Day 10
Instead of starting
with a run, we started day 10 by facing the fear, and looking for a
crocodile. Under supervision of course, on a Crocodile Cruise.
Hurrah! We saw two! A baby one:
And a 30 year old
one:
We also saw a Great Egret, and beautiful scenery:
Some crocodile facts
I picked up. A crocodile can stay under water for an hour, by slowing
down it’s heart rate to just a few beats per minute. The oldest one
that lives in this part of the world lives on Green Island is 111
years old and weighs 1000 KG. Yep, one hundred and eleven years old,
and a thousand kg!!!! Crocodiles have territories – a female will
have a territory of about 1.5 km, then there will be another female
etc etc. And the males swim up and down ‘looking for the girls’.
Charming. None of these crocodile facts, or the great number of warning signs sprinkled around the place were helping to allay my
fears in any way at all.
Still, I stopped
being a wimp and asked the lady on reception at Jungle Safari if it
was OK to run along the boardwalks (there are lots of these, wooden
walkways that have been built so you can walk through little bits of
the rainforest without destroying it too much). She said yes, it
would be fine to do that. So in the late afternoon after doing the crocodile
cruise and walking some of the boardwalks, I donned running kit and
set off with Andrew into the jungle. I’m so glad we did! What a
run! The boardwalks are quite short, so we did 3 laps of the one near
our camp (Dubuji Boardwalk), and then ran up Cape Tribulation Road a
bit further north to another one (Kulki Boardwalk). I was totally
blown away by the environment. It’s sensational to look at, but if
you stop and stay still for a few moments, it all comes alive, and
birds are singing and flying all about, leaves are falling, fruits
are falling to the ground with a pop, flowers bursting, unknown
creatures are bustling all around the place. It’s like watching a
spell unfold, it’s tremendous!
Day 11
Day 11 was our last
day in the rainforest. We woke up early, naturally with the jungle sounds,
so before we headed off we did 5 laps of the Dubuji Boardwalk again.
Just as good as yesterday, and unlike normal pre-breakfast runs where
I just feel hungry and tired, I felt great and wanted to keep going.
Only the lure of a flat white and avocado on toast (OK, I was feeling a bit hungry) from the Turtle
Cafe persuaded me back. A great start to the day!
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