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3rd April
Well here we are on the eve of our departure from OZ! As I sit here the girls have all just crashed out after watching High School Musical 2 in the campground cinema and there are bags all over the van. I wanted to finish off the Australia leg of the BLOG before we leave for Singapore and then home.
We woke up to our second day in Cape Tribulation on Tuesday to a very soggy campground. Four inches of rain fell in the night and you kind of give up trying to keep your feet dry, especially when we only wear flip flops 90 % of the time. I had spoken to a local guy the night before who recommended a good spot for maybe seeing a crocodile. We were a bit pensive about it but I must have done a sufficient job to reassure all the ladies so we set off for a morning walk along the beach in search of Crocodylus. The beach at cape Trib is stunning. The rainforest really does meet the sand with lots of coconut palms mingling with both. The tide was out and the children had fun collecting shells and lots of little bits of coral which break off from the reef further out and get washed up. It's the kind of stuff that gets put in a basket with the pot pourri that you give to your Granny at Christmas but hugely more satisfying when you find it yourself. The beach broke up into Mangrove swamps and I headed up a path to check out the river which was feeding into the sea nearby. I kept my distance from the river bank and there are warning signs along the river about the crocs. Unfortunatley I didn't spot one but returned to collect Michele and the children to show them the kind of places the crocs hang out. As we walked back up the path we followed a local guide who was showing a lady the croc spots and guess what - she spotted one. It was about 1.5 metres long and on the other side of the river but we got very excited and had to remember to watch out for other crocs as apparently there is a large female which lives in this river. Rosie was transfixed and wanted to go and get our camp chairs to sit there all day and watch it. Connie was less sure and was happy to move on. Completely elated at our find we headed back to the beach and Meg seemed chuffed with her bag of bits found on the beach while Isla once again attempted to jump in every pool she could!
Before we headed out of the area we drove up to Cape Trib township and on past it to the point where the sealed road stops and the dirt road starts. This was a significant point in our trip as it marked our most Northerly spot. With a big cheer that we'd made it this far we headed south and on to Port Douglas the final stopover before Cairns. The drive out of the rainforest area really showed us the effect a decent amount of rain can have. The rivers were significantly more torrid and there was one fiord which I think was bordering on the daft to cross, but we did anyway, praying that Winnie's massive girth would weigh us down enough to avoid being swept down river with the flotsam, jetsam and crocsom!
Port Douglas is a lovely town with a big sailing community and is popular with the rich and famous so has some fairly exclusive spas and resorts to cater for that clientele. Fortunatley it also caters for the travellers and we found a great campground with a fab pool which got the children's thumbs up. The campgrounds in the tropical north are quite different from the others further south in that everything is so open due to the excellent year round temperatures. Imagine installing your washing machine and dryer under you pergola, next to the BBQ - well it's a bit like that.
We only had 24 hours in Port Douglas but to make the most of the country life before hitting the city of Cairns we hired a pontoon boat to continue our croc quest in the hope of seeing a biggy! The pontoon boat is basically a sheet of metal with a couple of inflatabe sausages underneath and a motor stuck on the back. The children were quite safe as there is a little fence all the way round. We headed up the river to the mangrove swamps which at low tide seem to hang in mid air as so much of their roots are exposed to the air. They are incredibly dense and we wondered how anything can move through the mangroves. After about 10 mins we found our first croc. It was quite small at 1.5 metres but gazed lazily at us from the bank. We were thrilled and got within five metres of it. Further up the river we headed down a side creek where the mangroves bore down on us as the creek narrowed. We saw crabs and mudskippers and quite enjoyed the eerie environment. It was near the end of this creek when we found out we couldn't get the boat into reverse so had to use the mangroves to help swing us round. Back out in the main river we saw our second croc of the day. It was a whopper at about 2.5 metres. I approached parallel to the bank as we'd been told and we got an excellent view, although Connie got quite unnerved at the size of it. The likelihood of it actually attacking us in the boat was almost zero but we kept a respectful distance and quietly cheered at our discovery.
Our croc sitings really finished the whole trip off really well as we knew once we got to Cairns that afternoon we wouldn't see any more wild life - well that's what we thought anyway. By 5.00pm we were in Cairns and checked out the city by van which looked pretty happening with a fantastic esplanade including a lagoon right by the sea. We spent the next day exploring Cairns, shopping and down at the lagoon. Isla made a friend and took great pride in telling her that we were eating out at a restaurant that night and then flying to Singapore the next day. For dinner we ate at Barnacle Bills on the sea front. It was our second proper meal out for the entire trip and was perfect. The children behaved impeccably and were enthralled with the live lobsters which the waiter let them hold (see photos). We ate lovely fresh fish and also had a taste of kangaroo and crocodile meat. The crocodile is a white meat and a bit like a slightly tougher chicken - Meg loved it!
We spent most of today, our last full day on the Aussie continent, in the campground packing up the van. We have some serious baggage now and it took a good couple of hours to get sorted. Later in the afternoon we headed back into Cairns for a walk along the esplanade and ran into a guy doing a wild life display on behalf of a charity. It was great - very infomal and Rosie helped out filling the guy's watering can to give his wedge tailed eagle a drink. In return he let Rosie and the others hold his baby croc which was a fab surprise. He was quite a wriggler but the girls did brilliantly. I don't think they would have done this at the start of the trip but have seen so much wild life and become quite accustomed to coming face to face with strange creatures. Stella the eagle was awesome and hopped around the grass right in front of us.
Back at the campground we had one final BBQ and look forward to the final adventure in Singapore. One more BLOG entry to come............
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