Played in the Rainforest today!

Asad, you would be SO proud of me - I took over 200 pictures today!

Today was a whirlwind tour of the Daintree rainforest.  Met a bus at 8:30 am and headed for a wildlife park where the Wallabys are SO used to getting hand fed that they come right up to you and stand up and give you puppy-dog eyes in hopes of getting some grub.  Uh...needless to say, I petted one on the head and scratched behind his ears and I no longer think I could eat kangaroo meat.  Once you pet something, it becomes off limits.  Remind me never to touch a cow.  Or a chicken.

From there we went into the forest itself.   The government has spent a lot of time and money constructing boardwalks for visitors in an effort to stop the degradation of the forest.  They allow you to get right into the forest without damaging the forest floor and causing erosion and a loss of habitat.   Not a lot of species were about as there were a couple kids charging around like a herd of elephants.  But, it was still pretty. 

At that point, we went down to Cape Tribulation.  This is the spot where Captain James Cook (credited with the "discovery" of Australia) ran smack into the Great Barrier Reef and had to come ashore to make significant repairs to his boat.  He named the Cape as it was the site of his greatest trials and tribulations.  Although treacherous...also very pretty.  :)  We got to walk along the beach and I took some great pics of the Cape.  At this point, after being told by the guide that mounds of sand excreted by sea cucumbers was likely the most pristine sand on the beach, the American kids took to stomping on every mound of sea cucumber poop they could find.  I still wonder if the guide made that up just to get those little effers to stomp on as much poop as they could.  Ha!

We then got to jump in a boat and cruise up the Daintree river - a tidal river that empties into the ocean.  I took about eight million pictures of crocs.  There was Nelson - a 70 year old big guy and then a lesser male named Scarface and a smaller female named Fang.  My theory is that Nelson, by virtue of his age, size, and preferential living space 50 metres from the town's public boat launch doesn't need a ferocious name but the smaller guys, being insecure, need to jazz it up a little. 

We then headed up the mountains (so amazing) and got to take in the view of what we had just seen and done.  What an incredible view.  Anyhoo, after a day outside wandering around a tropical rainforest, I think I deserve to sleep in tomorrow. 

Yay!  The pics uploaded!