Daintree National Forest

Hello! I haven't written for a few days, and there is so much to tell. Where to begin? Well, first of all, there are countless Germans in Australia on Work and Holiday just like me. I ate a Wagyu steak with Sandra, a girl from near Leipzig, flabbergasted a man named Holger from Dusseldorf when I told him that yes, my community only has 200 people, and shared an entire afternoon doing Aqua Zumba (basically Zumba in the water) and other Cairns activities like going to the market and going out, with a girl named Carolin from Western Germany. I can't describe how friendly and personable people are; it is simply impossible to be alone. In fact, I find it difficult to find the time to sit down and write.

But now I am in Port Douglas, a smaller town north of Cairns.

It is a beautiful little town with many shops and the most incredible foliage. There are palm trees everywhere; the countryside is covered in sugar cane and tea. 

I spent the end of the week, starting Sunday, in Daintree National Forest at the Beach House, a hostel arranged in cabins along Cape Tribulation. I booked a tour through the park and was picked up by George, my tour guide, at 8:00 outside of Tropical Days Hostel in Cairns. George, an Aboriginal man, proved to be an educated and compelling tour guide. In fact, it was difficult to keep up with the information he was providing. Some examples: there were two crocodiles on the Daintree River named Barnacle Bill, so they named them BB #1 and #2 until #1 died (it made things much easier, sad as it was); he was born ON Ellis Beach North of Cairns; the main crops include sugar cane, tea, bananas, mangoes, pineapples (lesser crop), and cocoa beans; the Daintree was named after Richard Daintree, a geologist from Scotland, and it takes 12 months for sugar cane to reach maturity.

After hearing innumerable facts about the area, we took a nature walk where we saw a cassowary! I was told that it was very unlikely I'd see a cassowary, so it was a rare experience. George told us it was a male because it was accompanied by its baby. Apparently, the males take care of the children after they hatch. A lesson to be taken from cassowaries, boys. 

This is a picture I took with my iPhone. It isn't perfect, but you can still see the crest on top of his head; it is meant for protection while the cassowary runs through the jungle, which it does at an angle nearly parallel to the ground. They have also been named the world's most dangerous bird because of a claw they have on the toes of each foot. This claw has been proven to be fatal if applied to humans, dogs, etc. They can run at about 30 mph through the jungle and can jump nearly 5 feet in the air. They are shy, though, and rarely seen, so I feel lucky to have seen one.

After that, George dropped Regine, an Austrian woman I met on the bus, and me off at the Beach House on Cape Tribulation. We soon booked two tours, one for snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef on Monday and a night walk for Monday night. I feel that the snorkeling deserves its own blog post, so you can wait for that one :) I need to go to bed now-it is difficult to have time to sleep here since there is always something going on and always someone who wants to participate. Here are pictures of Cape Tribulation--it is a remote beach with very few people around, and the scenery is exceptional.