Surfing #2 (in the trees)

After a little bit of confusion over which Pullman hotel we were to meet the tour bus at we were eventually on our way out of Cairns up the coast.  We stopped to pick up a few more passengers in Port Douglas and then stopped at The Wildlife Habitat.  They had a short talk about koalas and one about reptiles.  By this point the kids look like geniuses when they can answer every question.  We also toured around the various habitats and then it was back on the bus.

After a quick lunch stop we finally arrived at our destination and got geared up to go zip lining through the rain forest.  We all got helmets with our nick names for the day - Avery was super girl, Trent was Captain Jack Sparrow, Grandma was Cookie Monster, Dave was George of the Jungle and I was Tinkerbell.  We then did a short hike up to the hamster wheel.  They don't have any electricity so each pair walks in the wheel to pull another pair up to the first platform.  From there gravity gets you to the other six platforms.  The first four times you go in pairs and the final two you get to go solo.  On the last paired ride they stop you for a while over the highest point so you can enjoy the view.  The zip lining was fantastic and on each platform the guides had lots of interesting info about the rainforest plants and trees.  The highlight was the last platform where the guide was finding green ants on the tree and told us to lick their bums (the kids loved that).  It was the craziest intense sour jolly rancher kind of flavour!

For the last zip line they let you out a couple feet and you can flip yourself upside down for the last ride.  Avery was the first one to do it (the four guys before her didn't and then were all shocked as they watched her fly upside down).  For Dave, Trent and I they spun us around a few times before we flipped upside down which was a lot of fun.  Grandma declined the extra options but did love the zip lining. 

It was then back on the bus and we started back home.  We did have one last stop for a river cruise on the Daintree river.  It was billed as a crocodile cruise and we did see one small guy but the rest of it was a somewhat annoying commentary about all of the trees, how everything will kill you, how he knew more than "google science" and how much he knew about everything.  I guess given how many amazing tours and guides we've had we were bound to eventually run into one that was way over the top.

Following that was the long drive back.  We had left at 6:50am and returned at 7:30.  If we had to do it over again we'd recommend renting a car for the day, driving directly to the jungle surfing and skipping over the rest.  The jungle surfing was definitely a highlight.

Cathy