Tropical North Queensland

From Mt. Isa, we traveled for several more days through flat, pretty much barren land with a few interesting stops. We drove north to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria and encountered some of the most colourful and iridescent insects either of us had ever seen, later to be discovered as Harlequin bugs. From there it was east to Cairns. A beautiful city on the water awaited us, and we happily checked into our hostel. Got our dive course and Barrier Reef trip booked for the earliest date possible, 5 days away. Spent a few days shopping and touring around Cairns, and enjoyed the lagoon built on the esplanade in 32C heat with a UV index of 12. Neither of us knew it existed, but we quickly learned just how hot it meant.

With a few days to spare before our course, we decided to drive north to the Daintree Rainforest. It's the oldest rainforest on earth, and the only place where the forest meets the reef. Along the way, we stopped at several beaches and realized that just about the entire North Queensland coast is white sandy beaches with palm trees and turquoise waters. Every beach is more stunning than the last.
After crossing the Daintree River on their very old ferry, we entered the unique environment and encountered many trees and plants that are millions of years old, and grow only in this area. We climbed walkways through the forest canopy and kept a constant watch out for cassowaries, a very large and endangered flightless bird. It was there that Jodi began her love affair with fan palms, a variety of the tree whose palm leaves are up to 2m diameter circles of accordion waxy leaf material. We also saw plenty of tree vines that were strong enough to swing from, and crisscrossed their way through branches and around trees to the top of the canopy.
Our campground was at Noah Beach, just south of Cape Tribulation, and we were only 20m from the beach, so a good bit of time was spent there reading with a beer, and watching the sun rise. We also tried jungle surfing, basically being strapped into a harness and flying down zip lines between ancient trees in the rainforest. It was a lot of fun, and great to see the forest from a different viewpoint. After three days in this fascinating world heritage area, it was time to head back down to Cairns and get ready to dive in another.