Naipablaak: 08.08.2023
'catch the positive vibes of the locals!“
Finally, it's starting and no trip to Australia begins as usual when you travel to the airport by train. In 2019, we arrived with the DB, which simply kicked everyone out of the train. The same happened with the Swiss train, which arrived late due to a switch malfunction, causing us to miss the other train. So even the Swiss train is not always punctual. Well, we still made it to the plane. The flight to Singapore was very long - with the 12 hours, it was only 2/3 of the total flight time. In the early morning in Singapore, you always find something nice to look at. Like a huge store with all kinds of coffee from the Arabic region. But on the flight to Cairns, everyone actually slept. In between, I could watch the football match Switzerland-Spain, which the Spaniards won sovereignly.
In Cairns, we had booked a hotel. When we arrived, we were tired but also hungry. The tiredness provoked a slightly aggressive mood. Sven mentioned in his calm manner the sentence - you must catch the positive vibes of the Australians :-) This is youth language and unacceptable for all retired German teachers - but he is right. All Australians we had met so far brought us so much friendliness and a very positive aura, which we also got infected with, even when we couldn't find a place to stay at the 3rd campsite because everything was full.
So let's move on to the next day. Picking up the car took quite a long time. As "old hands," we checked everything and complained if something was not in order - after all, we want to be prepared. After we had emptied half of the supermarket, we set off - heading north - that's all we knew. The road along the coast was beautiful but also crowded, as were the small towns. We then found a spot on a large holiday park. We already knew that from 2019 - holiday park means camping like sardines. But the advantage is that the ground is always very good, and we had enough time to familiarize ourselves with everything. The starry sky provided a beautiful evening.
So today, August 7th, we continued towards Daintree National Park. On the way, a stop at a wildlife habitat - also known as a zoo. So at least we already saw koalas and cassowaries - just in case :-)
After crossing the Daintree River by ferry, we were already in the national park - pure rainforest. As we learned - the oldest rainforest in the world - older than the Amazon - how they proved that...
After visiting the discovery center, we were provided with all necessary and unnecessary information about the rainforest. Along the way, Sina also saw the cassowary - we didn't because we were looking at the road. It was quite narrow and very winding.
Now we have landed at a campground that is really in the middle of the jungle. Let's see if we can sleep with these sounds. By the way, it's raining on and off - sometimes quite heavily.