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Published: December 29th 2007
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Day 253 (05.12.07)
Since we were now making the trip to Cape Trib in the van we could choose what time we left and spent the morning shopping for a couple of essentials to make sure we could sleep and eat whilst on the road.
Not far out for Cairns we took our first detour (as we do) to Yorkies Knob - this gave us the chance to really test out the van up a really steep hill to a look out (NORA did herself proud you'll be glad to know) where we got out our camping chairs and had a very civilised picnic. A quick trip to Yorkies Knob beach later and we were back on the road north.
Continuing up the coast we started along the Captain Cook Highway, a stunning winding road hugging the coast giving beautiful beach views, before stopping at Ellis beach. Ellis is a sheltered bay which has as yet remained untouched from development. It was completely deserted when we got there which made it even better. Unfortunately as we are now in summer, along with the roasting hot temperature comes 'stinger' season where all of the dangerous jelly fish come into
the north eastern Oz coast making it impossible to swim in the sea. Luckily many beaches provide stinger nets to give safe swimming areas. Donning our swimmers we went and found the stinger net and went for a dip in what was sea water just below bath temperature. Suitably 'refreshed' we were back in the van and heading northwards once more.
After a bit of a drive we reached the quaint town of Port Douglas where we parked up next to a church frequently nominated as one of the most beautiful in the country. Situated right on the bank of Port Douglas's clear waters, its real selling point is the huge window looking out behind the altar framing this amazing view. It is so popular that there is a 2 year waiting list for people wanting to get married there.
Walking into town we stocked up on some Goon from the bottleo and got some tips from a photographic gallery from one of the most celebrated landscape photographers in the world, Peter Lik - fabulous photos.
Our next stop was a quick visit to the Mossman Gorge where you can wander through the rainforest and admire the
Cape Trib trip
Lunch at Yorkies knob river rushing over numerous vast boulders. It was now getting on into the evening so we decided to find a place to camp for the night and return for a longer visit to the gorge the next morning.
Anyone who's driven a cmapervan around Australia will tell you that it's easy to find a place next to a toilet block near a beach to park for the night and therefore avoid camping costs. We can now inform you that this is not the case in Douglashire! We found a spot which matched the above description, cooked ourselves some dinner on the beach barbie and settled in for our first night in Nora. This went smoothly, with the bed more comfortable than we could have hoped for, until 3.30am when we were woken to the sound of banging.
"I would like to inform you that you are camping illegally" said the ranger as we sheepishly opened the van door. After several apologies and explaining that we'd just bought the van and had been told it was ok to camp anywhere (some of which was true!) he let us off with a warning and told us we could sleep until
Cape Trib trip
Watch out for stingers! morning and then must go! Oh dear! Not a great start to our free camping career!
Day 254 (06.12.07)
We woke early in the sweltering heat that you get when sleeping inside a large tin can and vowed to sleep with all the windows open the next night.
We made the short journey back to the Mossman Gorge and took the stunning circuit walk through the rainforest marred only by the appearance of a couple of leeches which took a bit of a liking to Chrissie's feet - beasts! We finished the walk with a dip in the gorgeous, if a little chilly, clear pools of the river accompanied by some pretty large fish.
We were aiming to follow the itinerary that we would have followed on the tour that we should have been on so our next event was a wildlife cruise along the lovely Daintree River with Croc Express. We turned out to be the only ones on the whole boat and had the excellent guide all to ourselves. We didn't expect to see many crocs due to the heat of the day but we were really lucky to catch a couple of small
Cape Trib trip
Captain Cook Highway ones floating near the banks of the river. We also saw hundreds of fruit bats hanging in the trees, a large python high up in a tree, several large birds of prey and, Chrissie's favourites, some small green tree frogs extremely well camouflaged as leaves. The hour cruise was soon over (we could have happily spent 2 hours on this cruise) and we had a spot of lunch before continuing our journey towards Cape Trib.
We crossed the Daintree River on the cable car ferry and made a quick stop at Cow Bay before arriving at Cape Tribulation Campground (we'd decided to play it safe tonight and pay for a spot!) The people there were lovely and recommended a swimming hole down the road that we could visit for a cooling evening swim.
Back at the campsite we were just starting to make dinner when someone jumped on us from behind. We turned to see Conrad of our Western Australia road trip team. We spent the evening catching up with Conrad and two friends he was travelling with in a very posh camper van and making the most of the aircon in their van! We made our way
back to Nora, parked within a 30 second walk of the beach, opened the back door to get the breeze from the sea and hooked up a mozzie net (the mosquitoes are vicious up here). All prepared we settled in for a good night's sleep.
Day 255 (07.12.07)
This morning we had to check out before our days planned acitivites but were hit with a problem when Nora decided not to start, a turn of the key elicited absolutely nothing - oh s#*t! A lovely guy from the campsite came to give us a hand and luckily it turned out to be just a loose battery connection and easily fixed. As all thoughts of "swindling b#@$s&*d sold us a dud" left our minds we went for a walk along the beautiful beach backing on to our campsite, over the Cape Tribulation point and along the next beach. Cape Trib is famed for being a unique environment in which the rainforest meets the coral reef so we began by taking an excellent boardwalk through the rainforest before heading our into the waves to take a little look at the reef (having been told there were no stingers up here
Cape Trib trip
The church at Port Douglas at present). Unfortunately the water was a little stirred up as it was a bit windy so we couldn't see much and decided to hire a kayak from our campsite to view the reef in another way.
We paddled out into the sea with the reassurance that these kayaks were 'virtually uncapsizable'. Another point we were to prove wrong a little later as we tried to paddle in to the beach for a quick swim to escape the blazing sun. Well, we were to get our quick swim but not quite in the manner we'd expected! As we paddled in towards the beach in the surf a large wave caught us off guard and we were toppled out of the kayak and unceremoniously dumped into the waves. Managing to find all of our stuff bar Mark's sunnies we clambered back into the kayak to make our dripping way back to camp. On a plus point we did paddle right over some lovely stingrays and were visited by several turtles making their way to the surface for a breath of fresh air. A very entertaining trip!
It was soon time to clamber back into Nora (who started first time!)
and make our way back to Cairns for the evening. It had been a thouroughly enjoyable and eventful few days.
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Meryl
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How's Melbourne?
Enjoying reading all of your trip - Shane can't wait till he stars in it!!