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The birds woke us up around 5am as usual. It seemed to get louder
and louder. Eventually, it quieted down and we were able to get
a bit more sleep before breakfast.
After breakfast we went to the front desk to see if they could
find us a ride to Mossman Gorge, where we wanted to do a hike.
They found someone to take us at 9:30am, but they couldn't find
any easy return trip -- we'd have to wait until 4:30 to get a
bus from Mossman Gorge, and then 5:30 to get a bus from there
back to the lodge. Unfortunately, not having a rental car and
being far away from taxi service, we didn't have much of a choice,
so we went back to our villa to get ready.
We gave our laundry to housekeeping so they could do it while
we were out today. Then we joined another couple who took the
short drive with us south to Mossman Gorge. It's about 40 kilometers
away from the lodge. Along the way we passed through the small
town of Mossman (population 1500). The town has houses on short
stilts. We later learned that this is to provide convection cooling
in the hot summer months. Modern houses there have air conditioning,
so that isn't really necessary anymore.
Just before we reached Mossman Gorge we drove past an aboriginal
village. It's probably similar to what you would find on an Indian
Reservation in the United States.
Our driver dropped us off and we sat down on a picnic bench to
start preparing for our short hike. The first thing we noticed
was big biting flies buzzing around. I added a bite or two to
my collection before I could slather on some insect repellent.
The parking lot was only about half full, as it was still relatively
early in the day. It'd get crowded later. Soon we were ready and
went off on our hike at Mossman Gorge.
After the hike we had a couple hours to kill. We took a nap on
the picnic benches and later sat near the parking lot. At one
point an aboriginal came by asking us for food, but we didn't
really have anything for him. To pass the time we made a list
of all the places we'd love to visit in the future. Brush turkeys
roamed the area as we waited. Finally, at 4:30 our bus came to
take us back to Mossman. It's only a 5 minute drive down the hill.
We were the only ones on the bus.
Once in Mossman, we had another hour to kill. Mossman seems like
a very depressing town. The people don't seem very well off. We
stopped in a small grocery store to buy some snacks. While we
were there some aboriginal kids came in and started wandering
around. One of the clerks told another to keep an eye on them.
Two doors down, a bakery was selling freshly baked bread. People
would go in and come out with their hands full of loaves of bread.
Under an overcast sky we walked back to the bus station and got
on our bus. The same couple who'd gone with us from the lodge
in the morning were also on this bus. Once back at the lodge we
were met with fresh clean laundry in our rooms. That night for
dinner we shared a lobster. Jean has much more patience to work
through the bones to get to the meat, so she probably ate more
of it than I did. :)
Earlier that morning we'd found a flyer for Mangrove Adventures
and discovered that they have a sunrise cruise. Having liked Dan
and his night cruise so much, we were interested in taking the
morning cruise. We asked the front desk to help us out. It was
a little difficult because we had to leave to go to Cairns in
the morning to catch a flight to Dunk Island. However, the front
desk was very accomodating and made arrangements for us to check
out at night, then get a ride to the boat (which launched from
a different place than the night cruise) and then get picked up
and taken to the airport in plenty of time. They even packed us
ham and cheese sandwiches to take with us, since we wouldn't have
time to stop for breakfast.
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