FNQ - Part 2 of 2

Our first full day in Port Douglas was spent walking through the serene (at this time of year...it is a raging and violent river during the rainy seaon) Mossman Gorge, with it's lovely waterfalls and pathway through the rainforest.  Then came the first highlight of our trip: a cruise on the Daintree River.  The Daintree River is an estuary, full of snakes, crocodiles and sometimes even sharks!  Where could you find more danger!

Mossman Gorge

The crocodiles are really quite sneaky.  They can stay very still for hours at a time, and you really wouldn't know they are there.

We were lucky to pull up right beside one that was resting on a sandbar (her name is Gump, she is about 10 years old, and is approx 3 metres long), then we chugged around and tried to spot some lurking in the water.  They are VERY hard to spot, even when the guide points them out.  They look very much like semi-submerged logs, and have a tendency to hang out amongst the logs, so it takes a well trained eye to see them right away.  We saw a number of sizes of crocodiles, lots of birds and even a pretty cute tree snake.  It might sound like a creepy trip, but we both enjoyed it immensely and would strongly recommend it to anyone.

Gump the croc on her sandbar, log-looking sneaky croc...just waiting for one of us to fall in the water!

Tree snake, her head is in the middle of the photo

The following day we drove out to Cape Tribulation, where Captain Cook and his crew were stranded for three months, doing repairs to their ship after the Endeavour hit the reef.  There are much worse places to be stranded than this!

Cape Tribulation

On Thursday we took a catamaran trip out to the Low Isles on the inner Great Barrier Reef.  It was a fantastic trip and an easily the second highlight of our trip (although it ties for first place!)  We were really lucky to be on a boat that can take up to 23 passengers, but only 7 were booked that day.  It felt like we were on a private charter.  The water was lovely and we saw all kinds of beautiful soft corals, turtles, brilliantly coloured fish (we found Nemo!) and even some rather cute black-tipped reef sharks.  The sharks hung around the boat after lunch, waiting for the free prawns, left over from lunch.  They know how to get a free meal!  This was a wonderful way to see the reef...it was a brilliant sunny day, JB learned how to snorkel and JT got to steer the boat...the $2.5 million dollar boat! 

Green Turtle out for a swim

Low Isles, where we went snorkelling

Finally we had one last day to see Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas and go for a swim in the sea and then again back at the hotel pool.  We loved this trip so much that we realize we could easily spend all of our vacations travelling around to see Australia.  Our only problem is trying to decide where to go next!

Four Mile Beach, Port Douglas