As part of our further exploration in northern-Queensland we decided to venture further north to a place called Cape Tribulation. This is north of Cairns and is the only place in the world where you can stay at two world heritage sites as it sites on the boarder of the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest. The journey can be done in about 1 hour but our journey took a while longer as you get to stop off at various places. We were due to be catching the same mini-bus as Laura and Emma as we had booked through the same company. However, when our pick up arrived at 7.25 we were confused not to see them onboard as their pickup was earlier as they were staying at a different hostel.The claim that there was a mess up of arrangements but they blatantly just overslept and missed the bus...
After driving north for a little while through the sugar cane fields with our funny guide who interrogated everyone with the question "do you fold or scrunch toilet paper?" He told us many tales about the area and the hated Cane Toad frog before we stopped off at a pleasant water
hole in the forest where we got the chance to wake up and freshen up in the icy cold river water. Thankfully we avoided all Crocodiles and came out alive. We saw Laura and Emma here as they had managed to get onto another bus also going to Cape Trib and they managed to smuggle themselves onto our bus at the next stop.
Here we stopped at the Daintree Mangrove Animal Sanctuary where we got to see our first stereotypical Aussie wildlife!! I had a little fight with a energetic Wallaby and came out victorious before seeing the native Cassowary bird with its giant diembowling claws and watching the massive Crocodiles at feeding time chomping through some wild pig sculls. Pretty powerful and I think we were all thankful of the large fence that kept us away from them as they looked viscious!!
Next stop was a guided walk through the rainforest. Although this was much tamer than our experiences in the Taman Negara rainforest of Malaysia, our guide was really interesting; talking about the ancient Aboriginal use of all of the rainforests resources. We were even tempted to eat some ants. Although you are only meant to
eat the ant's bum, I ate the whole thing. It didnt taste too much and is a pretty pathetic snack. Give me a bar of chocolate any day me thinks...
We arrived early afternoon at our hostel, checked into our rooms and then went on a mini-exploration down the beach and then to the waterhole that our guide had advised to us. We were joined again by the Bristol lads who are certainly following us on our adventures as they are literally going to all of the same places which is pretty cool as the banter is quality.
The waterhole was pretty ace, nestled amongst the forest with a lazy river running through into an open lagoon. There were a few other people there inclusing one crazy, toothless Aussie/jungle fella who was insane! On one side of the waterhole was a huge tree with a rope swing coming off it. We all gave it a crack with some relatively tame swings into the water. However, this dude took it to the extreme. He could do flips etc etc off the rope and even had the guts to climb up the tree and backflip in off the branch! Bravest
of all was his running jump from the bank into the water! He was a bit of a Bear Grylls extreme man and also caught a little turtle from the bottom of the river, bringing him to the surface for us all to see; before Luke got scared and dropped him back into the water!!
Refreshed, we headed back to the hostel for a swim in the pool. Here, Ross met his lifelong lover in the form of a little Ozzie girl going by the name of Maya Mango. She nicknamed everyone (Rossy Rat/Bat, Ricky Donkey, Laura Lychee, Jonny Jellybean and Nicky Sticky - still dont know why I ended up a donkey!?!) After she eventually tired of the shark bait game with Ross, we showered and headed to cook some food for tea. We rustled up the most amazing rice dish which consisted of stodgy rice and tomato sauce! Talk about living on a bugdget... It filled the gap though and provided fuel for the rest of the evening which consisted of playing pool (we bought the North v South Championship to a tie and 1-1), playing cards and chatting away.
In the morning we were woken
by the sound of rain gushing down on the steel roofs of our dorms. Fortunately the rain faded away as the day progressed and we werent really caught up in it.
Our pickup was at 2pm so we had the morning to chill out in Cape Tribulation. We headed back to the waterhole but I annoyingly didnt bring my trunks so didnt go in :( We then headed to the beach where we chilled out on the sand for a while and then mooched back to our hostel to await our pickup.
First stop-off on our return was the Daintree river cruise (after stocking up on some biscuits) which lasted about 50 minutes. Here we got the chance to see a tiny new born croc which was about 15cm long, nestled amongst the Mangrove roots. The adult was not far away but the view of that was obscured mainly by trees and branches. We saw a fair number of wild birds and snakes on the branches as we lazily cruised along the brown waters. We could have had the chance to see an adult Croc on the sand bank had our time not been eaten up by the
guide being fasinated by a brown bird that looked like a big pigeon which was spotted by Laura. Well done...
Getting back onto the bus we headed back towards Cairns, briefly cruising through Port Douglas which is well known for its gloal celebrity attraction. The town looks rather pleasant and laid back but apparenlty the prices are astronomical so it is probably a good idea we didnt come here to stay!! We tried to spot some Hollywood celebs but were not very successful in our quest...
The final brief stop was at the Alexandra Range Lookout which is on the main coastal road. The views from here can apparently be up to 100km, although when we were up there the sun was setting and there were clouds on the horizon. Nevertheless it was still a pretty cool view...
We made it back to Cairns at about 7pm and checked back into Caravella Hostel before heading to the Woolshed for some food and some cheeky drinks. Was good to see Cape Trib. Although there is not a great deal of things to do up there the scenery is pretty awesome and the place is extremely relaxed which just
seems to be the Aussie way of life... No worries...
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