Ah yes, Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest. My tour started in Cairns, first stop breakfast, then a boat trip on the Daintree River to see 'wildlife' ie crocodiles. Oh that's so last month, darling. I've seen crocodiles like well, they're going out of fashion. Anyway, it was raining and murky, possibly even 'cold' so we only saw two crocodiles but, hey, they were in their natural habitat not being grown for their skins.
Onwards to a boardwalk through the rainforest. This was getting more interesting. The rainforest is so amazing: plants falling over themselves and each others to reach the top of the canopy where that special commodity 'light' exists. So many species inter-twined and co-existing in pursuit of that one thing. I was surprised by the lack of birds. Not like on film where there's always a parrot squawking its way towards you. The occasional cheep, tweet or chirrup but strangely silent on the avian front. It's all so lush and tangled up, you can't even start to think about how many different species of plant you have there before you. Some are really ancient species that were around at the time of the dinosaurs or earlier, fossilised records showing how little they've changed. Awesome is not normally a word I would use but it's appropriate here.
We were dropped off at our accommodation at lunchtime, to be retrieved/recovered/rescued/taken away 24 hours later. I discovered that the 'bistro' had not a lot of vegetarian activity going on which was no surprise so I enquired as to the local shopping opportunities. The answer was about a 9km round trip or "Oh yes there's somewhere a bit nearer, you can get there along the beach. There's a little bit of wading but... It's fine". Off I went, along the beach. Bit annoying that I could see, oh at least 30 other people dotted here and there, ruining my deserted beach story. That's 30 as far as the eye could see. Like Southend ..... I found the wading bit. You know, you can never tell how deep these things are but I decided to remove the super-thongs and made my way. It got deeper, and a bit deeper still. There was a group of people the other side and I joked with them that they knew where the shallow crossing was. They said No. I emerged, the tide-mark half-way up my shorts, and replaced my shoes. I was nearly there. On wondering how long this walk was taking, fording the river etc it occurred to me that my phone was in my pocket. My shorts pocket. Below the tide-mark. Oops.
I got my provisions and had a cup of coffee and a muffin across the road and confirmed that, yes, the phone was wet. I walked home the dry route.
The YHA is located in the rainforest. The buildings are linked by a concrete pathway but all around is jungle. Totally amazing. The chosen accommodation was a wood cabin of four rooms, each capable of housing five people. Marine and I spread out in ours. She was a lovely young French girl, not a swarthy forces person ;-) The en-suite was outside, up the path and in a different building. I must get new batteries for my torch.
The evening was fun. I blogged a bit in the wifi area by reception and then retired to the bar area and drank wine. The young people were being entertaining and life was rather good.
In the morning I discovered a cockroach in our room but that was about par for the place. It wasn't scurrying about and nowhere near the size of the spider in the bar area. That was hanging over the entrance to the pool area which I only found out when I was in the water. It had rained, heavily, during the night and the weather gods decided to continue playing their game with us. So the rain carried on unabated. I came up with the British response of 'sod it' and went for walk on the beach anyway. Our carriage returned to take us away from this idyllic location to a place where they sold yummy ice-cream.
We travelled on, wending our way Cairns-ward, and stopped off at the Mossman Gorge. A nice chap told us about spears, boomerangs, food and medicines, but again, I was left thinking it was all so superficial that really, what was the point? Then it was onto a shuttle bus to the gorge. We could swim there, carefully as the water level was fairly high because of all the bloody rain we've been having. I opted out of that and took pictures and went to explore the lookout point and suspension bridge. The latter was bouncy. Bouncy, scary, nasty. Why, if you're going to replace a suspension bridge do you construct one that is in eleven sections that bounce and wobble? I was not amused and didn't get further than about the first three metres.
After that, I was dropped off at this lovely YHA hostel in Port Douglas. More of that and Port Douglas tomorrow.
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