Daintree rainforest and roos!

Ok brace yourselves for here comes a long blog for today.

We went for a day trip to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation area north of Cairns. The Daintree Rainforest is estimated as being one of the oldest in the world at a meagre 120 million years of age (because it has one of the first species of flowering plant). It has 1500 different species of trees, plus another couple thousand different species of plant. It is also one of the few places where giant-leaved king ferns grow, with leaf spans of up to 6m in length! All even more impressive than the rainforest that I was raving on about in New Zealand.

We went for a short (30 minute) walk in this rainforest to marvel at the wonderful display of trees, plants, epiphytes and ferns. What was obvious to me was all the various techniques the plants had adapted to gain access to their source of life: light. Some developed huge leaves like the ferns and umbrella palm. Others climbing techniques to get higher such as twisting around the trunk of another tree like a corkscrew, or developing spikes to enable easier attachment to other trees and therefore climb even higher. I stopped for a second just to register the environment with all my senses. I could see the greenery around me, I could smell the rotting vegetation, I could hear the occasional bird chirping, I could feel the rain and I could have, if I'd wanted to, tasted the nature too...

However, it wasn't very wise to stop for very long as apparently it was "biting season" as aptly demonstrated by the onslaught of mosquitos. They were even worse than the New Zealand sandflies (if that's even possible). Also native to this rainforest were massive spiders, at least the biggest spiders I've ever seen in the wild. They were, I'm not exaggerating, 15cm in diameter and particularly keen on surprising people on the way to the toilets (their favourite web-hanging place). Another thing we learn today was that if you were stuck in the rainforest and under danger of suffering from scurvy due to lack of Vitamin C in your diet, all you need to do is suck on the ass of green ants. Charming. Actually, come to think of it, if you were stuck in the middle of the rainforest, your daily supply of Vitamin C may not be very high on your priority list.... Apparently the green ants secrete Vitamin C as a defense mechanism and it tastes like lemon sherbert. Yummy?

Next let me talk about our wildlife spotting for today. We saw wallabies hanging out on a grassy field outside of Cairns. They are forced to hang out in some "pretty weird places" (to quote our guide) due to the deforestation of their natural habitat. So next time you're in Cairns and you see a wallaby in a pub....We also saw a cassowary. This is a big flightless bird that's related to the emu, but has really bright blue neck and head. Very beautiful and very exciting to spot one in the wild. It was headed towards the local ice-cream parlour (more on that later), so may be affected by the same forces as the wallaby...? And then, the piece de resistance: kangaroos! My new favourite animal. We saw 2 different species of kangaroo and 3 of wallaby within an enclosure - and got to feed them bits of carrot, bread and squashed banana. I could not believe I had a kangaroo eating out of my hand and letting me pet its back. Amazing!

In case that wasn't enough, we also tried some exotic fruit and fruit ice cream. In terms of fruit there was pineapple, sugar banana (smaller, sweeter and thicker consistency that your usual), custard apple (aka chirimoya), its relative the rose water custard apple (looked like a cross between an apple and a bunch of grapes), rambutan (Harri: alien egg) and finally something that I can't remember the name of which was red and fleshy (think avocado consistency). This fruit tasted better when made into ice cream. We also tried sugar banana, mango and wattle-seed ice cream (which tasted strangely like hazelnut). Certainly a better source of vitamins that licking an ants backside!

I will leave you with the best road sign of the year award.