Australia - Daintree & Cape Tribulation

We arrived in Australia, hired a car in Cairns, then drove north to Daintree and started our camping expedition

Daintree has a river that runs through it....with crocs!

This is the first croc we saw

Not all the roads are sealed in Australia, reminds me of Colin McRae on the old PS3 :-)

Due to the lack of bad winters, here in Queensland, there are still some old vehicles to be seen...

Daintree is on the edge of a National Park and very beautiful, so we went for a walk

And found somewhere with no crocs where we could have a swim

The water was sooooo cold, even though air temp was in the 30's.  Heart attack conditions

Still, we braved it..

It was about 8km away from where we were staying and locals were stopping as they passed in their cars asking if we knew how far it was.  To be fair, it was midday, very hot etc, but as there were no mad dogs out, we had the place to ourselves..

On the way back it looked stunning with the low sun and contrasts

As the Daintree river flows into the sea, it is one of the few places in the world where tropical rainforest and sea meet

In the distance is where the river Daintree meets the sea

We went further upcoast, but the beaches were not for swimming.  As well as crocs, there were also Box Jellyfish around, which can kill you

So it was no surprise that the beaches were free

This is Cape Tribulation.  Not as bad as it sounds.  Is called Tribulation as when Captain Cook arrived here from further north, his vessel beached and broke on a reef and he wrote in his log, '..this is where our troubles began..'

The Mangrove Trees, which can survive salt and fresh water and are often a sign of crocs

As we couldn't go swimming, we went for another walk

Found an old rock pool

And went back to our swimming spot

We also went on a boat on the river to spot some crocs

Although we only saw one, which was actually across from the jetty, typical. 

These crocs are Esturine, or Saltwater Crocodiles.  They can survive in either saltwater or freshwater, but differ from freshwater crocs in that they have a gland at the back of the throat which means they can secrete salt.  They are generally bigger and have been recorded to be up to 8m in length.  They were nearly hunted to extinction here, but are now protected animals and the biggest here is about 4m, so is prob only around 40 years old.  They can get to around 90 years old.  They are dangerous to humans at around 2.5m