Ferry from Sydney to Manly and back

Our last full day here - we hadn't been on the water yet so took the ferry over to Manly.

The Opera House from the harbour

The Opera House from the ferry

People doing the bridge climb - just specks going up to the top...

Zooming in on the bridge climbers

We fly home tomorrow. It's been a great trip full of adventure. Thanks for following along!

Finally a Cassowary

Since we'd failed to see a wild Southern Cassowary in either Mission Beach, Kuranda or the Daintree, we decided to visit Wildlife Habitat in Port Douglas. We were in time for the Rainforest and Cassowary feeding tour, so followed our guide as she pushed a cart with trays of food. The birds were much more polite than the ones at Birdworld in Kuranda, and didn't land on us expecting food, pull hair, or anything like that, but waited patiently until fruit and seeds were attached to trees for them. This photo below doesn't do justice to the size of Cassowaries...they're huge!

Cass the female Cassowary

Gouldian Finch

Lesser Sooty Owl

A pair of Tawny Frogmouths

Over in the Grasslands exhibit, there were Wallabies and Kangaroos waiting to be fed; this area didn't have netting over the top, so lots of Magpie Geese - called freeloaders by staff - would quietly walk right up and steal the food right out of your hand, or even try to snatch the whole bag of food!

Feeding Northern Nailtail Wallabies

An Emu

Alligators with their mouths open - to cool off?

Big male crocodile - glad we didn't see any of these in the wild

The sign said this big fellow is 4.2 metres long, weighs 380 kilograms and is about 50 years old. They keep growing all their lives, and in captivity can live to about 100 years old, so imagine how big he could get! We saw a tiny baby croc on a riverbank from the safety of a boat - none of these big ones.

A day in the Daintree

The Daintree is the oldest surviving rainforest in the world. On our day tour, we were lucky to have a guide who was not only knowledgeable and passionate about his topic, but also a natural storyteller.

We were hoping to see a wild Cassowary, but only saw signs telling drivers to watch out for them on the road; we liked this one that's been very creatively altered - the top one is a speed bump sign with additions:

We were a group of 8: our guide Cam, a couple from Melbourne, 2 fellows from California, a young woman from France, and us. Once Cam and the two other Aussies found out we were interested in local slang and idioms, the day was made even more fun. When we stopped for a morning break, it was a "smoko," where we had freshly made Lamingtons: sponge cake rolled in chocolate then coconut. Yum!

Further up the road we came to the Daintree river and waited for the cable ferry to take us across. On the South side of the river are the Lumholtz Tree Kangaroos, and on the North side there's a different kind - the Bennett Tree Kangaroos - why don't they mix?  Well, if they tried to cross the river they would be eaten by crocodiles!

A short walk through the rainforest takes you to the beach

Where two World Heritage Sites meet

At Thornton we walked on the beach - it's the only place in the world where two World Heritage listed sites meet - the Daintree Rainforest goes right down to the Great Barrier Reef. Poor James Cook had no idea the reef came in so close to shore and found out the hard way: his ship the Endevour went aground - he finally refloated it and was able to get into a spot to do repairs.  The place names around there reflect his mood: Cape Tribulation and Weary Bay for example.

After lunch we stopped at the Daintree Ice Cream Company - they make tropical fruit ice cream with fruit from their own orchard. There's still some privately owned land up there, but as it comes on the market the government is buying it back so that it goes into the National Park.

Heading south again, we turned inland and drove into a cattle station (ranch), where Cam parked the small van and we piled into an old 4x4 Toyota Landcruiser - so old he started it with a screwdriver! We sat on benches in the back - it was open top and sides. I'm not sure it had much of a muffler left - we roared along a narrow dusty track, up, down and around small hills, splashing through two creeks and at one point "chasing" two calves ahead of us until they turned off into the grass. In a clearing we parked, walked down a trail to a pristine natural pool filled by a lovely waterfall, and swam in the cool water.  We looked down at the fish, saw a few turtles, marvelled at the vegetation, and generally felt privileged to be in such a beautiful place on a sunny day.

This far upstream the water is too cold for crocodiles

Port Douglas

Founded in 1877 to serve the gold miners, Port Douglas has had a boom and bust history. After a devastating cyclone in 1911, and later a decision to route a railway to the goldfields from Cairns instead of "Port" as locals call it, the population dwindled. It was a sleepy fishing village until the Cairns international airport went in; that brought tourists in the 80's and now tourism is the driving force here.

The town is at the end of a peninsula, with Flagstaff Hill at the tip, and on our walk up to the lookout, we enjoyed a great view of Four Mile Beach, which is on one side - the river is on the other.

Four Mile beach

A cairn at the top told us that Buenos Aires is 13,842 kms away, Cape Town is 13,250 kms, and Vancouver 11,484 kms.
Later we walked to the riverside restaurant On the Inlet, as they feed an enormous Queensland groper fish at precisely 5:00 p.m. We were told, however, that there were no groper feedings until at least Saturday as a rather large 4 metre long crocodile had been coming by to see what food he could find...

No groper feeding from the riverside deck until the croc goes away...

What is that?

