Innisfail

We woke late, took showers, had breakfast, and generally screwed around until finally hitting the road around 10:30.  Our plan: To travel South, along Captain Cooks Highway to visit Johnstone Crocodile Farm in Innisfail, stopping at the Babinda Boulders, and Josephine Falls, along the way.  Innisfail is 90km south of Cairns, which made it about a 2 hour drive from our hotel.  Just before leaving, I sent an email to the local kayak tour company to see about booking a kayak/snorkel trip sometime in the next few days.

As we pulled out of the hotels parking garage, it was raining and cloudy, but not particularly hot or cold.  We zipped through Cairns, and just 10km south passed the base of Walsh's Pyramid poking up through the clouds.   Henry spotted some wild kangaroos on the side of the road, and we passed field after field of sugar cane, and, bananas. 

According to the inter-nets, the "Babinda Boulders" was a freshwater swimming hole famed for it's beauty, and frequented by the locals.  To get there, you drive South, then turn right at the town of Babinda and follow the signs from there. Calling Babinda a small town is like calling calling a skink a small dinosaur. While arguably true, it distorts your sense of scale. Babinda did have a few shops, but we were in and out the other side in less than a minute.

By the time we arrived at the trail-head, the rain had subsided to a very light mist. We saw some red-headed Australian Brush turkeys in the parking lot along with a couple of wild roosters,  after a few excited photos, we began our hike through the rain-forest.  The trees in the rain-forest are covered in moss, and ivy and miles of inch thick vines that twist around everything, including each other, resembling cords of braided rope  veering chaotically around and between the trees. Many plants have sharp spines, or serrated leaves. This is not a placid, stagnant place; everything eats everything.  As if to accentuate that fact, John Paul's foot starts to itch, and he looks down to find a leech has attached itself to his foot. This is odd, and somewhat troubling, since he hasn't walked through any water, and the path thus far has been a four foot wide slab of asphalt. He pulls it off, puts it down, and it becomes obvious how he got the parasite. It starts, not slowly,  to crawl after him, lifting it's entire body up like an inch worm. I swear it was sniffing the air for blood.  I shot some video in slow motion, but after uploading it, I found another video on YouTube describing it better as the Australian blood sucking leech. This short video features the creature crawling on the hand of an un-fazed Australian park ranger who gives a little speech about how they feed.  From this point on in the hike, we all began checking our ankles every hundred paces or so.

A little farther down, William found a vine dangling by the path, and yanked on it to see if it would hold his weight. This of course shook the tree it was attached to, and all the loose water from all the leaves dumped on him at once.  The vine held though, so for the next five minutes, he and his brothers played Tarzan. I shot a video of William here, but forgot to change the settings from the last shoot, so this one is in slow motion as well. 

It started to rain a bit harder, and by the time we got to the Boulders lookout platform, it was definitely raining. The view was nice, but the water was flowing too fast to be swim-able, (not that we were in the mood to swim anyway.)  We found a few butterflies that were undeterred by the rain, we took a few token scenery shots and headed back up the 500m trail to the parking lot. The faster we walked, the harder the rain came down, and by the time we were back to the entrance field, it was officially torrential. I ran for the van, and drove it to the covered area so the rest of the group could stay dry, or at least, not get much wetter.

We toweled off in the car and returned to Bruce Highway. (Somewhere between Cairns and Innisfail Cook's Highway inexplicably changes it's name)  We decided to skip eating in Babinda, and, rather,  visit the falls, then grab some food in Innisfail.

When we got to the Josephine Falls trail-head, Ariel decided she didn't want to hike anymore, and would stay by the car and read.  Henry found another butterfly, and then ran down to the trail-head to find some more animals to photograph, (there were more turkeys) The rest of us got our swim gear on, not so much to go swimming, but just to keep our pants from getting any more soaked. I left everything in the car, my wallet, the hotel key, opting to bring only Ariel's water-proof camera.  Henry ran back, reporting that he'd found a leech twice the size of JP's and this one had yellow stripes.  After checking out his new find, we headed down the 700m trail to the falls.  As soon as we started walking, the downpour returned. We stoically hiked to the falls anyway, took a picture, and hiked back as fast as possible. When we got back to the parking lot, Ariel was gone.  And so was the van.

I know... The same thoughts went through my mind. What the???   What extreme circumstance could possibly make her leave?  And, what now?

 Luckily, just as we started to panic, Ariel drove back around the bend, and explained that some creepy man was leering at her. Seeing no one else around, and having a strong desire to not become a statistic, Ariel did the smart thing and got the hell out.

She'd assumed that we'd still be away swimming at the falls for a while yet but after she'd left and had time to think, she realized how freaked out we'd be if we returned and she was gone, so she came back right away.  When she pulled up, both the man, and his car were nowhere in sight, so who knows... Ariel has honed her survival instincts by many years of watching scary movies. Better safe than sorry. No more leaving her alone though.

We returned to the highway, soaked, hungry and thoroughly done with waterfalls and rain-forests.  We drove into the town of Innisfail, which looks very much like every other rural town we'd driven through. It's got all the shops one would expect, and even a few main streets, but all the storefronts look a little old and dingy.  We chose a street with food and coffee options, and parked.  There was a Glorious Beans in an indoor mall, and we all ordered some lattes to take the chill off. While the coffees were brewing, Ariel and I popped into the market next door to grab some water, some road snacks, and a new box of  band-aids, we also got the name of a good nearby restaurant from the barrista.  

"JaggerD's" looked like a glorified coffee shop, but the food was cheap, organic, and amazingly well presented.  The waitress said she would seat us, but only after transferring our coffees into "JaggerD" cups. She didn't want us advertising for the competition. Funny, since we wouldn't have been there at all if the 'competition' hadn't sent us over.  By the time we finished eating, it was 4:00PM, and we conceded that at this point the Croc farm wasn't much of an option. One of the stores had marked a t-shirt with the city name in abbreviated form 'ifail', which summed up our opinion of the day nicely.  We were tired of being wet and decided, to head back to Palm Cove.  For most of the ride back the boys engaged in a lively debate as to their favorite actors, and the best films of their careers.  DiCaprio: "Blood Diamond, Tom Hanks: "Castaway", Jack Nicholson: "The Departed", Christian Bale:"The Dark Knight, and American Psycho".   I suggested Dennis Quaid in "Enemy Mine", and they responded with, "Who?"

Ugh, I'm getting old...

Trying to be more contemporary, I mentioned Matthew McConaughey who was awesome as the tank commander in "Reign of Fire" but JP insisted that I'd gotten him mixed up with another actor, though he didn't remember the name.

After a few minor wrong turns, I managed to get us safely back to our hotel room.  Ariel wanted to do some laundry, but the machines outside our hotel room were dollar-coin only.  We had only paper money, so the three nephews and I walked down the esplanade as a pack, from shop to shop, taking turns exchanging bills for change in 5 dollar increments.  Four loads, wash and dry, would cost us $30 dollars.  We returned with the pile of coins, and I fired up the laptop, and looked up "Reign of Fire" on the IMDB.  Turns out, it was McConaughey.  

I got a call back from the guy that runs Kayak tours out to the nearby island. He said the weather is not good enough, and he won't be doing any tours until Sunday.  The boys crashed out early, and now Ariel and I are planning our day for tomorrow. We're all pretty exhausted, so we're thinking East to Kuranda is a good option. It involves minimal driving, and zero hiking in the rain.