Ash & Jess vs....The Entire Animal Kingdom

Day 4: Cape Tribulation Retreat
This day was quite interesting. We were really tired after a full day of rafting, but we were looking forward to living in the rainforest for one night. We got picked up by our Cape Trib Connection tour bus and guess what? Tom and Matt from whitewater rafting were on the tour too! Small world. So, we headed up to a wildlife sanctuary for some fun tidbits about the fuzzy creatures that reside in the forest. We saw these flying nocturnal squirrels…who were sleeping. The keeper decided to wake one up and let people take pictures with it. Some poor lady in front of us was holding it for the perfect photo op when the darn thing urinated on her. It was like opening the floodgates. I didn’t know these little guys could retain so much water. Well, at least we knew that he was safely empty for our pictures. But of course, right when it was our turn, it decided to fall asleep. Great. The keeper had to bring it back to its cage for its “precious” sleep. So, in the end, we didn’t get one picture.

Next on the bill was a short walk through the rainforest. We learnt a lot about the native trees and plants there. Saw a couple of bugs. Got stung by a lot of mosquitoes. We then headed to where we were staying for the night. In order to do so, the bus had to take a ferry across the Daintree River, which is inhabited with at least 600 crocodiles. Perfect photo opportunity. Upon our arrival, the crocs must have sensed Ashleigh and I because none of them could be seen. I truly believe that all the animals in Australia have made a pact to taunt and tease us.

Anyway, we arrived at The Cape Tribulation Beach House, our accommodation for the night. Don’t let the name fool you. It wasn’t a beach house. It was more like a bug-infested dungeon. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. We told ourselves that it would be okay because we would spend the entire day outside. Um….not quite that simple. It was a blistering 35 degrees outside. The humidity probably upped it to about 40 degrees. Any Canadian would melt.

So, we decided to go to the beach. The nice water would cool us down. As we approached the beach, it was like the gates of heaven opened.



There are no words or pictures that would do this place justice. It was utterly breathtaking. The water was clear and blue. The beach was pristine. The waves were calm. The jellyfish were everywhere. Yup. Because it was mating season for the jellyfish, they were all hanging out near the coast making swimming impossible for any sensible human. Now these were the box jellyfish that had enough stinging power to kill you in 90 seconds. Once again, taunting and teasing. It was torture to be right at the edge of paradise and not be able to just jump in. We were like the kids who have their dirty little faces plastered against the candy store window.


How could you not fall in love with this place?

In order to fill up our time, we decided to sign up for this really interesting exotic fruit tour. The tour consisted of a little walk through an exotic fruit plantation while learning about each kind. Then we would be given free samples of them! I was never one to pass up free food. So, after all the money had changed hands, we waited in the lobby (which was really just a bench outside) for the bus to pick us up. Then the receptionist comes to tell us that the tour was cancelled due to lack of people. You see, we were the only two people that signed up and it wasn’t worth it for them to run the tour. Dear God, what have we done to upset you so?

So now we were in a little pickle. We wanted to go to this natural swimming hole everyone was talking about, but we found out that it would take us at least one hour of walking in this blazing heat to get there. Let’s blame the extreme heat and not our utter laziness. Lucky for us, one of the “hotel” employees overheard our dilemma and told us he could drive us there. Was this some cruel joke or had our luck changed? It turns out that it was the latter. What a sight to see. It was this stunning little fresh water creek. We both took a little dip and became completely rejuvenated afterwards.

It was now time to go back because we had also signed up for a “Croc Night Walk”. Yes, we willfully signed up to hunt wildlife and crocodiles while walking through the rainforest at night. It looked like fun when we signed up...in the light of day...in a air-conditioned reception area. But at least we can call ourselves crocodile hunters now.

We got the tour started when Hanz, our tour guide straight out of a cartoon, came to pick us up. We headed to the edge of the forest and he gave each of us a flashlight. We saw a lot of scary creatures: a python, a freaking huge spider, a forest frog, forest dragons, and pretty much the entire cast of A Bug’s Life. Have a look:

But no croc in sight. And on top of that, we were required to cross this ravine lined with slippery rocks. Ash slipped and fell into the water taking her cute little digital camera with her. Oh no indeed. We wanted to check if it was still working by turning it on immediately after it hit the water (which according to Michael, her brother, would be the worst thing one could do). Trust us to do whatever we could to make our lives as miserable as possible. Not surprisingly, the rainforest claimed its first casualty.

When we got back to our cell….I mean room, we were greeted by two spiders, a whole colony of flies on our bed, and tiny lizards. It was as if we had checked into the Hilton. We just ran under the covers, kept the linen tucked in, and poked our heads out. The least amount of skin exposed, the better. On top of that, it started to pour outside. Torrential downpour. We couldn’t close our window because one of the spiders had spun its web over it and we would ruin it if we did. So picture this: you have this 10 x 10 cell with lizards running around a bed that is neatly made with only two heads poking out of it, all the while having water seeping in from the window that is guarded by a spider.

That was our night. Jealous?

Jess

Mosquito bites: 17