Rainforest, Cape Tribulation & Friday Night in Cairns

Hiya!
It’s been very difficult getting internet access the last few days hence you’ll notice that a lot of our recent posts are only being put up now. Broadband and wifi in Australia (apart from Sydney) is miles behind the UK. TV here is all about the general election coming up in the next week or so in Oz and one of the election pledges is to spend £30 Billion on broadband because it is so painfully slow or nonexistent. The election campaign is quite American in nature – lots of mudslinging. Another thing we’ve noticed about Australia is that Aussies love to gamble – in practically every pub there is a separate room for ‘Pokies’ (Poker machines). I don’t understand why anyone would want to spend hours playing pokies when you’ve miles of beaches and good weather on your doorstep – they evidently must get bored with beaches and good weather.
I’m typing this at our hotel In Cairns – it’s about 7pm on Friday evening here – the hotel we quickly booked is nice – you can always rely on Tripadvisor, eh!
We’re knackered from our road trip today but it was well worth it.
We did a rainforest hike at Mossman Gorge where we met no one for half an hour – it was lovely just walking through the forest hearing lots of different noises, even a bush turkey walked out right in front of us. No snakes luckily.
The crocodile cruise was fun – we saw several saltwater crocs up close including a very cute baby croc sunbathing – it must have been no more than 10 inches long – it’s mother was about 3 metres long.
The guide told us that in the past year 2 people (including a guide) had fallen off a cruise boat and onto the mudflats in front of the mother but she was so busy sunbathing she didn’t move. It would have been a different story if it had of been a male in the Australian Summer when they get very aggressive fighting off fellow males to impress a female (sounds like Lavery’s on a Saturday night).
As we drove there were rainforests at one side of the car and pristine beaches on the other side – it was pretty spectacular. We arrived at our final stop - Cape Tribulation whose name was given by Captain Cook when he discovered Australia. This is where the rainforest & mangroves meet the Pacific, only separated by a beautiful crescent of beach. Like the beach at Mission beach there were thousands of tiny little holes in the sand which we saw are made by small, almost transparent crabs. Watching a crab move sideways across the sand reminded me of how Jamie Redknapp used to always pass the ball when he played for Liverpool.
On the journey back to Palm Cove (to collect our luggage before heading a further 30 minutes south to Cairns) we were briefly halted in our tracks by 2 cassowaries crossing the road in front of us – we had been starting to think all the road signs saying ‘Cassowary Crossing’ had been lying, but no – there actually were cassowaries.
So as I said at the start of this post, we’re now in Cairns and hoping few beers will reinvigorate us
Today has definitely been another highlight of the trip and tomorrow we head to Port Douglas for 2 nights. On the 2nd day we’ll hopefully be going out to the outer Great Barrier Reef and I’m planning my first ever dive. Talk soon!

Mercure Harbourside, Cairns