On Tuesday Diana and I went to do a river cruise on the Daintree. The river ist located about 1 1/2 hours north of Cairns and famous for it’s wildlife (including crocodiles). The girls have a car so we didn’t have to take a bus to get up there. The ocean road north of Cairns is a dream by the way, one corner after another, I wished I had my motorcycle with me.
We arrived at Bruce Belcher’s river tours around 1pm, bought the tickets (22 bucks each) had a coffee and then it was already time to board the boat. Quite a small thing that was, probably less than 10m long. On a river that is habitat to crocodiles up to 6m in size, yikes.
Our guide (I think it was Bruce himself) had a lot of knowledge to share about the river wildlife and pointed out birds and snakes in the trees along the river. Those snakes feed on bats, never heard of that before.
Less than 15 minutes into the tour we got to the main attraction. A life crocodile on the river bank. In the winter the water ist too cold for them and they try to warm up there. The croc was about 2.5m in size and we got really close, probably up to 5m.
Although they hardly ever move those guys are a really impressive sight. Bruce told us stories about humans getting into their way – usually doesn’t end pretty well.
One story amazed me the most. A family was camping on the beach and at night a crocodile came into the tent and dragged a man out of it. Fortunately for him his grandma showed some courage and jumped on the crocodiles back. When she started pocking its eyes it let go and they finished it off with three bullets from a 9mm (one of them was a competitive shooter on the way to the next tourney). Guess they’ll tell that story in their family for the next 100 years.
We saw about 4 or 5 crocodiles on the tour, the smallest just a few months old and less than 1m long. The tour took about an hour and we headed back to Cairns after that.
The job hunt in Cairns hasn’t been successful so far. I’ve visited a lot of bars, cafes and restaurants and wrote some applications. No luck so far. Tomorrow I’ll leave for Port Douglas there are supposed to be way less backpackers up there. Quite a few people said it would be much easier to get a job there.
Tonight we’re going to watch the game Germany vs England in some public viewing area. Half the city is invaded by Germans and Brits, that’ll be heaps fun.
