1995/11 Australia trip - Daintree River |
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Tuesday was our silver wedding day and we planned to spend it appropriately enough on a crocodile-infested river, so we drove north to Mossman and then to a tiny village called Daintree, which has a restaurant and a campground and a half dozen houses. At the restaurant, we asked this guy in a Crocodile Dundee suit about taking a cruise on the river, and it turned out that this was Norm, or Crocodile Norm, I guess, of Daintree Safaris.
Apparently, he made news a few months back by swimming with a crocodile. I guess business was slack, and he saw that as a way to get some TV coverage. He appeared to still have all his body parts, so he must have got away with it. Not only was he prepared to take us out, but we were his only customers, so we had the pontoon boat to ourselves.
We saw lots of birds, and plants, and trees and flowers, but no crocodiles! Apparently, it’s the mating season, and then crocs get shy and disappear under the tree branches, so we had no luck. But Norm was full of stories and information. We got to try some of the berries, and eat some hibiscus flowers. “Can live on these for thirteen days”, says Norm, “but you’ve gotta eat a lot of ‘em”.
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Daintree River (8.18) |
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We picked up two more passengers as we passed the village, and then we went downstream to a creek where the rainforest closed over the river to 
make a tunnel in places. This is where one of the locals was killed a few years back. She was sitting in 14” of water, holding her husband’s hand. A 15 foot croc grabbed her round the chest, and hit him with its tail, and then she and it were gone. Apparently, she swam there regularly, and he was in the habit of feeding scraps to the crocs. As Norm said, the crocs live 100 years, so they can be very patient, and people just get careless. As he said this, he was standing on the bow of his pontoon, about six inches from the water, with his back to the river. Quite a few people have died off this coast, as the crocs get very big and move very fast. They’re a lot more feared than the sharks. “They eat sharks”, says Norm.
After our little cruise, we drove to the ferry crossing for Cape Tribulation (which is where Captain Cook’s ship ran aground). The road is only for jeeps and similar, so we couldn’t cross over, but we had lunch at the Big Croc Cafe, watching the safari traffic going onto the ferries. The land north and west of there is jungle, with no real roads or towns, so there are lots of outfits running safari/adventure travel trips. The lady behind the cafe counter might have been a model for Dame Edna. I kept waiting for her to say “Hello Possums!”, but she never did. Sandie had barramundi, which is a local fish, and I had kangaroo. Both were quite tasty.
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Mossman Gorge (4.51) |
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After lunch we returned to Mossman, to hike up the Mossman Gorge. This is rainforest again, but I think it gets too many visitors, as there was not much animal life visible. It was also very dark and humid, as the usual late afternoon clouds had rolled in. At the top of the trail, there was thunder grumbling around the hills, and then a steady heavy rain for the hike back. This thins the crowds out a bit, but it’s tough to take pictures when everything is steamed up.