Daintree Forest

O.K. So we have some down time!

 

Imagine the soft hush of a sleeping rain forest. Your foot falls are cushioned by damp leaves and the humidity clings to everything as heavily as actual rain. It is cool and refreshing, alive and breathing; pulsing with life, seen and unseen.

 

Daintree Rainforest Reserve is a World Heritage site and rightly so. It would be truly criminal to cut this living organism down in the name of commerce and development. When one is stuck with time on their hands in Cairns, this is the place to go. There aren't a lot of accommodations to choose from and we are lucky to pick the Daintree Heritage Resort as it is tucked deep into the forest backing onto the Cooper Creek. We stayed for three nights, hiking creek beds and forest tracks and literally soaking up the forest. It rains - LOTS - but it is warm and you just don't mind it at all. If a person needed a peaceful retreat with no cell service or internet, this would be it; total relaxation and communing with nature. Cassowary - giant flightless birds - make this forest their home and though we weren't fortunate enough to see one, we did see convincing evidence that there is at least one bird left in the forest and Eric and Anne reported an actual sighting when they did their tour up here.

 

Our drive back from Daintree winds through a bit of the table lands. Mareeba and Karunda are towns of note on this highway. Austalia has a coffee plantation industry, albeit very small and we spend an afternoon touring a coffee plantation and learning how to make coffee. It is actually more complex than I would have imagined. Of course we came away with several bags of premium coffee for our morning brew.

 

Now we are back on the boat and waiting for the wind to calm and the swell to abate. There are only so many things to clean and polish on the boat.