Sugar, Sugar Rainforest tours with crocodile and cassowary
“Nearby?” Nazy asked. “If it’s nearby, why are we leaving so early?”
“A very astute question, my dear,” I replied, non-informatively.
We were met by Pete, a guide who was clearly trapped in the late 1960’s. The music on his van included “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “Classical Gas”. Both were the original versions, by the way. I was waiting for him to turn on replays of the Smothers Brothers show. His favorite phrase was “No Worries” and he call us “gang”. On the way to the rainforest, while most people were sleeping, Pete talked a lot about …
“… sugar. That’s sugar cane growing on both sides of the road gang,” Pete explained. “Most Australian sugar is exported. Let me tell you about the difference in ‘raw’ sugar and white sugar.”
“That sounds so very exciting,” I thought. (Nazy was asleep.)
“The brown sugar that some people get because it is ‘healthier’, is simply dirty sugar. It has exactly the same calories and content except that it also has a small percentage of dirt. White sugar is cleaner.”
“Wow!” I replied. “Splenda comes in a yellow bag,” I thought, nursing the Coke Zero that I had smuggled onto the van.
Pete talked at length about the major things we wanted to see in Daintree…
“… giant crocodiles and the fierce cassowary. The crocodile can eat you whole and the cassowary can rip out your guts with its middle claw.
“And we want to see these?” I thought. Nazy and I had, in fact, seen both animals at a Sydney wildlife park. The Cassowary, which looks like a dinosaur raptor, is the second heaviest bird on the planet. The crocodile, named Dundee, is a well-known movie star.
As we drove out of town (musical background: ‘Sweet Caroline’ and "Sugar Sugar"), I noticed that a very large proportion of the houses we passed had corrugated metal roofs. Internet research indicates that this is a popular roofing material, called ‘Iconic Australian’, in the country. We also passed fields full of hopping kangaroos. The first stop was on the Daintree River, where we took a boat ride in search of …
Nazy and I got on the boat with a guide heading down river. It was a one hour cruise and we saw a pair of crocodile eyes jutting out of the water from a distance. (From a great distance.) We were reminded that these were wild animals and they were not offered chickens to get them to come into view. In short, there was a lot of talk about giant crocodiles but..
“In my opinion, the whole croc expedition is a crock.” I mumbled to Nazy.
“That’s a big one..” the guide announced. “Five meters at least.”
“But grandmother, such big eyes you have,” I thought. (Fairy tales seemed appropriate.)
After the river expedition, Nazy, the ‘gang’ and I, rejoined Peter who drove us deeper into the rain forest. As we drove to the start of the hike, Peter reminded us to be on the look out for the Cassowary.
“They are big and quiet. It could come at any time. Don’t go close…”
“An alien abduction is more likely,” I thought.
Peter turned up the music, this time it was about raindrops falling on our heads, as we continued on.
We didn’t see a cassowary, but we did see a dragon — and some beautiful scenery.
From there it was on to Cape Tribulation, a beach on the Coral Sea. We were warned to stay out of the water. We couldn't even dip our toes at the waterline because of box jellyfish — most lethal.
The beach was beautiful and deserted. The Daintree Tropical Rainforest, one of the very oldest in the world, was unexpected in the sense that I simply hadn’t thought of Australia and rainforests in any linked context. This part of Northern Australia (the province is called Queensland) was tropical: hot and humid. It was also beautiful with absolutely perfect blue skies (with puffy white clouds).
We stayed at the Abbot Boutique hotel (where Jimmy Carter stayed when he visited). It was very well located, but a little strange. The front office was only occupied from 10:00AM to 6:00PM. We not only left every day before they opened, but we also returned everyday after they closed. We never saw anyone at the front desk.
Our stay in hot and humid tropical Australia was ending. We had a (sigh) very early flight to Ayers Rock in the middle of Australia. The forecast for Ayers Rock was hot. (They don’t do humid in that part of Australia.)
It took about three hours to fly from Cairns to Ayers Rock. From the airplane it appeared that there was no human habitation between Ayers Rock and Cairns. More accurately, it appeared like we were flying over Mars. But the flight smooth and the arrival on-time. More on Ayers Rock, Uluru and Kata Tjuta in the next issue of The Weekly Letter.
For last week's letter, please click here
More photos of Queensland