We departed the vast deserts of the Northern Territory and traveled to tropical north Queensland to see the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. Imagine boarding an airplane where it is 23 C and 0% humidity, and deplane 3 hours later into 29 C and 100% humidity.
Australia’s tropical rainforests are the oldest continually surviving tropical rainforests on earth. Dating back more than 100 million years, they are internationally recognized as one of the most ecologically fascinating natural areas in the world. Occupying 900,000 hectares, Australia’s tropical rainforests account for approximately 0.1% of Australia’s total land mass. Despite their relatively small size, they are home to an amazing diversity of ife including 65% of Australia’s fern species, 30% of its orchid species, 60% of its butterfly species and 50% of its bird species.
To protect Australia’s tropical rainforests and ensure they are preserved for future generations, they were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1988. The World Heritage List recognizes and encourages the preservation of areas considered to be of cultural or natural value to humanity.
We went to Mossman Gorge and took a trek through the rainforest and swam in the Mossman River. We had ice cream at a plantation where the proprietor makes her own ice cream from exotic fruits that she grows in her orchard at the edge of the jungle. We visited places with exotic names like Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation, Mount Sorrow, and Cow Beach.
Daintree Ice Cream Company
Rainforest Pool
Cow Beach and Mossman Gorge
We also went out to the Great Barrier Reef. I won't go into all of the details about how the reef is the largest living organism on the earth, that it is the only living thing that can be seen from outer space, stretches thousands of miles from tip to tip, and so on and so on. The reef can be accessed by boat, and is about a 90 minute ride from shore. There are many operators who will take you out to the reef - some of these operators have boats that can take over 400 people out in one trip. Floating around, looking at fish with 400 people wasn't the type of trip for us, so we opted for a smaller operator that took about forty of us out to the Agincourt Ribbon Reef, and we saw three different spots. The reef was not at all what we expected - it was less colorful than we expected which can be attributed to the fact that most photographs people see of the reef have either been enhanced or were taken with a very bright flash and expensive camera. The water filters out the different colors of the visible spectrum, and the deeper you go, the more colors get filtered out. The reef at places breaks the surface and goes deeper than 30 meters. The reef is not one massive, continuous thing, but is made up of multiple chunks varying in size from several square meters to several square miles, much like individual buildings and suburbs of a very large city.
So we rode the boat for 90 minutes straight out into the middle of the ocean to see one of the seven wonders of the world. The boat pulls up near the edge of the reef and anchors quite a distance away in order to prevent damaging the reef. You jump off the back of the boat into about 40 meters of water and swim the 100 meters or so to the edge of the reef. You are quite aware that you are a great distance from shore and that the reef is home to many creatures, including many that can kill you in many horrible ways. You can't really swim over the reef as it breaks the surface, and trying to cross the reef would result in both damage to the coral and to your body, as the coral is very hard and sharp. So instead you swim along the edge of the reef, where you can see the amazing diversity. The kids were very brave and jumped right in despite all of their nervousness. We spent about an hour and a half at each site, and the kids lasted about 30 minutes at the first site, about 30 minutes at the second site, and about an hour at the third site where the crew treated us to a guided tour of the reef. Here are some pictures of things that we saw at the reef.
View of a reef from the boat
