After spending 10 days driving through the dry, red expanse of the Australian Outback, the green foliage of the Daintree Rainforest and blue waters of the Tasman Sea provided a welcome change of pace. In fact, the Daintree Rainforest was even more interesting than we had originally imagined. We learned a lot of interesting things about this special place in the two days we spent hiking around.

 

 

Situated on the northeast coast of Queensland, the Daintree combines lush rainforest, ancient plant life, rare birds, and saltwater crocodiles together in a tropical coastal environment. The most unique aspects of the Daintree Rainforest are its age, (it is the world’s oldest rainforest at 180 million years) and abundance of unique life (it is home to the highest number of plant and animal species in the world that are listed as “rare”). Millions of years ago, the Australian continent was wet and humid and rainforests grew across the continent. As the climate changed, rainfall dried up and the rainforests gave way to what is now the dry Australian Outback. However, due to its location, the Daintree Rainforest was unaffected by these changes in climate. This has created an environment where unique, ancient, and primative life (especially plant life) has managed to survive through millions of years completely unchanged. In fact, the Daintree rainforest is home to 12 of the 19 families of primative flowering plants, making it the region with the highest concentration of these plants worldwide. Here are a few cool examples of the unique plant life in this rainforest:

This parasitic vine begins life on the floor of the forest. In order to reach the light at the top of the forest canopy it begins to climb the nearest tree. As time goes on, the strangler fig begins to choke off its host tree (hence the name). Eventually, the host tree dies, and the strangler fig is left to stand on its own. We found a really cool example of this:

 

 

While the Daintree Rainforest is famous for its amazingly unique plant life, it is also home to some very interesting animal life as well.

Who would have thought that in this unique rainforest you’d be able to find the world’s largest crocodile? Well, you can. The saltwater crocodile can grow up to 6.5 meters long (21 feet) and weigh up to 1,200 kilos (2,600 pounds)! Yep, this is not a place to go swimming!

 

 

The 2nd heaviest and 3rd tallest bird in the world, the Cassowary feeds mainly on the fruits of the forest (including fruits that are lethal to humans). In fact, it has been found that without the Cassowary to disperse their seeds, over 150 species of rare trees in the Daintree would go extinct. We caught a glimpse of a Cassowary as it headed off into the forest, but didn’t get a picture. We did get a picture of this sign though:

Apparently those funny looking animals that hop along the landscape of Australia can also climb trees! Well, not exactly. The big Red Kangaroos and slightly smaller Grey Kangaroos of Australia would immediately fall out of trees if you put them there. However, their cousin, the Bennett’s Tree Kangaroo is completely at home hopping around in the branches of the rainforest. I learn something new everyday.

It has long been a dream of mine to visit the Great Barrier Reef. For those who know me well, I have been interested in ocean life for quite some time and I kept a saltwater reef aquarium for the 6 years that we lived in New York so I would have a small window into the world under the sea. Needless to say, when we decided to visit Australia during our world Trip, the Great Barrier Reef was #1 on my list of things to see. At over 2,300 kilometers long, it is easily the world’s largest coral reef, so large that it is visible from space. In fact, it is the largest living thing on earth.

Kathy and I booked our snorkeling tour from the town of Cairns in Northern Queensland. The boat was full the following day so we had to wait a day before we could go out. I decided to do some fishing along the coast on our “free” day to get my fix of saltwater fish. I hooked several interesting fish, but nothing as cool as the baby hammerhead shark that I caught! Don’t worry, I tossed him back after snapping the picture so he could harrass stingrays for years to come.

The day of our snorkel trip was actually a bit stormy. The sky was completely covered in clouds and it was raining intermittedly. When we checked in to get on the boat they actually asked us if we wanted to reschedule in light of the bad weather. We couldn’t, so we got our tickets and headed out to the marina to board our boat. To be honest, I didn’t care too much about the bad weather. I was too excited about seeing one of the world’s natural wonders to care about some rough seas on the way there. In fact, we felt a bit lucky. The bad weather had scared off a lot of other customers and left us with only 21 other people on the boat (it could fit 100). So, after about 1.5 hours of extremely rough seas (of the 23 people on board, I would guess 10 vomited into bags) we made it to Michaelmas Cay on the Great Barrier Reef. We put on our wetsuits and headed out into the water to get a peak into this environment. Even with the low visibility, no sun, rough water, and rain, it was an absolutely magical place. Once your head is under water, you don’t hear the wind and rain or anything else. You are simply transported into this watery world where fish hide amongst corals, sharks chill out on the bottom, giant clams show off their colors, and snails, crabs, clams and sea cucumbers crawl about. I’m ready to go back!!

Those that knew I have long been interested in ocean life will also probably know that I have always enjoyed watching nature shows and documentaries. One show I remember watching a lot as a kid/teenager was “The Crocodile Hunter” with the charismatic Australian Steve Irwin. His show focused on the unique wildlife of Australia, like its famous marsupials (Kangaroo, Koala etc..), venemous snakes, and of course, crocodiles. The Australia Zoo, which is owned by Steve Irwin’s wife and two kids (Steve was unfortunately killed by a stingray in a freak accident in 2006), was on our way so we decided to stop and spend a day there. We spent the day touring around the zoo reading about all of the interesting animals native to Australia. They have mostly what you’d expect: Kangaroos, Koalas, saltwater crocodiles, venomous snakes, dingos, tasmanian devils, emus, echidnas, and lots of interesting little desert lizards. However, there was something fun about visiting these animals at a zoo in a country they were from. It’s not the same as viewing animals in the wild, but it felt better than looking at a Kangaroo in a zoo in Chicago for example. Their Kangaroo enclosure was also quite unique because you could walk right into it and interact with the Kangaroos (feed them pellets, pet them etc..). There was a private space for the Roos if they didn’t want to be bothered, but if they felt curious they’d hop around the paths where we’d walk or just laze around in the sun and submit themselves to endless selfies from zoo visitors (including us).