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!   

Daintree Rainforest -- the World's OLDEST Rainforest! (Part 1)

Well, I'm not sure how many posts will be devoted to the Daintree Rainforest, but I've already got 60+ pictures and I'm not even half done!  So, I guess I need to divvy this up!    Yes, this post will be heavily laden with pictures!  

Remember how much I like plants?  Well, just imagine that excitement when I'm in a flippin' RAINFOREST!  And not just ANY rainforest, but the WORLD'S OLDEST RAINFOREST!  I've got to wonder why all we ever hear about is the rainforests in South America and we never hear anything about the Daintree?  I had never heard of it, and had no idea that there was even a rainforest in Australia until we started planning our trip.  How sad is that?!   

First, a little information, as I'm sure you are as sorely lacking in knowledge about the Daintree as I was! 


The Daintree Rainforest is a 1,200 square mile tropical rainforest located on the east coast of Australia's Queensland and is estimated to be 180 million years old! It was named after Richard Daintree who was a 19thcentury photographer and geologist from Australia. Daintree Rainforest encompasses Daintree National Park, some State Forest, and land owned privately. The ecosystem in Daintree Rainforest is considered to be one of the world's most complex, and is Australia's longest continuous tropical rainforest. Daintree Rainforest is included as part of the UNESCO-designated Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site, which was recognized as such in 2015. 

The tropical rainforest ecosystem of the Daintree Rainforest is one of the most complex on Earth. Its plant diversity and structural complexity is unrivaled on the Australian continent and represents the origins of other Australian flora.  The forest contains the world's best living record of the major stages in the evolutionary history of the world’s land plants.   

The Daintree Rainforest contains 30% of the frog, reptile and marsupial species in Australia, and 90% of Australia's bat and butterfly species. 7% of bird species in the country can be found in this area. There are also over 12,000 species of insects in the rainforest. All of this diversity is contained within an area that takes up 0.1% of the landmass of Australia.  Part of the forest is protected by the Daintree National Park and drained by the Daintree River. The roads north of the river wind through areas of lush forest, and have been designed to minimize impacts on this ancient ecosystem.  From a total of 19 primitive flowering plant families on Earth, 12 families are represented in the Daintree region making the highest concentration of these plants worldwide.   

Our tour of the rainforest was provided by Billy Tea Safaris. We were picked up in front of our hotel in this!  What a hoot!  It was actually quite comfortable, which was good, seeing as we were spending a good portion of the day in it.  

We traveled north along the Captain Cook Highway to our first stop at the Alexandra Range Lookout with beautiful views of the Coral Sea 

We then continued along the highway and stopped for a guided tour along the elevated National Park Boardwalk.  Our guide was incredibly informative, pointing out various flora and fauna.   

The roots on this tree are called "Buttress roots" which are large, wide roots on all sides of a shallowly rooted tree and prevent the tree from falling over while also gathering more nutrients.

The tallest trees in the rainforest tower 200 feet above the forest floor!

I absolutely LOVE the beautiful fan palms!  

Truly enjoying our time in the rainforest!  

That's Abby!  

After we walked through the rainforest, we were treated to lunch, grilled by our guide! 

Steak, potato salad, pasta salad, salad, pickled beats.  It was delicious!
  

The restaurant where we had lunch had a number of tropical birds and a special kangaroo area! 

They had a super friendly Cassowary, too!   (Just kidding, it was fake!)

We were given slices of sweet potatoes to feed the kangaroos!  

So, that's just a part of our day exploring the Daintree Rainforest!   The next entry will start with our guided River Cruise on the Daintree River.  Crocodiles, mangrove forests and more wildlife!  

Hope you enjoyed traveling through this portion of the Daintree Rainforest with us! 

Love, Peace and Prayers to all! 

Julie, Greg and Abby