Ahhh, the tropics

2:45pm, Saturday March 19th. After getting over the eebie jeebies of Freddie the Tree Frog and his buddy who I’ll now name Frank living in their laundry bathroom area and wanting to come inside the house, Lisa, Ross, and I headed north. We’ve now just arrived at Cape Tribulation hot, hungry and eager. We had reserved a cabin at PK’s Jungle Village (we are now in the Daintree rainforest with some of the oldest rainforest in the world) and are settling in nicely. Ross has cooked up some steak and salad, and some Haloumi. Mmmm, Haloumi. This cheese can be fried, and it doesn’t melt. Just gets nice and crispy and has such an incredible nutty flavour. I digress... we arrived and I bought a few nice postcards, then Lisa and I walked across the street to book the Jungle Surfing which we’re doing tomorrow 3:30pm. Soooo excited to go zip lining over the trees! It has been beautiful and sunny today – only a speck of rain. Ross rode his Harley here (approx 4hrs) and Lisa and I drove in the ute. An “instant attitude adjustment” (dip in the pool) was in order for Lisa and I when Ross was cooking and boy was that just what we needed!! Going out for some pool tonight to see what PK’s Jungle Village has to offer in the way of nightlife.
7:30pm, Sunday March 20th. The last 24hrs have been totally amazing here at Cape Tribulation! The three of us went to the bar and played some pool and had some drinks; if I do say so myself, I was kicking ass. We ended up mingling with a group of guys from Cairns, and headed to the beach for a little fire. Tonight is the full moon, so you can imagine how beautiful and bright it was last night on the beach. Sea was calm, sky was clear, eskys were full, and people were good. The temperature was perfect! It almost seemed like we were frozen in time, and just when I was thinking about going to bed, my friend “Hutto” noticed the sun was rising – we could just see the beautiful pinks and blues poking through the trees. So we all trekked back to the beach to take in the sunrise. Wow – breathtaking. I was awestruck. I fell to my knees in the sand in complete disbelief that something could be so beautiful. Guy’s boat perched up on the sand waiting for the tide to come in, rainforest behind me, couple blokes playing the guitar and singing. It was magical. A magical night full of cartwheels on the beach, a gorgeous ring around the moon, quality time with Lisa rooting her on while she fixed up the fire, and memories to last a lifetime.
After finally hitting the sack at 8am, I slept till about 11am when Lisa and I finally got rolling. Wasn’t feeling too bad considering I NEVER do all nighters, but this one was different. We hit the pool, grabbed some lunch, and went for another lay down till it was time for us to head across the street for some JUNGLE SURFING!!!!!!!!! Our group drove 5mins up an impossibly bumpy road to where we get briefed on safety protocol and get all harnessed up. The staff picked out the helmets for us to wear which all had funny names on them – I was “Little Miss Sunshine”, Lisa was “Stiffler’s Mom” and Ross was “Nemo”. There was this huge spider looking bug thing over this bit we walk under to get to the path so I asked the guy what it was. He said it was plastic and I took no more notice. On the way back, one guy touched the web and this HUGE “plastic spider” moved! Turns out it’s a real life Golden Orb. Harmless, apparently, but hard to stomach a spider the size of your hand. I am not exaggerating. Carrying on... Jungle Surfing is just a super cool name for zip lining – above the rainforest!!! We had four zips to go down, and at each platform between the lines we were being taught all sorts of interesting bits of information! The part of the Daintree Rainforest we were zipping through was some of the oldest in the world – 100 million years old, which is determined through carbon dating. We also licked a green ants bum. They gently pick up this green ant, stick the bum to your tongue, and it’s a very tart flavour. There is more vitamin C in that little dab than an orange! We also learned that Captain Cook named this area Cape Tribulation because he had such trouble navigating through all the coral. The clouds reflecting in the water would look like coral so he couldn’t tell what was what and damaged his ship. The zip lining was a bit scary – the highest platform was 20m high. After the second zip I was feeling pretty comfortable, but it is a bit scary shuffling your bum off the platform to just drop into mid air before they start zippin’ ya down! We all lived to see another day though anyways so all is well! Now it’s time for a chilled out evening – we are leaving tomorrow morning, and Lisa will drop me off in Cairns on their way back home and I’ll get settled in at the Esplanade Backpackers Hostel and arrange my scuba diving course. Yeeeehawwwwwwwwww!!!