Cairns: Crocodiles and Rainforest

In the morning we went to 'The Hat House,' a shop owned by the mother of a friend of ours. It was quite a nice shop, with all sorts of artwork, plants, hats of course, and souvenirs. I bought a crocodile magnet with the town's name (Mareeba). Afterward, we went to a breakfast spot, this time I was driving! It wasn't a long drive, so not very exciting. Driving an automatic is a lot easier than a manual, and there was no hill-test stress either, crazy. I think staying on the left went pretty well, too. After some delicious avocado toast, we drove (a bit hastily) to the crocodile tour, with a quick pit stop because we were convinced by a billboard on the road for the 'Golden Mango Winery.' We even turned around because we'd accidentally driven past it, oops. After that, we drove to the crocodile tour in even more of a hurry, but we (just) made it, even with all the roadworks setbacks.

The crocodile tour was fun! I was heavily sunscreened because I was sitting in the blazing sun. We weren't bitten by the crocodiles; they're pretty docile creatures (but don't swim with them, that's a bit less fun). The tour guide took us to the usual spots of about five crocodiles and helped us spot them. He was very good at spotting them and even recognized them by their faces. We also saw two tree frogs and a few egrit birds, which, oddly enough, are never actually eaten by crocodiles, or at least I thought the guide said so. He also told us about 'salties' and 'freshies', typical Australian weather abbreviations. Saltwater crocs = dangerous, freshwater = harmless, unless you irritate them, of course. The government loves to blame crocodiles whenever an incident occurs, he explained, but in reality, it's often caused by people who think they own the world and go swimming in places known to have crocodiles. Their habitat isn't your go-to destination.

After the tour, we went to an ice cream place, where Cynthia and I shared mango kulaff—yummy! (And expensive, but hey, it's vacation time!). It was quite a beautiful spot with all sorts of lovely plants and trees: dracaena, pineapple, banana, fake bird of paradise, palm trees, etc. I hadn't heard of the fake bird of paradise, but it looked very similar to the real one. The leaves were a different thickness than I'm used to. I looked it up, and it was a fake version (though it was a real plant).

Afterward, I went to a few rainforest boardwalks and had a lovely walk around. Everything was perfectly landscaped with wooden planks. Although I usually prefer the goat trails. Of course, I saw lots of recognizable plants again (strelitzia, musa, areca palm, vines, ferns, tree ferns, string of pearls, fan palms). I also walked through the mangrove forests; it's cool that they're actually underwater and still thriving! I'm a fan palm fan—okay, sorry, a bad joke, but they do create beautiful silhouettes against the sky. In short, the oldest rainforest in the world was very beautiful, though less brightly colored and fewer birds than I expected, but still very beautiful. It was also fun to see trees twining around each other. And what would a holiday destination be without hearing other Dutch people? And yes, there they were, true travelers, I guess. I also visited two beaches and found a coconut! Cailene opened it, but unfortunately, it was rotten :(

We drove around a bit more and then headed to our next hostel in Cape Tribulation to check in. Well, hostel, more like a campground with cabins. There were some internal problems or something, so it took quite a while before we were allowed in, which was a bit annoying, as we were all pretty tired. While waiting, we played pool with Cynthia for a bit, just for fun, and then went looking for a place to eat. Since our hostel/campsite was literally in the rainforest, the only place to eat was another campground nearby, haha. We had a delicious burger there. Discovered that ranch pizza is a thing in the US. Interesting.

Just for fun, in the dark—and I mean pitch black, because little light penetrates the rainforest canopy—we drove up a small road to look at the stars, but there wasn't much to see, so we quickly drove back to the hostel because we found it a bit of a creepy place. Back at the hostel, we relaxed a bit, refreshed, chatted, and went to sleep (Sunny had put on classical music at the end of the evening, and we fell asleep before we even turned off the speakers, haha).