Before turning in last night I lifted the huge blinds the turn-down folks had lowered, opened our sliding door/windows, and slid our door/screens into place, leaving us with only the soft sounds of the river and the night rains to give us a very restful night. Meditation MP3 tracks that I have used as background music for rainforest pics in our travel videos could not do it better.
We walked the short distance to the lodge for breakfast through a gentle rain, but very little of it reached us – it could not make its way down through all of the foliage.
Hard to imagine a better breakfast setting.
The end of the video shows our choices from the buffet “sideboard” portion of the breakfast menu.
Dana stopped with that, I could not resist going on to the “choice of main” selecting the omelette, which was excellent and of a modest size, characteristic of all the menu choices we’ve had, thereby enabling us to have a wide range of flavors without filling up.
Our waiter was Rodrigo, another gregarious young Argentine kid. Like Camila, Dan and so many of the other staff, he is in the educated/backpacker/seizing life genre of young travelers that we’ve been, and have seen everywhere. In Australia they can get visas for longer stays by qualifying for jobs in areas where the government has determined that employees are in short supply.
Dana stopped off at the open air yoga platform for a lengthy guided yoga session while I did a little blogging etc. on our deck…
and then got in some hammock time ( good for snoozing, not for iPad use)…
after which we went to the lodge for our 10:00 am garden tour. We were joined by an Aussie whom our guide Roger said was an Aussie politician.
It was raining so hard when we started the tour that it poured through the foliage, forcing Dana and me to use our cottage umbrellas. Roger was an excellent guide, but also an experienced landscaper and the gardener for the lodge, in particular for the kitchen garden where veggies and spices are picked for the restaurant. He was genuinely enthused about what he had to say and he wanted to say a lot.
Not possible to note or recall that much of what he said, but I did do some videos…
and at Roger’s suggestion I used my Picture This app (which he also uses) for several still shots.
Roger talked a lot about the history of the Lodge and plants: key point that it was started from a cattle station 40 years ago, right next to the rainforest, and he showed us a place where that boundary had been – the two nearly indistinguishable from each other without closer examination.
Roger said that over the years there had been deliberate planting, some for aesthetics, thus likely leading to the movie set appearance I mentioned yesterday. There was also a huge renovation of the building complex during COVID, which likely explains why the woodwork in the buildings (especially the floors) is so rich in color and pristine.
After the tour we returned to the cabin for a while, D went to dry her undies in the complementary dryers and take a little walk around the grounds, while I did some iPad stuff and then went for a late lunch of tempura fish – freshest and flakiest I can remember.
While there, I noticed that the river had overflowed its banks. I had noticed at breakfast that it was rising and had said to Dana that I couldn’t tell if water crossing the river trail was coming from up the bank in a stream or was overflowing from the river. Turns out it was the latter – it now was flooded.
Not just of passing interest. The waiter told me that it had flooded the bridge that must be crossed to get in here. Three consequences, one immediate, two possible: 1) Our rainforest heritage tour scheduled for 3pm was cancelled because the guide could not make it in here, 2) Our tour of the Daintree Nat Park scheduled for tomorrow may be in jeopardy, 3) we may be stuck here for a day or two – not the worst thing that can happen, as long as the food holds out.
D and I played a game of Rummy 500 (she won again, but only by 20 points), and then I went for a plant pic walk while she went for a massage in the cottage right next to ours. We’re in cottage #1, by the way, easy to remember, also named Bandicoot, a small nocturnal Aussie critter with a distinctive snout.
Haven’t seen any.
I photo’d several plant scenes and some for identification. First, the entrance to our cottage with a prominent bamboo clump.
Roger said that a lot of the plants around the buildings were introduced, and I think that was the case for the bamboo – haven’t seen it anywhere else.
I stopped by the creative swimming pool…
which I’m determined to try out, if and when things warm up a little – maybe tomorrow. It is heated.
On the way back to our cottage I checked the river and saw that the level had dropped dramatically.
Good news for tomorrow. I contacted the company that is doing our private tour and James there said things were go but he would keep me informed.
D came back from her massage and we headed over for dinner. By now usual drill, this time with Malcolm a Canadian kid, maybe the most gregarious of the lot. Excellent dishes all, especially a caramel/chocolate dessert that Dana pronounced her all-time favorite. I’ve been having a few of those myself this trip. Could be a memory thing, but so what? They’re still extremely pleasurable.
Dana and Roger Travels 
Hmmm… Looks like my comments are not showing up lately. But it bears repeating that this latest rainforest retreat is just amazing.
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Showed up to me, Janet. Thanks.
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