14. October – To the Great Barrier Reef and in the nocturnal rainforest

This is Cape Tribulation – not the village but the real cape itself, taken from the boat. The rainy seasons sis starting and clouds are coming (however no rain so far). With a sort of jet boat we are going about 10 km in 25 minutes to a small sand island where the reef is found. The boat is doing about 20 km /h and is bumping on the waves – to the delight of the younger people on bord.

We have got 2 times  1 hour of snorkling between the corals and colourful fish,,,

Annette is enchanted but this gesture is more from freezing and not from fun….

…while Wendelin is getting a nice sunburn – as in spite of a wetsuit and sunscreen the bold head is sticking out of the water all the time….

In fact, a snorkling tour is a great experience – we saw among all the fish a small shark, 2 water turtles and a stink ray.  But the colourful „Disney-beauty“ of many films about the Great Barrier Reef is not what we saw. Many corals lost their colour or died already.

The afternoon is spent on the campground, in the shade, but still hardly bearable. As we had yesterday night the much recommended stone oven pizza here (to middle European criterea only middle class), we have the rest of our food on the campground for lunch. Early evening (6 p.m.), we try another recommended restaurant Whet. This is really a nice place with good food, only a bit little.

But the day has not ended yet. Annette booked a guided night walk through the rainforest. A guy looking a bit wild who has seen already the whole world is guiding us. The hike is through the dens, humid forest, quite impressing in the dark, but of all the animals that should be around, we only saw different spiders, a frog and this peppermint cricket. If the last is attacked, it emits a sort of peppermint sauce. We could smell it…