I had the most fantastic day on Wednesday, I haven't laughed so much in ages! It was another early start, the bus picked me up at 7.30, unfortunately it was tipping it down with rain, typical! As soon as everyone got on the bus, Nathan (our guide) introduced everyone and then we were on our way. Basically this trip was like going back to your childhood, it was sooo funny. The tour is called Uncle Brian's Forest, falls and fun, all the people that work there are members of the family, even Gus the minibus is treated like a human, Nathan was telling us stories about how Gus fancies Vanessa the ambulance, but he already had a girlfriend, the milkfloat...like I said it was really silly!
We went through a town called Babinda which is really sleepy, we had to wave at everyone on the streets and the builders on the side of the road, not that there was hardly anyone, and Nathan would beep the horn..... they do it every day, so the people that live there must be used to it. On the drive there we drove past loads of sugar cane fields, banana and mango trees. Babinda has a sugar mill which provides 80% of the sugar to Tate and Lyle in England. We stopped off and had a walk through the rainforest..in the rain of course, we were all absolutely drenched, we were supposed to be going bum rafting down the rock slides, but the water was too deep and the current really strong, so we couldn't do that. We went back to the bus and had morning tea, it was good to get out of the rain. Our next stop was Josephine Falls, it was really beautiful there, we were supposed to swim there too, but again the water was too high. We did have a bit of fun trying to get the leeches off our feet, they were everywhere....I was suprisingly calm when I had one on me!
On the drive to 'Mr and Mrs Lunch' Nathan decided he wanted us to get to know each other better, so we all had to put a matchstick in our mouths and pass a ring to the matchstick of the person sitting next to you. When it came to my turn I couldn't stop laughing, the concentration on the guys face was hilarious.....I was literally crying with laughter, I did get there in the end tho!
We had a great lunch there and got to know each other a bit more, most of the group were really good fun, apart from one lady who just wouldn't join in, I don't know what possessed her to come on a tour like that!
After lunch we drove to Millaa Millaa Falls, Nathan was telling us that this is one of the most beautiful places he'd ever been to. Apparently if you go there in the morning and the sun is shining, the water looks like lots of diamonds falling out of the sky, he told us that he took his girlfriend there and proposed, which made all of us girls got all gooey! Then we had to get out of the bus, and without looking at the waterfall, he lined us up to face it, then when everyone was ready he told us to stare at the same spot for 30 seconds, then he said we were to look at the top of the fall....this was so cool cos the greenery around it all moved up and down like we were all hallucinating...you should have heard us all gasp when we saw it.
There is another story to this waterfall....about 10 or more years ago there was an advert for Timotei shampoo where a girl with gorgeous blonde hair washes her hair in the water and then flicks her wet hair back...it turns out that this is the waterfall where they filmed it. Nathan showed us photos of girls on previous trips that had had their picture taken whilst flicking their hair back, so of course all us girls were dying to get our photos done, even if it did mean going swimming in the rain....there was only one condition, Nathan would only take our photo if we all jumped in and swam right over to the waterfall and behind it, and then swim back under it. I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life, I literally couldn't breathe when I was swimming, but I got there in the end....we all had to rest behind the fall on the rocks to recover. It was an amazing experience going behind the water and swimming under it, you couldn't see hardly anything, it was such a buzz. When we got back to the shallows, then Nathan took our pics, I was absolutely freezing and had to do 2 takes, but we got it in the end....really cool, not quite like the Timotei girl tho!!
After that we drove to Eacham lake and had another dip and some afternoon tea....I tell you, they really fed us well. We were supposed to go and spot a platypus, but Nathan reckoned the weather would make it too hard to spot them, so we decided to look at the turtles and then go and do a bit of wine tasting, which was fun.
On the drive back, we had a sing song and we had to do hand movements too....at one point there was a school bus behind us, they must have thought we were lunatics!
We got back to the city and arranged to meet up for a drink later, so I got all my stuff packed and went out to join them later at PJs, then onto the Woolshed, it was just like going to a bar in Spain, it was full of Brits, and there was all these tacky promotional shows, like Wet T-shirt comps and pole dancing....I've still got a massive stamp on my hand "WOOLSHED WET-T-SHIRT" I can't get the thing of, very embarrassing, it looks like I've been doing competitions!! I managed to get back to the hostel at a reasonableish hour, as I knew I had to get up early again.
So yesterday, I was picked up for my trip to Cape Tribulation, which is 2 hours north of Cairns. We stopped at the Daintree river and did a boat trip along there, I saw my first wild crocodile, the guide said it was 4 metres long, we didn't think it looked very real, it didn't do much! We saw a couple of tree snakes and an amethyst python. After that was another rainforest tour (my last I hope, I think I've seen enough now!) then they dropped us off at the hostel. The weather is so bad, it hasn't stopped raining and I haven't seen the sun, I'm starting to get a bit fed up by it now. There is so much to do here if the weather is good, but all the boat trips have been cancelled. This is such a beautiful place, it's a real shame, the rainforest actually meets the beach, it's amazing. It's called Cape Tribulation, because it's where Captain Cook's trials and tribulations started, his boat got stuck on the reef for weeks. It's really cool listening to all the stories of how and why he named these places. In the end yesterday afternoon I went to a tropical fruit tasting, it was really interesting, we had 10 different fruits to try, Rollinia, Breadfruit (which was served warm, and funnily enough tasted of bread!), Soursop was another one....I only actually liked 2 of them, but it was worth going.
Last night there was a DJ here, I met a few Irish and Scottish girls, so we had a laugh and a few drinks. I slept pretty well, but the rain woke me a few times, it was so bad. I'm really tired though, I haven't had a lie in for ages, all this touring is knackering me out! I'm waiting to go to Port Douglas now, there is nothing to do while we wait for our bus cos of the rain. I'm hoping Al and Hayley will still be there...I haven't been able to contact them as I have no mobile reception. It's really funny here, there is no electric, I think the hostel is run on a generator, there are no doctors, hostitals, phones for the people that live here, and the water is pumped out of the ground!