The past week and a half, we have been living in the middle of the rainforest with no internet, no television, and barely any civilization near us. When we got to our first place, it was beautiful! It’s called The Botanical Ark (www.botanicalark.com). The people were nice and the house was great and they even made a little pond outside with fresh water from a waterfall and a mini beach! The people had taken flowers and plants from all over the world and turned it into an amazing place! They even gave us a gift for Acton Academy, which we will deliver when we return!
We took a tour through the rainforest where we learned about lots of fruits that the owners have brought over from many different rainforests around the world. One of the fruits is called a “miracle fruit” which is a little purple fruit that makes everything sour (lemons, limes, etc.) go from sour to sweet! She had us lick a lime and it was really sour and then we had the miracle fruit and licked the lime again and it was like a whole different fruit! They are sending us seeds so we can plant our own tree when we get home. Unfortunately it takes three years for them to ripen… but I can wait!
The owners had a dog named Gia and we threw a stick LOTS OF TIMES into the pond and she would run and FLY in to the water, swim to it, and bring it back! It was really fun. She would not get tired though, we did it for hours!
The next place we stayed at in the rainforest was a lodge called Mungumby Lodge near a town called Cook Town. Best of all the owners had two kids! The boy was 9 and the girl was 12. The boys name was Elliot and the girl was Janice. They had a pool at the lodge and we swam a lot with them! They took us on a hike to a secret waterfall and we swam and jumped in all day. That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
In Cook Town, we went deep sea fishing on the Great Barrier Reef. We all caught a bunch of fish, but best of all Ellie almost got pulled into the water by a fish she had caught which was swimming from a HUGE SHARK which we ALL saw!!! Luckily, Ellie was strong enough and she caught the trout and ate it for dinner! It was almost 7 pounds!!!
So besides me getting stung by 3 WASPS in the rainforest, getting used as a toilet by Elliot’s pet mouse, and almost losing my sister to shark, this has been a pretty good Tropical week!
PS – can’t wait to see you all in less than TWO weeks!!!
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