We stepped out of the 4-wheel drive jungle bus onto the muddy banks of Australia’s Daintree River. Picking our way through the mud and across the makeshift plank path near the water’s edge, we boarded the waiting river boat perched stern end up on the riverbank.
Once the entire busload of people climbed on board (and thus became a boatload of people) the boat left the shore and proceeded down the river. All eyes watched the riverbanks, looking for any sign of the many creatures dwelling there.
Not all bats live in caves, we discovered. Several trees came to life as the colony of sleeping bats left their upside down perches on the branches and took flight, disturbed by the noise of our boat. They must have quite a hard time getting a good day’s sleep as ours was not the only riverboat cruising the Daintree River.
Farther downstream we found a tree full of frogs. Not little ones like the Pacific tree frogs we see at home. Pretty big for frogs. I didn’t know tree frogs got that big. We learn all sorts of things while traveling.
Here and there along the banks we saw lots of juvenile crocodiles. Even adult fresh water crocs are not as big or fierce as the saltwater crocs. Of course we did not see any of them along the banks of a river.
A small primitive ferry crossed the river on cables. We had crossed the river on that ferry earlier in the day on the jungle bus rainforest tour. Now we passed under the cables.
When the ride ended, the boat docked near a steep bank.
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I love those little frogs! Not feeling so warm and fuzzy about the crocodile though:)
Those frogs were really cute. The boat got right up close and they sat there kindly posing for pictures.
We look wet in the picture leaving the boat, but that is because we got rained on at the end of the rainforest tour just before we got on the boat.
This article is a home run, pure and simple!