From Reef to Rainforest - Part 2

Following on from my last post (days late I know but trust me when I say getting a decent wifi connection here is harder than teaching a lion not to eat meat – impossible) we headed for Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest. Interesting fact: this is the only place in the world you can see two world heritage sites meet each other, hence the title of this post. The Great Barrier Reef is the oldest and largest documented reef in the world, and the Daintree is the oldest rainforest and it's pretty cool that they happen to be in the same place.

Now on the way I did something so incredibly touristy I inwardly cringed throughout it. I think this has something to do growing up in Kenya and seeing how local Maasai put on shows for the tourists who lap it up. I am ashamed to say here on my tour I was welcomed into Australia through a fire ceremony by a native aboriginal warrior called Tom... Though I have to admit I stood back and let those who hadn't seen anything like this before take the full brunt.

Then we headed out to see some of the real Australian locals: the saltwater crocodiles! Now in Kenya we have crocodiles and I have seen them in the wild and in captivity, but these guys were on another level of huge. Also I learnt some amazing facts about crocodiles and now feel like they are really hard done by. They can survive off one meal for an entire year which I personally think is a pretty huge feat. They can do this by slowing their heartbeat to just 2 beats per hour, and the temperature their eggs are incubated at determines the sex of the baby croc! Who knew? Those teeth though....eek!

Finally we trekked through the rainforest, which was awesome! I even got to see a cassowary, which for those of you who don't know are quite big birds but it's rare to see them in the wild. These are my new favourite birds as once they have chicks the female goes off to find a new mate and the male rears the kids. Perfecto! They can be as big as a human and have sharp claws so it's advisable not to go near them.

The rainforest was really cool with awesome trees and vines at pretty much every turn, there was even a grapefruit which had sionyde in it (further proof that everything in Australia wants to kill you). We learnt all about the different trees used by the aboriginals; their significance and the myths shrouding them.

The last stop on our tour was a lookout point where you can see the place Steve Irwin tragically lost his life. We heard a different side to the story here, one that's not really told to the public. As we all know Steve Irwin was killed by a bull stingray, the story goes he was riding on the back of one who eventually got fed up with him being there and used its tail to sting him in the chest. Now what I didn't know was that bull stingrays often lose their stings when this happens (a bit like a bee) and this is what happened. Instead of waiting for medical assistance Steve Irwin attempted to pull out the sting himself and in doing so hit an artery which stopped his heart almost instantly. He may have died anyway due to the force of the sting but it was interesting to hear this side of the story nonetheless.

As I write this I am currently on a greyhound bus down to my next stop. I will have loads to write about from here on, but I will also be very busy so hopefully I won't keep you waiting too long. If I do please blame Australian Internet instead of me.

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