WAIT-A-WHILE RAINFOREST TOURS

Well since you’ve ventured all the way to the Tropical North, may as well go and explore the Tropical Rainforests! No, no, no it’s not just your average rainforest tours, Paul from Wait-a-While, (your incredibly knowledged tour guide) is desperate for you to see all of our mystical Australian wildlife! Come spotting for Platypus, searching the trees for Tree Kangaroos, finding out fun facts whilst still ke eping our distance from Golden Spiders, taking our trusty binoculars into the night for the nocturnal types and of course having some biccies and tea in between to mull it all over.

We first got picked up from our Villas in Cairns City and started the venture off, our first stop was spotting some bats in local trees and adjusting our binoculars for the day ahead, I needed help with mine and wasn’t always 100% on which end I should be looking out of, but hey, we figured it out in the end.

Then off to a paddock known to host wallabies (slightly smaller versions of Kangaroos) it wasn’t the most thrilling since my friend Maddie and I had grown up basically around these guys but I could tell our fellow tour-ies from America & UK loved it! Then off to check out the green ant, another creature I have unfortunately crossed paths with before with quite a sting to remember, but it’s a right of passage here during Aussie childhood. What I didn’t know however, was that their juices have been used to boil hot soups/water to cure sickness, have a slight cold? Boil some green ants! They also have a very sour and tangy taste, I know this, because I was made to lick ones butt. Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Natalie, and I have licked an ants butt. Who wants a smooch?

That was quite enough excitement for one city so we ventured off up the winding roads (bring travel sickness tablets for sure) to our quiet and peaceful rainforests. We saw ginormous fig trees, had fun facts about the plants – especially one that sticks to your clothing, called “Wait-a-While” so aptly named cause if you get stuck out alone, your waiting a while for someone to come by to help you out. Ah yes, very clever, very clever indeed. Maddie and I found some vines to swing on, well mine was a pseudo swing and hers was a jungle climb, either way we were totally tarzans and one with the forest!

But of course, there’s more than just one section of the forest so we drove off to go and explore another with some tea and biscuits to tide us over before dinner, gotta keep up those energy exploring levels! This next one also had a jungle-made swing out of a vine and an enormous lake to take in. I wish we’d gotten to spend a little more time at the lake but I guess Indiana Jones didn’t rest that much either! So off we went.

This next place is where we spotted the Tree Kangaroos out the front of a Tea Plantation, luckily for us it was awake and we could catch it moving and rustling around. Paul was pretty stoked we were getting to spot all the wildlife he had intended for us, I guess he just knows his spots! But before we went off to dinner and transitioned into night-watchers, we still had one little guy to try and find. The Platypus! And find him, we did. At another stunning Aussie lake on some farm land where the little (and I mean little) guys were diving about in search of food. The whole time during our Wait-a-While Rainforest Tours, Paul was keeping us very informed and covering facts about each creature – like the Platypus only being able to hold its breathe for 45 seconds, so we knew if we missed it, he’d be sure to come back up if we just wait-a-while 😛

After dinner, we headed back to the forests to try and scope out some night creatures! We saw two different types of possums and even a brown-tree snake to top it all off. I felt we wandered for a bit and I think everyone else did too as we all seemed to pass out on the way back, but hey, we saw possums and a snake! Well worth the sleepiness.

Wait-a-While Rainforest Tours is a very informative, forest & wildlife based tour which I could even see school groups going on to learn facts about the various lands and creatures residing in them. I would definitely recommend it for foreigners who are looking to spot some great Aussie wildlife who haven’t come across them before. It’s a refreshing experience to see them out in their actual habitats instead of at the zoo and it opens up the doors for a more interactive experience.

For bookings head over to www.waitawhile.com.au