Wedding Anniversary

Monday was our 13th Wedding Anniversary and Tish and I spent the day visiting some plces north of us that we had not managed to get to yet.
We started off with lunch at Port Douglas before heading further north to explore Mossman Gorge.
On the way we stopped to take the obligatory tourist picture of the Cane Train - there are narrow gauge tracks along the edges of most fields and the harvested sugar cane gets put straight onto these small trains and taken directly to the refinary

 We then carried on straight to the Mossman Gorge Visitor Cente - which is quite frankly a waste of time but there is a very convenient shuttle bus service that runs from the centre to a carpark about 250m from the main viewing platform. Normally we would walk but both of us decided to be lazy!

The Gorge was flowing quite well but I would imagine that in the wet it is spectacular
There were a few deeper pools that people swim in

but it was far too cold so we resisted the temptation to do anything more strenuous than enjoy the view

From Mossman we carried on north to the small village of Daintree. From here there are several well known wildlife cruise companies that specialise in crocs etc - not a patch on the Adelaide River Queen cruises as it is illegal to feed wild crocs in Queensland. That said there were certainly crocs around - just above my left shoulder on the far bank of the river there was a four metre beastie eyeing up a group of Magpie Geese

It was very relaxing just watching the river flow by but Tish was having none of it and after a few furtive glances at her watch announced that we would have to move on to a different boat ramp for a better view...
Anyway that blew the "surprise" as she had arranged with Allan our neighbour to meet us at the "Daintree Boat Ramp" and he was going to take us on a trip up the river in his boat - unfortunately Tish had not realised there were two Daintree Boat Ramps and we were on the wrong one!
This was soon rectified and we headed back to the ramp close to the car ferry

We headed across the river to take a few pictures of this very relaxed croc

before we headed off up one of the many side channels along the Daintree

The Daintree is advertised as a great birdwatching site and this may be the case but I was far more impressed by the plant life.
The adaptations that the trees have evolved to get the nutrients and resources they need are amazing. the root systems are like a complex maze be they spike or buttress forms

The sheltered areas created by these roots are used as nurseries for both fish and in this case as a safe haven by a small croc

Can you see it???

The main feature though had to be the huge variety of epiphytic orchids and ferns - unfortunately there was quite a wind and the plants were moving more than I realised and some of these are slightly out of focus - I have not got the names for two of them.
Tassel Fern

These have been over collected and are now quite scarce in the wild

Elkhorn or Staghorn Fern

Two un-named orchid spp

Dendrobium nindii - another orchid that is rare in the wild due to over collection

We finished up on the main channel watching the sun go down over the mountains in Daintree National Park

It was a great way to spend our wedding anniversary!
A huge thanks to my lovely wife and to Allan.