Part I (Sorry this is so very late..here’s the rest of the Daintree trip)
We camped on the beach, right in the middle of these two mountains sloping into the most serene and clear blue, a blue I’m having trouble describing..other than serene.. There were palm trees lining the beach and just beyond those were gum trees, eucalyptus, all the other typical aussie trees. The scene looking from the water back onto land actually reminded me exactly of swimming in the South China Sea at camp Permai in Malaysia. So beautiful, only there’s no monkies in the trees but there are kangaroos that can actually climb to the top of these massive rainforest trees, amazing!
But..let’s see…so that night we just stayed up all night, we brought some beers and waited for the tide to go out, it went out so far that we walked out to where the rocks that were usually 4 1/2 feet under water started to be land level. It was amazing to walk out that far into what just a few hours before was the ocean, well, it was until I stepped on some Fire Coral. Cut my toe and it burns unbelievably.
Next morning woke up to the most neon sun I’ve ever seen. It was a mix between neon pink and orange and it reflected almost perfectly the colors onto the light blue ocean. It was the most colorful and amazing thing I’ve seen, and I’m sorry I can’t share it with you but that night I dropped my camera in the sand in the midst of a photo..Louma fell out of his chair and we were snapping pictures, and the regretably, in mid pass or something, completely opened it dropped into the tiny granuals of sand.. It gets so unbearably hot as soon as the sun is fully crept over the horizon that you can’t do anything, even the shade is dreadful. So, despite the dangers of Stinger/Bluey/Jelly fish season (the huge deadly ones) we decided to go snorkeling! BEST DECISION EVER. I think if I weren’t me, I’d want to be a fish in the Great Barrier Reef. I saw so many fish that Dad would have love to have seen. All the fish he paid all that money for, (just for that stupid arrow crab to eat..) Saw all of them in schools of fish swimming around. It was the most beautiful site! I saw coral, sea aneomes, pin fish, those Dora fish, huuuuge fish, I don’t even know the names of all the fish I saw, and we weren’t even out far, just as far as I would swim, which was pretty far, but nto like we took a kayak out or anything, I can’t imagine what would be out just a little further even. Levi and I even did a swim through, where there was a rock cave, so we swam through from one side to the other. Made me nervous but I’m glad I did it. Oh, and while I snorkeld Levi cast a line, and twice I got caught by the stupid thing. Not because he cast it towards me but beacuse I swam too close to him while we were swimming between rocks. I got nervous of the jellies. ANyways, snorkeling is my new favorite activity…at least until I get to scube dive!!
After swimming we went up the mountain more, very steep, very beautiufl trees. They are HUGE and then whats even more beautiful is that a white vine, sometimes as thick as the big trees themselves, wrap themselves up teh tree and make absolutely beautiful weaving patterns. The texture and color greens of the different levels of trees against one another going up the mountain is the most beautiful color palat you could imagine for one color. That is why green is my favorite. But I digress..so we set up camp next to a river and made some lunch and decided to go explore up the river. It was so fun to hike up this river which was draped with trees and filled with small stepping stones of rocks in some places, boulders in others, and tiny cascades in other places. As we walked along the river we made it a game to see who would fall first, then in what order, and then who fell the most and most dramatic because the rocks became so slippery. Somtimes it was just easier to walk on the rocks with our hands even though the water was only a few inches deep. At other points it was a refreshing 6 feet deep in which we would stop and swim for a bit. I was finally having the adventure that I pictures myself to have while here in Oz. We went all the way up the ricer until we reached a perfect little “spa”. Huge boulders on either side of the river created a tiny cascade and there just so happened to be boulders just perfect for sitting and having your shoulders underneath the falling water for a mini water massage. I wanted to spend the rest of my time climbing up the river, all the way to the top…but Sarah was waiting for us a few minutes up river, she had had enough of the rocks, so we went back to camp and hung out, watching the birds, trees, and clouds. Nice evening. Then we set up fire and cooked veggies on it, well, they cooked kangaroo. Next day hopped on the bike with Levi and made that awesome ride down through the mountains, the road hugging along the coast line. At one point we passed a truck that had a HUGE boar hanging from it. The guy had hunted it, it was about six feet long. That’s all about that though. We stopped on the edge of the forest at a beach and James and Levi went fishing, no luck.
The rest of my time in Cairns was spent hanging out with everyone, WWOOFing for Digger Street, and..that’s really about it. WWOOFing= Willing Workers on Organic Farms, basically, I stayed and ate for free at Digger Street as long as each morning I worked a few hours (its an art Co Op) So I cleaned the kitchen every morning, helped cook, worked in the garden and made a silly litttle shower mister with Levi. I didn’t really like it thought because I felt like I was taken advantage of a little… ie.. working in Oz minimum wage is $17..about. It broke down the hours that I “worked” versus what I “made” in terms of cost of living in the house for other members was about $10…and othere than that I felt like people expected me to clean after them and cook for them, so I quit. I have an awesome story about the day Louma and I went to Kuranada, a little village in the mountain above Cairns (pronounced Cans btw) Not sure if I shared that..
