Cow Bay Beach: Sunrise beauty
Day 4
We signed up for a sunrise kayak at Cow Bay and had to wake up at 5:30 am in order to catch the 6:15 am sunrise. Though, I must say that the early wake was worth it because the view was gorgeous.
The entire kayak trip was off the shore of Cow Bay and took a total of 3 hours. We kayaked along the beach into the ocean and witnessed a rare tree kangaroo, an eagle and multiple sea turtles surfacing the water to breathe. The tour was excellent and I definitely recommend anyone visiting Queensland to do this activity. Below is a list of bombarded pictures, feel free to scroll down really fast to skip this part of the blog.
After our heroic effort to claim our title “Master of the Sea”, we went out for a hike in the Orange Rope trail behind our hostel. It wasn’t long and it was only 3 km. Here is a small video talk of what happened that morning:
Afterwards, we went to the Daintree Rainforest Discovery Centre to visit and to learn more about the Daintree Rainforest. This tropical rainforest is the largest area of tropic rainforest in Australia and being coined as having one of the most complex rainforest ecosystem on earth. This rainforest is a national park of Australia and is the habitat to one of the rarest species on earth – also the home to our lovely cassowaries. Unfortunately, I do not have many pictures about this place, it is more of a place for you to experience.
After exploring the rainforest, we drove to Thornton Beach to check out the gorgeous Ocean view – a hidden gem of Australia. To my surprise, I was able to witness millions of sphere sand balls scattered around the entire beach. So what is a sphere sand ball? According to my sea kayak tour guide, Australia has thousands of small crabs lurking beneath the beach sand. They build their home beneath the sand by digging holes and removing sand out in the process. These crabs roll up sand balls and push them up to the surface. Sometimes, the sand balls contain micro-organisms and the crabs roll them into a sand ball for food storage purposes. In a way, you can think of these sand balls as breakfasts for the crabs. Indirectly, they create a galaxy of sand balls across the beach and the view is certainly spectacular.
In the video below, you can see millions of sphere sand balls behind me in the background.
I was able to witness multiple crabs rolling up their sphere sand balls. However, it was difficult to capture it on video because they moved really quickly. After testing my patience, I was able to capture one short video of a crab making a sand ball.
