Daintree National Park

A full day, starting at 0800. First a drive up to Mossman Gorge. Along the way the driver/guide explained the history of the Daintree and why it's unique.

The water for PD comes from the upper reaches of Mossman Gorge.

Apparently the Daintree ticked all the 4 scientific criteria (any one of which would suffice) at the time to be world heritage listed.

The criteria were: 1. Natural beauty.

2. Representative of a period of earth's history. There are viable species here that are only found as fossils elsewhere.

3. Ongoing biological processes. That's a strangler fig in the picture.

4. Habitats for plants and animals. Many species in the Daintree are unique and are endangered.

A small beach, but nobody was game to swim so we pressed on.

We reached the Daintree River where we boarded the Solar Whisper, a solar powered boat. Panels on the roof charge the batteries which drive the motors. It was an excellent choice as it could quietly approach wildlife.

That's the owner/captain setting up there.

He had installed a videocam connected to a screen which were used to display close ups of wildlife that we spotted.

Our first crocodile. All the adults have names as the tour operators know them well.

Close up of the teeth. The guide explained that unlike alligators, some crocodile teeth are visible outside even when the jaws are closed.

One in the water.

Mangrove roots. These plants are adapted to salt water and tidal conditions.

The biggest one we saw that morning.

Other tour boats on the river.

Kingfisher.

Ducks and crocodile on sand bank.

Heron.

Staghorn fern. They are just using the tree for support.

The Solar Whisper dropped us on the other side of the river. The driver had already taken the car across by chain ferry. From there we drove to the Cape Tribulation lookout. PD could just barely be made out in the distance.

The vehicle and the driver/guide. We were now driving in the northern part of the Daintree NP, it's split by some settlement around the river.

The northernmost extent of our drive, Kulki Beach.

Stingers are a danger.

One of many bush turkeys wandering around the beach, hoping for scraps from humans.

The beach itself.

We set out for a short walk to the lookout.

The view from there.

The boardwalk.

From there we retraced our path back south. We stopped at a picnic area for lunch. After that we took a short walk in the area, hoping to spot cassowaries but there was no sign of them except for mounds of their droppings. The blue fruit is the cassowary plum the seeds of which are disseminated by the cassowary via its digestion tract.

After lunch we were taken to the Daintree Ice Cream Company. They have a small plantation with tropical fruit such as jackfruit, soursop, sapodilla, carambola, and even durian. However none of the fruit or the ice cream is sold outside; they are used to make ice cream sold on the premises. Each day there is an offering of 4 flavours. We all had one and it was great ice cream. I missed the taste of tropical fruit. In the picture you see coconut, Davidson plum, wattle seed and soursop. The last was very good.

The sales counter.

The ripening cage.

We returned to the ferry at the Daintree River. Interesting the two foreign languages on the croc warning sign are German and Chinese.

The chain ferry.

Upon reaching the southern bank we rejoined the Mossman-Daintree Road (north of the river we were driving on Cape Tribulation Road) and drove up the reaches of the river past the village of Daintree. We swapped into a four-wheel drive for the bumpy ride up to Cassowary Falls.

At the end of the road are the falls. It was a cool day so nobody was game to swim.

The pond is full of perch and they expected to be fed.

Caused quite a frenzy when we tossed the food pellets in.

We also spotted a couple of turtles.

And eels.

I tried to take some underwater photos with my waterproof camera but the water was murky and this is the only shot with anything resembling fish in it.

And that was pretty much the end of the tour. We were dropped off at our lodgings.