Ulli's gold

We arrived at our hotel (Sea Temple in Palm Cove) to find - surprise! - they had overbooked our room. Apparently this happens sometimes in Australia, and this isn't like a U.S. overbooked flight where they start the bidding with. Nope, this is "Sorry, no room for you, even though you've already paid for it. But we can send you to one of these other hotels which have rooms."

It turns out they had availability at their property 30km north at Port Douglas, and it's newer and nicer and actually closer to the various rainforest-y things we want to do. With some pressure they gave us free breakfast and a room upgrade to a 2-bedroom suite, for all four nights. The staff here is much friendlier to boot. A perky German girl named Ulli has helped us do everything from getting to the beach, into town, giving us restaurant recommendations and booking tours for us. So in the end, it's all worked out for the best.

The pool is great, when not infested with 6-year-olds. We made a note - whenever we get to build a pool into a house, somehow incorporate fire into it.

Yesterday we took an amazing tour of the Daintree Rainforest with Tony's Tropical Tours. Our guide, Chris, was very knowledgeable and seemed to enjoy teaching us the best way to extract poison from the various local flora (90% of the plant species in the Australian rainforest contain some kind of toxin that's deadly in sufficient quantity). We got lots of great scenery, sweeping views of completely unspoiled rainforest rolling across the hills of northern Queensland and into the Coral Sea.

Sadly, we only caught the faintest glimpse of a crocodile - but a closer encounter was available for us at the wildlife habitat, where we also saw koalas and cassowaries, and got to feed kangaroos.

Today we embarked on a cruise to the Low Isles, a small group of islands between the mainland and the inner reef. There's a beach and coral about, but it was rainy so we didn't get much sun in. However, the snorkeling was excellent - we saw lots of soft coral and giant clams, as well as three large green sea turtles, one of which was close enough to pet! It's pretty cool to be literally just a few feet from the nifty marine life you saw in aquariums as a kid.

The sheer immensity of this ecosystem in both time and space is awe-inspiring. It got me thinking, wouldn't it be neat if some product like Google Earth let you browse through time as well, and let you navigate through prehistoric environs? Whenever I hear talk of Gondwana and Laurasia it triggers that desire to immerse myself in some fantastical world of legend, made all the more compelling by the knowledge that it was real - it actually happened. Like, this world is cool - where's the cloth map?

On a lighter note, I've discovered two delicious new tropical fruits - jackfruit and the custard apple. And tomorrow we leave for Syndey!

Pictures of the moment (top to bottom):

1. View of the inlet adjacent to Whitehaven Beach, from a seaplane.
2. Greg feeding kangaroos at the wildlife habitat.
3. A view looking upward into the trunk of a strangling fig tree. The seed is dropped by a bird into the canopy of any other tree; the strangling fig sprouts and gradually drops roots that twist around the host until it is choked to death. When the host rots it leaves a hollow.
4. Jamie, swimming in a clear freshwater creek in the Noah Valley rainforest, her face painted with ochre rock.
5. Sand designs formed by ghost crabs at Cape Tribulation. They pick up a pile of sand, filter through it for nutrients, and when they're done with it they roll it into a ball and put it aside.