Port Douglas: Wildlife Habitat and the Lady Douglas cruise (a bunch of crocs)

The bus trip from Cairns to Port Douglas at midnight gave us great views of the Coral Sea with the moon reflecting off the water.  Rather than rest the first day, we set out to explore. First stop: the Wildlife Habitat where we lunched with the Loorikets, then accompanied the naturalist on his rounds to feed the birds and lizards.  Our favorite was the Cassowary.  According to our bible, Wikipedia, the cassowary is "the third tallest and second heaviest living bird, smaller only than the ostrich and emu."  Some plants rely on the cassowary to eat their fruit so that the seeds pass through ready to germinate.  Ah, the wonders of nature!

Feed me some more, I'm hungry!

No visit to an Australian wildlife collection is complete without the iconic marsupial.  Between naps, he chews leaves from the gum trees, of which there are over 800 varieties in Australia.  Unfortunately, though he eats almost the entire time he is awake, he dines on eucalyptus leaves.  In addition to having very little nutritional value, the leaves are toxic.  So the poor thing eats until his toxicity threshold is reached, rather than eating until he is full.  The result: he sleeps and sleep and sleeps.  Wish, though, that we could achieve the level of relaxation that the Koala reaches!

I'm stoned, let me sleep!

Then, off to explore the wildlife in the wild on the Lady Douglas for a sunset cruise.  This picture of a croc cost us $80. Or it cost us $20 a croc sighting, as we saw only three others!  (Ashley and Roger did much better on their Uganda safari in June.)

Go away if you know what is good for you.

One last bit of wildlife for the day:

Roger objects to including this one, but Amy does the final edit.