, about an hour and a half north of Cairns.  Our guide, Clayton, picked us all up in a bus.  Clayton was very impressive - knew a lot - and had a happy gift for verbiage that filled up our time on all of the drives during the day.  Unfortunately, at seven in the morning we were all struggling to remain attentive (remember the lack of sleep and the eleven football teams?), and those not currently caffeinated eventually gave up the struggle.  Nonetheless, I learned that the rainforest is like quantum physics and I'm supposed to trust my subconscious, though I missed the reasoning as to why.

4-meter crocodile

Our first activity of the day was a relaxing boat ride on the Daintree River to see if we could spot some crocodiles.  The tide was pretty high, so there weren't too many out sunning themselves, but we did see a couple!  These are saltwater crocodiles, the largest living reptiles in the world.  The back of the seats in front of us duly warned us to keep our extremities inside the boat because "crocs can jump."  And since the largest reptile in the world can jump out of the water most of its body length, and since their body lengths can be up to six meters, it's best to listen to the warning signs.  We saw a young crocodile just a few feet long, and a mature crocodile (he had a name, I can't remember it for sure), who was four meters long. 

Then we rejoined Clayton who drove us down a little road into the rain forest, talking the whole way.  We walked a little ways down a rain forest path barefoot.  Australians just really don't like wearing shoes, so we followed his lead.  But it was bizarre to walk through a rain forest in Australia - who's to say what poisonous spiders we placed our bare feet over? - without shoes on.  Clayton went in front "for the snakes."  We stopped to sample local edible plants (a little purple quandong fruit, for instance), and to climb up an enormous hanging vine.  We never stopped long because there were so many mosquitoes. 

Tranquility

After not too long we reached our destination, which is a place called Tranquility.  It was a gorgeous waterfall cascading through the rain forest into a big pool.  After just learning all about the dangerous and deadly saltwater crocodiles that inhabit the whole area, we enthusiastically jumped into the water to go for a truly enjoyable swim.  Clayton said it was safe.  We climbed up on top of the rocks at the base of the waterfall and sat under the cascade.  It was ideal.  Then we headed back through the rain forest, onto the bus, and stopped to eat lunch.

Our afternoon was spent with an Aboriginal guide named Brandon.  He took us down to a beach, past two signs warning us that the water was infested by both jellyfish and crocodiles, and gave us spears.  Our professor didn't realize that we would all be given sharp objects, and was I think vaguely alarmed, but none of us actually managed to spear each other.  Our goal was to go out into the jellyfish and crocodile infested waters to hunt crabs.  Brandon showed us how to throw the spears (though we didn't have to actually throw them to spear the crabs), and had us practice by aiming at a coconut.  I can't aim, but bizarrely I was one of only two people to embed my spear in said coconut.  Maybe I could be a good spear hunter.  Who knew.

We waded out onto the sand flats to look for crabs.  The water was just a bit deep to do this, and in fact we couldn't usually see our feet.  I hate crabs - I'll even admit I'm afraid of crabs - and I couldn't see where I was putting my feet.  It was not the most comfortable feeling, particularly when a large crab scuttled over my left foot (I stood very still and told Brandon which direction it had gone - they'll follow your feet if you jump - but he couldn't find it).  Brandon did spear one large crab on the way out. 

MUD!

But since we weren't finding many crabs, he decided to take us into the mangroves to find periwinkles and mangrove mussels.  This, in theory, was something I could handle.  Mussels don't generally pinch or bite.  But mosquitoes do, and we happened to be in mud up to our knees sometimes, so I still couldn't see where I was putting my feet.  I have a stab wound from a mangrove stalk in the bottom of my foot to prove that.  Brandon told us that the best thing to do to avoid mosquitoes was to cover ourselves in a thick layer of mud.  We were muddy anyway, so this seemed like a good idea.  It did work.  But we were quite a sight to see.  We eventually made it out of the mangroves and were able to wash off in our friendly jellyfish-crocodile-crab-infested waters, so of course then ourselves and our clothes were all soaked (we never saw any jellyfish or crocodiles - so we were lucky, we were visiting at a safe time of year, or the signs were up for insurance purposes).  On the way back across the sand flats people caught a few more crabs, and all told we ended up with three big ones.

Brandon took all eighteen of us to his house across the road and cooked up everything we had caught or gathered.  We also tried a bunch of native plants - hibiscus, for instance, which is very lettuce-like - and collected almonds off of the beach (I think they were almonds?  I can't actually remember).  He let us try everything, along with coconut meat and juice, and sugar cane.  I don't like seafood, but I did try the crab, and it wasn't horrible.  He also told us a lot about Aboriginal hunting techniques.  All in all we did have a very good time, and it was certainly memorable. 

Then we went outside and had to push-start the bus, and drove home without the benefit of lights or a speedometer.  Clayton didn't talk quite the whole way.