Tuesday saw us once again get up horribly early. Our destination on this day was the Daintree Rainforest National Park and Cape Tribulation. We were picked up, outside our hostel, by an exceedingly dull middle-aged South African ex pat, whose name, I think, was Kevin.

We then drove round various other hostels picking people up and then made the hour-long drive north to Port Douglas. Here we picked up a couple of girls and made a brief spot at a look out point which gave us a stunning over the area.

There were twelve of us on this day trip and as we continued our drive north, Kevin the guide prattled on in such a boring manner that Lee-ann and I quickly retreated to the safety of our respective walkmans. The drive itself was really quite dull as we passed field upon field of sugarcane and banana trees.

Our first ‘proper’ stop of the day was a walk through a small part of the Daintree Rainforest. It was really quite muggy in the rainforest but also totally wild with all the trees and plants around you. As close as we were to the car park you could easily get lost if you didn’t stick to the path. The paths were clearly indicated however and there were too many other tourists around for anyone to get lost really. We walked past a river and I dipped my toes in the water, it was freezing.

We only had about an hour in the rainforest and then it was back into the van. Kevin quickly started up again with his ‘entertaining’ chitchat and Lee-ann and I rolled our eyes in bemusement as we put our walkmans back on.

The next stop was a river cruise. Before we got on the boat we had complimentary tea and biscuits in a nearby shack like the building. We sat down and had our cup of tea in the conservatory and we realised that there were several really quite large spiders on the netted walls. They looked quite scary but none of them moved at all. Upon close inspection they had a yellow backs and white furry bits. I took a photo but you can’t really see the detail of the spider on it. As still as the spiders were, I couldn’t help but keep an eye on them as we finished our tea.

Our boat turned out to be distinctly plastic looking and in dire need of repair. Kevin left us at this point and we joined another tour party in the boat. The river guide fancied himself as a bit of a comedian, but apart from being not very funny, he was massively knowledgeable about the vegetation and the wild life of the area. He pointed out two tree snakes to us who we’d totally missed without him.

They were so hard to see I didn’t even bother taking a photo. He also spotted two baby crocodiles on different parts of the riverbank. They were about a metre long each and were well camouflaged in the plants around them. You can see one of them in my ‘cairns’ photo album. The guide also spotted a two metre crocodile swimming along. I did get a look at it but didn’t manage to catch it with my camera.

There was a moment of drama on the river cruise. It came when the guide was slowly guiding the boat toward the bank so we could get a better look at one of the baby crocs. Suddenly there were screams from the front of the boat. Our guide had unwittingly hit a wasp’s nest with the front of the boat and the angry wasps were attacking a middle-aged couple from our tour that were sitting in the front row.

The guide legged down the boat, almost knocking Lee-ann and I aside and proceeded to spray the couple (and the wasps nest) with some kind of bug spray. Now, this could’ve been very serious, especially if one of the attacked people were allergic to stings but the couple were fine.

After the river-cruise we drove further into the park and made our way to a posh restaurant/hotel right by Cape Tribulation. We ate from a delicious buffet and I went back for seconds. We had a stroll on the beach after the food and took in the cape. It’s an amazing sight where the rainforest meets the ocean, a very rare sight in nature.

We drove back into the national park stopping off at a tourist nature centre to do a rainforest canopy walk. The walk was great, we had a cheery walk guide who was very interesting and I had a lot of fun. It was amazing to be that high among trees that have been growing there for such a long time.

It was a cool day but the drive home seemed to take forever and I was extremely glad when we were dropped off at our hostel.