"What is that?" said Brad as we drove slowly along the country road, then stopped. When the critter looked up and started hopping towards us we realized it was a tree kangaroo. We'd hoped to see one, and had been looking in trees along Peterson Creek to no avail, so it was fantastic to see one up close - it stopped right in front of the car and looked at us, before climbing a small bank, stopping again, then disappearing into the grass.

the tree kangaroo in mid hop

When we saw this fellow we were on our way to the Nerada Tea Company Visitor Centre. They grow the tea there, harvest and process it, then send it to their packaging plant in Brisbane.

Fields and fields of tea

the usual view of tree kangaroos

Fruit bats

After a walk through the Tableland Regional Art Gallery in the town of Atherton, we headed off to find the Bat Hospital; we had booked a tour for the afternoon. At the moment the Bat Hospital is reasonably quiet, staffed by one volunteer and two employees. The bats that have arrived have either been caught in netting put up by farmers to protect their fruit, or injured by barbed wire, or are sick because of ticks.

The Flying foxes like being in the sun

All the fruit will be gone by morning

Platypus

When early morning mist envelopes you and water drips from the trees it's a reminder that you're in the
Wet Tropics, though this is year three of drought, with much less rainfall than usual. We were up early, just after dawn, to quietly walk the trail beside Peterson Creek looking for platypus. And we did see a few in the murky water.

Bush Stone Curlew

Yungaburra

Yungaburra is a tiny village southwest of Cairns, in the Atherton Tablelands; the name means "meeting place" in Indigenous language - many groups have lived here for at least 60,000 years. Lured by gold and tin, Europeans began settling here in 1890, and 19 buildings in the village date back to early years.

The Butchery

The Butchery is listed on the Heritage Register and has "traded continuously as a butcher's shop through wars, depressions, recessions and cyclones" according to a walking tour pamphlet.

A popular place for cyclists to stop on weekends

The Whistle Stop Cafe was the Bank of New South Wales from 1913 to 1967; it was here that we first saw a small local history book called The Pioneers Speak, compiled by Meryl Allen for the district centenary in 1990.  It has some wonderful photographs. It was a hard life for the first settlers - a pioneer saying in the book is "the soil was so good that when you planted corn it would come up overnight - it did too, for the bandicoots would bring it up."  One of the first European women to reach the Tableland packed her two small children into kerosene tins that dangled from the side of a mule.

Finding Nemo

"Roll call!"  When we heard that cry we had to stay put wherever we were on the boat until the head count was complete; they couldn't pull up anchor and get underway until everyone on board was accounted for.
We're now back on land, feeling like we're still on a boat, and thinking of the awesome trip we had on the
Spirit of Freedom, from Cairns up the Ribbon Reefs all the way to Lizard Island, 250 kms north of Cairns.
A 12 passenger Cessna brought us back.  Here are a few photos:

An Anemone fish - aNEMOne 

Me top left watching a diver feed a Potato Cod

Green Turtle

The tender takes us out to the reef to snorkel

A night dive - different coloured glow sticks for each team

lizard on Lizard Island

Flying back to Cairns

Train to Kuranda and Skyrail back

I shrieked when the parrot landed on my shoulder as I didn't see it coming. We had just stepped into Birdworld, with a bag of seeds. At the entrance we were told to take off earrings and necklaces, as some of the Birdworld residents were sure to attack jewellry with their powerful beaks. One determined fellow kept landing on Brad's ballcap trying to pull off the button, and another was chewing on R's hair.

This bird was attacking R's hair!

A Pied Heron native to Australia

This Dusky Lorikeet is from Papua New Guinea

In the Kuranda Koala gardens the Koalas were sleeping in various poses:

We had travelled up on the Kuranda Scenic Railway in the morning; the narrow gauge rail line was built to provide access to the goldfields west of Cairns. The mainly Irish and Italian workers had to provide their own tools and work in dense jungle where they removed "2.3 million metres of earthworks, creating 15 tunnels, 93 curves, dozens of bridges and 75 kilometres of track."

Crossing the biggest trestle

To get back down we took the Skyrail, which is actually 3 gondolas; at each station we got off and walked on a boardwalk through jungle or went to a lookout over the Barron Falls and river.

Skyrail over the rainforest

We really enjoyed our day trip to Kuranda - here are some quotes from the group:
R: "I was terrified - there were birds attacking, and my life dream of seeing koalas came true"
G: "I thought it was going to be exciting, but not THAT exciting"
B: "birds were pretty, koalas were cute, but why didn't I get to go to the venom zoo?'
me: "where was the Cassowary???"

Mission Beach to Cairns

Still on the trail of the wild Cassowary, we got up early to walk to the beach, hoping for wildlife sightings. We'd only just rounded a corner when we saw a kangaroo hop out of the bush. Good thing Brad took several photos - the first was blurry (like the ones taken in Noosa sadly), the second clear but funny, and finally the third was pretty good.

It's hard to photograph a kangaroo in the wild...

An Eastern Grey kangaroo 

I walked faster after seeing this on a small bridge...

So once in Cairns, our road trip came to an end; we'd driven 2006 kms. It was enjoyable - we just wished we'd had even more time, as there was lots to see.