On the trail of Thomas Cook

This is not how I imagined a relaxing vacation, getting up at 5:00 am. I don't even do that when I have to work. But sacrifices have to be made if you want to explore the world. At 5:50 am, after a quick breakfast and a fast cup of coffee, we set off for the Daintree Rainforest.

We still had to drive for 2 hours plus a 10-minute ferry ride - and our tour was scheduled to start at 8:30 am.

This is how Thomas Cook and his men must have felt. After the Endeavour ran aground on a reef, they had to swim. Completely exhausted, most of them reached the shore. Through thick and thin, through dense bushes, there were small poisonous spiders lurking everywhere (not visible on the trees or disguised as bird droppings), pythons in the trees, and everything you find for fruits is poisonous. And those who had survived until now and managed to make their way back towards the sea, were eaten by crocodiles. It must have happened something like that. But parts of the crew and Thomas Cook must have defied all adversities, otherwise England wouldn't have colonized Australia.

Here's the question: how many generations are 250 years? How many generations does it take to develop a country's infrastructure? We couldn't agree, 3 or 6 or even 9? Do you know?

Our 4-hour tour also took us through thick and thin, and a huge amount of tree roots. It was a real workout for the leg and foot muscles and the sense of balance. Neil, our guide, had an enormous amount of knowledge, unfortunately he spoke so quickly and sometimes unclearly that we didn't understand everything. Everything in the rainforest is poisonous, whether it's animals, plants or fruits, so it was already a challenge not to touch anything in the rainforest, yet not to fall and come out unscathed. Here again, we were pleasantly surprised, no annoying flies or mosquitoes.

Just a few quick facts: the Daintree Rainforest is the oldest rainforest in the world, with the greatest biodiversity. One big problem is the wild boars (brought by Thomas Cook) and the ever growing python population.

Around the Daintree Rainforest there are beautiful beaches, but unfortunately we were warned not to go into the water anywhere because of the crocodiles. During the subsequent 1-hour boat ride through the mangrove forests, we also saw 2 crocodiles. One small one measuring 3 meters and one measuring 6 meters in length.