Daintree Rainforest

Nancy's described most of our outing yesterday with Walkabout Tours - an aboriginal owned tour company for the Daintree Rainforest. Recently,  the Australian government turned over more of the management of these areas to the resident aboriginal people. This forest is roughly 1200 square km in size is the largest single block rainforest in Australia; estimated to be around 180 million years old. The Kuku Yalanji people are believed to have lived here for 40,000 years or so. Our guide Aaron is a member of this tribe and, as Nancy mentioned, taught us all manner of things about foods, medicinal remedies and the like. I was unaware but Aaron told us there are roughly 3,600 different aboriginal languages in Australia; none of them being alike!

First stop was a local fruit stand that allowed us to restock our dwindling supply of Thai mangoes and Sapote.

On to the forest! Quite dense as you can see.

The day was very hot which was tough on our aging bones. Thankfully, we got a cool-down dip in one of the fresh water pools.

We were up early this morning for the drive back to Cairns Airport to proceed to our southern leg of this trip. Beautiful drive to Cairns along the romantically named Captain Cook Hwy: long sand beaches and aqua sea to our immediate left and rugged tree-covered hills/mountains rising on our right.

Hertz emailed me the final statement for the hire car and, gulp, it was as much as our accommodation for our 3 day stay! It's a worldwide phenomenon,  I suppose, as rental car companies slowly rebuild their fleets.

Tonight we're in Adelaide staying in . . . well, a pretty run down motel if I'm going to be honest. You take your best shot when booking these things but sometimes it doesn't go your way! Off to Coorong National Park in the morning.