Daintree Tropical Rainforest

We've been in the rainforest of N. Queensland for the past two days and will be here 2 more.  There's no 3G here in most spots, so I'm taking advantage of being at the top of a 75 foot tower at the top of the trees to get online.  We're at the Rainforest Discovery Center for the second day in a row and have the place to ourselves.  (We always take the iPad with us when traveling in a van because it gets way too hot to leave it.)

So...when we picked up the camper van two days ago, we had a pleasant surprise.  They'd upgraded us to a somewhat larger van that has both a bathroom and air conditioning even when the motor is not running.  A major advantage in this very high humidity. Although it's 10-15 degrees cooler here than in Alice, it feels just as hot.  By the way, you can tell the difference between the weather here and in Alice Springs by the toilet seats in non-air conditioned buildings.  In Alice, the seats are so hot they're almost uncomfortable.  Here, they stick to your thighs and fall off with a thud when you stand up.

The drive up here was lovely, on a road squeezed between the mountains and the ocean - where the rainforest meets the reef, as they say here.  It's so lush, with green velvet slopes and beautiful sandy beaches.  (Miles and miles of beaches and no swimming!  Marine Stingers, with a nasty sting, are in the water during summer.). We passed a lot of sugar cane plantations and one banana plantation.  Stpped for a lunch picnic at Wonga beach (a good place to stop when you're wongy, Jared and Kira).  Crossing the Daintree River on a cable ferry puts you in a different world as you hit the heart of the rainforest.

We've gone on a number of rainforest walks, always looking for a cassowary, with no luck so far.  The Rainforest Discovery Center is wonderful, with walkways at all levels of the forest, from ground to canopy.

Some other notes:
First rain of the trip from 6:00 last evening into the night.  Pouring.  It should be doing this every day and night at this time of the year, according to our campground host, but it's been very dry.
Lots of frogs out in the campground after dark
Cape Tribulation (Kulki, pronounced Gool Gy in aboriginal language) -gorgeous!
Daintree Ice Cream Company - out of this world mango and wattle seed favors.  Wattle seed is native, grows in a pod, and the seeds are roasted -  tastes like coffee.
Jindalba boardwalk