Daintree River Crocodile Hunting Cruise!

Prior to our incredible lunch, we went on a guided river cruise on the Daintree River!   The Daintree River is surrounded by the Alexandra Range mountains and deep valleys. Combined with the climatic conditions of the area the river is prone to quickly developing floods with little warning due to the high rainfalls on the 3,300 ft mountain ranges around the catchment and the influence of the cyclonic forces in the adjacent Coral Sea. 

Due to the ever-shifting deep center of the sandbar, entering the Daintree River has always been a problem for ship captains. The area was missed by Captain Cook when passing in the voyage where his ship was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. The Daintree River was discovered by Europeans in 1873 after they were attracted to nearby regions due to its vast natural reserves of gold.

Due to the river's isolation, saltwater crocodiles - once threatened in the region due to hunting - have flourished in recent years as beneficiaries of legislation that protects them. There have been numerous reports of deaths in the Daintree River from crocodile attacks and authorities warn tourists and visitors not to step close to the riverbank, stay within the confines of boats, and absolutely never swim in the river!

Here's what we saw when we first pulled up.  It looks a little run down, but it was actually a pretty cool place!  

We were given juice and tea and some biscuits (cookies) to munch on while we walked around a little bit.  We then boarded the boat for our tour! 

Lots of mangroves here!    Mangroves are really quite amazing trees!  

Mangroves are what are a collection of salt tolerant plants that are found along coastal areas and up rivers in the tropics and subtropics. There are 34 species of mangroves in Queensland with a total of only 69 species worldwide. 

Some species of mangroves are more salt tolerant than others and, because of this, there are distinct zones in a mangrove forest where the boundaries between species can easily be seen. 

Mangroves actually enhance their own environment, in a way. The root systems are designed to trap silt - the more silt builds up, the more mangroves can grow, and trap more silt and make more muddy areas for more mangroves. But mangroves have had to adapt to all this mud. In terrestrial plants, the soil gets soaked from rain and then dries out, allowing air to reach the roots. This doesn't happen with mangroves as there is little to no oxygen available in the heavy mud, so these plants have adapted their roots to be able to get oxygen without extracting it from the mud. Their roots grow up out of the mud so that oxygen is accessed straight from the air. Many of the root types are distinctive to the species of mangrove so the plant's genus can be identified sometimes by the root type alone.

Various other wildlife is also seen!  Sorry I don't remember what kind of bird this is!  

The first crocodile we saw! 

And for some video!   This is pretty awesome video of the crocodile we saw swimming in the river!   Listening to our guide is pretty funny!  He kind of reminds me of my cousin Jerry!    

And here's video of the Crocodile!!!!! 

And more pictures! 

Check out the crocodile!  

Some traffic on the Daintree!  

Beautiful views!  

In the picture below, they are restoring the shoreline.  

We had to wait for the ferry to take us to the other side!   The ferry can handle about 40 vehicles and takes about five minutes to cross the river.   It's a cable ferry, with cables on either side of the shore.  There is a charge of $26 per vehicle to cross.   Unfortunately, we were not able to exit the vehicle while we were crossing  :-( 

After we crossed the river, we drove along the Bloomfield 4WD track to Emmagen Creek.  And that is a story for another post!  

Hope you enjoyed this trip on the Daintree River!