Cairns Part Four: The Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation

A short drive north of Cairns and our lovely little Love Shack is the Daintree rainforest.  The best way to see the rainforest is by way of one of the dozens of tours offered, most of which include lunch and a jaunt to Cape Tribulation.  The four of us (Papa Osborn has no fear of forests) took a smaller tour and were mostly pleased with the day.

Our tour guide, David, was in a little bit of a hurry and we all grew a little tired of him tapping his watch.  There was some road work that seemed to stress him out.  We guess he thought it would hold up our return or something, but there were only two other people on the tour so it wasn't like spending an extra five minutes somewhere was going to ruin everyone's evening.  We did see a lot because of David's rushing about, but a small tour like that should feel relaxed, not anxious.  Other than that, David was pretty good.  He taught us about strangler figs and another creeper vine, the scandalous start to Port Douglas, and he even pointed to an area where Steven Spielberg filmed part of "The Pacific" TV mini-series.

David's greatest contributions were taking us to the Daintree Ice Cream Company and to lunch - both of which were delicious.  Jeff ate kangaroo, which Aussies call "eating Skippy" after the popular 1970s TV show "Skippy: The Bush Kangaroo" about a kid and his kangaroo pal, Skippy.  It was pretty much their "Flipper," so most don't like to eat Skippy too often.  Skippy, Jeff found, was good but not amazing enough to order again.  Kangaroos are pretty flippin' cute, even if you didn't grow up with the TV show, so it is hard to get excited about eating them.

The bush plum, the favorite meal of cassowary's everywhere

The rest of the Daintree tour lived up to what we had heard - the rainforest is interesting and Cape Tribulation is beautiful. 

Highlights for us were seeing the freaky dinosaur-era relic cassowary (no photos, as only Jeff and Annette caught glimpses), learning about the amazing natural processes used by mangrove trees, the aforementioned ice cream, and (of course) spending another wonderful day with ma and pa Osborn!!  Our one-hour saltwater crocodile-spotting tour with Ken the super-grooved out white mustached croc specialist with special guest appearances from a few very pretty kingfishers was also a highlight!

Homemade exotic flavored ice cream as good as any we've had!

Saltwater Crocs lined these muddy banks for us to oggle at