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.

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...