Golf, Snakes & Tribulation
Friday 15th May - Daintree
Julian: a slow day for us today. We hired a car from our hotel and drove down to the next town Mossman where we had seen a nice looking golf course on the way up here. Julia played 18 holes, whilst Jamilah and I More...
Friday 15th May - Daintree
Julian: a slow day for us today. We hired a car from our hotel and drove down to the next town Mossman where we had seen a nice looking golf course on the way up here. Julia played 18 holes, whilst Jamilah and I headed back up North again to Cape Tribulation which is where Captain Cook ran aground. We walked to an observation point, but all we could see was a rather nice beach and bay and nothing dangerous at all - though I am sure there must be hidden reefs for such a competent sailor as Captain Cook to come to grief. Interestingly he was obviously so annoyed to run aground that all the names around here reflect that, it being him that named the cape Cape Tribulation.
On our way back to pick Julia up we stopped off at an insect museum which is the private collection of an individual who seems to specialise in butterflies, moths and beetles. Some of the beetles were immense with huge wingspans and long pincers - not sure how I would react f one of those landed on me! If I recall correctly Beetles is the family with the most species in the world and looking at this collection I can easily believe that - just an amazing variety of size, function, and parts. Jamilah was fascinated, though she loved the butterflies the best (they are the most beautiful to look at), especially those with metallic type colours.
When we arrived back at the golf club Julia was sitting with a beer passing the day with a number of Aussies at the bar - understandable as she had run over a 2M snake on the first hole. We stayed on for a while chatting about this and that - I left $20 poorer, which is my bet that England will win the Ashes this year; hopefully it will come back to me with another $20 in the post later in the year!
***** Julia: Today, when we woke up it was raining. I was a little disappointed because Jules had hired the lodge’s car for the day and I was hoping to go and play golf. After breakfast we drove out of the lodge and realised that the weather was not as bad as we had thought; it seemed a lot wetter in the rain forest. We drove to Mossman, a small village about 30 minutes down the road where the golf course was.
Jules and Jamilah went off to see Cape Tribulation where Captain Cook had grounded his ship Endeavour and I set off for my 18 holes of golf. I was a little nervous on my own in case I saw a snake but tried not to think about it. Fortunately, I had a buggy to drive because on the first hole, right in front of me was a snake!!!!!! It was too late, as soon as I saw it I was going over it and I saw it try to strike the buggy. I screamed and kept going to get out of its way. When I went to tee off, it was hopeless as I was shaking so much! Then all the way around I kept losing my concentration worrying about snakes. On the 8th hole I was convinced I could smell a crocodile and so rushed off that hole too!
Once I had finished my nerve racking round, I asked about the snake and was told it was a yellow bellied tree snake and it was harmless. I also asked if there might be crocodiles out on the course but was told that there weren’t. I was also told that there were huge pythons there too! I was so pleased that I didn’t see any and will think twice about playing golf on my own again in such inhabited places!
We drove to Mossman village for a late lunch snack and noted that the village was really very small as was Daintree Village. The whole area is very quite and laid back.
Back
