A really leisurely start today, as we had nothing planned for definite during the day. We had a late breakfast, thinking that we could then miss lunch. As we have an early dinner booked at 6.00pm as we are going on a two hour guided walk at 8.00pm.
The Lodge has a car that will run you to various places, so we decided to go to Mossman Gorge, as there is a couple of good hikes to do. They dropped us off at 12pm and said they would pick us back up at 2.20pm. We walked down the little lane to get into the Daintree National Park where Mossman Gorge is situated, to be presented with a sign at the bottom saying that the suspension bridge is closed for safety reasons, therefore the bigger loop we were going to do was inaccessible. Bugger! It was, yet again, a lovely day, so we just took our time walking around the smaller loop. There is a vivid blue butterfly called Ulysses that is absolutely stunning – you can see it flying from around a hundred yards away it is such a bright colour. Trying to photograph it is another matter – it hardly ever lands, and so far I have only managed a blue blur. One of these days. The walk around is in rainforest, but on boardwalks so that the plant life is not disturbed. There is also a swimming hole that several people are making use of. We get back to the pick up area around forty five minutes early, so Paul phones the Lodge and they come and pick us up early. Just before they arrived, Paul sees another of the Ulysses butterfly, and whips out his camera to try and video it. Gone before the camera comes out of the case. We drive back to the Lodge, and Paul then realises that he has left his hat where he was sitting trying to get a photo of the butterfly – oh dear, what a shame!
There is a couple of hiking trails to the back of the Lodge, so we decided to do those instead. We had to sign out at reception – if you don’t report back in within a certain time they will send a search party out for you. We get stocked up with water and off we go. The first part is easy – past Melaluca Island, and then we took the Low Trail to get to the Wave Rock Picnic Site. The Lodge will pack up a picnic hamper if you want to make a day of it. That wasn’t so bad. A few rocks and tree roots on the path, so you had to make sure you looked where you were going. At wave rock, you had to jump a couple of boulders into the middle of the river to get a good picture of it. I decided it wasn’t worth getting a wet foot for a picture of a rock, so let Paul do it. He didn’t get wet feet. Just as Paul turned to go back on to the trail, an aboriginal lad appeared from nowhere. He smiled, and jumped onto the rocks in the river. Wonder what he was doing there? Gave Paul a bit of a fright! From there on it got rather more difficult. The path was under a foot wide in places, with tree roots, tree trunks, rocks and you name it all in the way. It was really slow going, and very difficult. “They should make the girls in reception do this, so they warn customers what it is like” says Paul. “You need to be a 78 year Orion passenger at least!”
The sweat was literally pouring off my face. It was so difficult. With everything that crawls and grows on trees, I was a bit reluctant to grab onto anything to help keep my balance, but after a few minutes into this last bit I was grabbing onto anything. At one point a rock fall had completely covered the path, and you actually had to go down the slope and back up the other side to get round it. Whose idea was this? The walk was to Fig Tree Rapids – and soon the rushing water could be heard. Thank god for that! But we weren’t there yet. More tree roots, rocks, and streams were between us and them. It wasn’t so bad going flat, it was all the up and down that caused the problems. But, we made it. There was a group of young people swimming and waving over the other side of the river. “They probably came on the bus” said Paul. He insisted we jumped onto the last possible boulder before the rapids, as we were there. It was lovely to sit down though – the sweat was still poring off my body. There was a big green ant on the rock – probably came out of my shirt sleeve. Goodness knows what hopped onto me whilst I was clinging onto trees and rocks for dear life.
After a five minute rest it was time to start the trek back – and it didn’t actually seem as bad as when we had come. Perhaps I am getting better at it – on second thoughts probably not. We took the Low Trail to get there, and the High Trail to get back. Once we had gone past Wave Rock it was a lot better track – anything would have seemed better than that last bit. I had to peel my clothes off me, they were soaking wet with sweat. Hopefully a few calories burned there then! Paul went for a beer and to check us back in – I wonder how many people they lose on the tracks? He had a chat with one of the managers, who said that an American couple had come back from the trek to Fig Tree Rapids last week and said that the track was impassable. Didn’t make me feel so much of a wimp then! She also told him that the kids we saw swimming across the river were at Mossman Gorge – so it wasn’t so far off that they caught the bus! He then went to the beach billabong for a “refreshing” swim – I think the water was a bit cold. I passed.
On the way to dinner we saw a great big fat toad crossing the path. The cane toad around here is poisonous – no idea what this one was. I had kangaroo risotto for dinner and it was delicious. Medium rare is the only way to have it cooked, apparently, otherwise it tastes like shoe leather. Hand feeding them one day, eating them the next………..such is life.
We went for our night walk with a peculiar old bird called Erin. She liked saying aaaannddd and nothing after it. We did see the Bush Turkeys asleep up a tree on a very slim branch, but not much else of what you can see in the dark. She took us into the rainforest (towards the Fig Tree Rapids Trail, and I thought I can’t do that in the dark) but only a short way. We had to all turn off our torches to see the fireflies – but there weren’t any. We went down to the river to see the turtles – but there weren’t any. We were looking for the insect eating bats flying low over the river – but there weren’t any. Never mind – it was a very pleasant walk!
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