Nightwalk in the Daintree Rainforest

Wednesday, evening, 17 June

The sun has set, and with ten other intrepid travelers we begin our night trek into the rainforest.  Our quarry is the predator – snake, lizard, spider – the dangerous denizens of the Daintree. 

Our guide Marina waves a glow stick in the absolute darkness.  It is rotting wood, damply decaying with a bioluminescent fungus that fireflies ingest to light their bottom bulbs. 

We walk along with our torches.  Our party sights a 5 foot snake by the side of the path.  The amethystine python is Australia's largest snake, growing to 15 feet.  Their under-jaw organs sense the heat of small birds or mammals; they then cast their coils upon their prey.  Each serpentine squeeze forces the captive animal to exhale further, until finally drained of breath, they suffocate. 

We see a reptile perched quietly on a branch.  This is Boyd’s forest dragon, a colorful lizard that lives only in northeastern Queensland.  The forest dragon lives on ants and other insects. 

There are many Huntsman spiders.  We watch them shed their exoskeleton, lounge on leaves, stalk unwary victims, and devour their prey. 

The strangling fig tree grows atop other rainforest trees.  The Daintree fig was the cinematic inspiration for the Hometree in Avatar.  Aborigines would bury their dead in the tree to speed their ascent to the afterlife.  So when the early European settlers found the buried bones, they thought that the giant fig trees ate people.  Thus they slept by the riverbanks, and were eaten by crocodiles.

Through the forest canopy we see a sky ablaze with the density of ten thousand stars and their unfamiliar constellations.  Throughout the night we hear the chirping of jungle insects and the incessant chattering of rainforest birds.  No human voices, nor telecomm signal; no mobile, text, or Internet.  Good night, Daintree, good night.