Category: Photography

You can’t go to Australia and not see a croc! A few of us decided to go on a croc cruise with a local expert. We saw a few crocs, one which we were told was over 100 years old!

Scenery can’t be beat either:

Croc!

It was usually about 35C, and very very very humid, but so neat to see all the little creatures and beautiful plants and flowers that live in the rainforest.

We were told about the green ant, and how the aboriginals would eat the ants due to their extremely high level of vitamin C. Because of where we were, we weren’t allowed to kill anything, so we couldn’t eat the ant, buuuuuuut we could lick it. So I did. It was tangy. (actual size was comparable to the black ants we have in Canada)

The people that worked on the land would know the day was over and they could go home when the hibiscus flowers started to fall from the trees.

Saw a monitor on a tree:

Fig tree that killed its host:

Mangroves:

One of many many spiders I saw:

A dragon:

When we arrived at the Daintree rainforest, we learned it’s not only a World Heritage site, it’s also older than the Amazon! We stayed at the Ferntree Rainforest Lodge, a really neat place with bright windows and a long porch we sat on each night with a glass of wine before dinner.

It seems like everything there is bigger, grasshoppers, bats, bugs, spiders… spiders… spiders… but the geckos were delightfully the same size as I’ve always seen. They were shy, but I got a couple of shots.

One of them was about 5cm long, and decided to hide in my bed. (I checked my bed every single night with a flashlight before crawling in)

This is about the actual size of the grasshoppers:

View from the porch:

En route to breakfast:

Where we had most of our meals:

We stopped off at the Daintree Ice Cream Company to taste the homemade ice cream made from the fruit right there on the farm!

Jakfruit tasted like “bubblegum fruit salad” apparently. I didn’t really like it. Mango and Raspberry were both delicious, and the Wattleseed was like espresso!

Lots of little lizards around:

There were some really pretty gardens there too:

Mount Alexandra lookout, Walu Wugirriga (wah-lu oo-gid-ee-gah) means “look about”.

We went on several nature hikes en route to Cape Tribulation, and while we were there, too. It was great to learn about all the trees, plants and creatures within the stunning scenery.

They’re big on these suspension bridges…

Fig trees/Strangler trees are a big problem, they choke out the tree that they climb, and eventually the host tree dies and disintegrates leaving a hollow fig tree.

On our way to Cape Tribulation, we stopped off in Port Douglas, famous for celebrities frequently visiting, and is the town closest to where Steve Irwin died when he was hit by a stingray. It’s also where a few movies have been filmed, such as Fool’s Gold.

This was one of the lookout views we stopped at along the way:

There is a beautiful church there, St. Mary’s by the Sea, where you can get married with a view of the ocean.

A beautiful tree – so bright. Took tons of pics of this one.

These tiny crabs made the most intricate designs in the sand by forming tiny balls as they built their homes/escapes/hideaways daily.



Spot the crab!

I’ve always wanted to visit Australia and New Zealand. I saved for a few years, and planned out how to make the most of my 5 week trip of a lifetime. Now that I’m back from down under, I’d like as many chances as possible to revisit my amazing memories from my trip, so I’m going to start posting some of the photos I took, and what I learned.

So without further ado, the first image in the series:

This is a cassowary, it is a rare bird and endangered in Australia. I took this photo when we were on a nature hike through the rainforest in Cape Tribulation.

This image is one of the most photographed, as a reminder to watch out for the birds on the road: