A Day at the Rainforest

One of the many things that makes Port Douglas such a cool place to visit is that it's about a 20 minute drive to the Daintree Rainforest- the world's oldest rainforest. Everyone had told us that we needed to see it, and since we don't have stuff like that in America, we also wanted to go. There's like a zillion guided tours you can take, but they were pretty pricey, plus the lady at our hotel desk suggested that we just rent a car and drive up there ourselves. We found a good deal, and set out early Thursday morning! Jenna was with us of course, but she didn't much feel like driving, so Jen eagerly got behind the wheel! (on the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road, for the first time on a real street) It wasn't really that difficult (I drove us on the way back, but the roads we were driving on would have been tough even if it was in America! We had to go up into some mountains a bit, so the roads were super narrow and majorly curvy! It was pretty funny. Driving on the other side of the road, on the other side of the car is quite an experience. I recommend it.

Here's a picture from our first lookout point. Keep in mind that the drive alone is beautiful- the huge trees were stretching like a canopy over the street, and everything was just so pristine and untouched.

We stopped off at a couple of boardwalks through the rainforest as well- check out these cool vines! Tarzan would have loved this place.

As we were driving, sometimes it would suddenly not be mountain anymore, and the rainforest would sort of disappear as we headed into small patches of farmland. We pulled over anytime we saw anything interesting, so we saw this incredibly huge tree across from beautiful horses! We had to get out. Jenna and I just loved these guys!

As the day wore on, we started to get hungry, so since we had packed a lunch, we decided to pull over at a small rest area with picnic tables. It looked like there might be a beach behind the trees (literally like 30 ft off the road), so we had a look. We were utterly shocked. This is the most beautiful beach I have ever been on. And we found it by accident! And no one was even there!! We stayed for a few hours. Incredible. This picture below I took while standing in the waves, looking back at Jen and Jenna setting out our picnic under the palm trees. What??!
The pictures don't even do it justice. Though I took like a zillion.. just in case they could. The water was so clear, and so blue...
There was literally a mountain right behind this beach. With a rainforest on it. What kind of place is this?!!

After our "short" stop, we trekked on to more places in the rainforest. This was one of those days when I was so overwhelmed by the beauty I had seen. Everything was so different, so unique, so complex, and just so awesome. I loved it.

Here's a picture of a really cool tree we found. I don't know if you can tell, but it's hollow between those vines that choked the original host tree, and it's growing up and kind of sideways.

At the end of all the paved roads we finally reached the famous Cape Tribulation. This is the only place in the world where 2 World Heritage Parks meet- the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. You can tell from this picture that as I'm standing on this beach, the rainforest is actually touching the water. You don't see that everyday..

Our final stop on the way back to Port Douglas was a famous place called The Mossman Gorge. It, like most of the rainforest, would be more impressive during rainy season, which is coming up in about a month for this part of Queensland, but it was still a cool thing to see. Just tons of big rocks with water running through, but you can swim in the icy clear water, and it is very unique and pretty.

We had a very full day of God's natural creation this day. :)