Because We Can

Today we are headed into the world’s oldest surviving rainforest. And what I nicer way to start the day than this table at the resort. Of course the reason I picked it wasn’t for the setting, it was for the beautiful lady sitting there. Lucky Bob. Flowers on a plant near our room. With the practical naming system the Aussies use, the plant is called lobster claw. Across this crocodile infested river was our destination for the day, the Daintree Rainforest which is the most toxic rainforest in the world. It is toxic in the sense that many of the plants are extremely poisonous to animals and humans. A pretty blue fruit laying on the forest floor. An extremely deadly fruit laying on the forest floor. The species of tree it fell from was growing some 170 million years ago. Our rainforest guide gingerly holding the fruit. At the start of our walk through the rainforest we were told not to pickup anything on the forest floor or even touch any plants as they could be toxic...

Walking to the resort restaurant for breakfast we became so fascinated with all the wonderful plants that we walked right past this sign and ended up who knows where. After walking around for some time we ended up on the far side of the resort and found another sign like this. Salving our wounded pride, we agreed the walk did us a lot of good. The Wandering Twosome or Two Rubes in a Resort. All that walking had caused my appetite to increase a moderate amount, so I had the best of everything. Baked beans, sautéed mushrooms, a potato cake, Bircher muesli and local crafted plain yogurt, all washed down with orange juice. Looking around I can assure you no one else in our tour group had anywhere near as good a breakfast as I did.   Our destination for the day was the outer reef, and upon arrival, Linda made a beeline for the boat with the underwater viewing windows. It was fun, but the colors of the coral and the resulting photos she took were, to put it nicely, blaa. ...

We boarded the bus at 4:55 for the drive out to the Uluru sunrise viewing area. It was an optional event, but we do every option they offer. Why come half way around the world and sleep in when you can be up and seeing something. Hot drinks and biscuits (cookies) to start the day, with Ms. Gottahave Morning Coffee at the head of the line. Every tour bus had it’s own table, the crowd was a small fraction of the one at sunset. What a spectacular display of color. Unfortunately there were two problems. The first was Uluru was in the opposite direction. The second was there was color in the sky but that was all. Sunrise at Uluru when the sun doesn’t appear. If Uluru is going to look pretty, I’ll just have to find beauty elsewhere. The tall scraggly thing on the right side of the photo is a desert oak. If you’ve been to Aussie you know what it is, if you’ve never been to Aussie you’d never believe it was an oak if you saw one close up. Like I said, they sure d...