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Published: August 29th 2009
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We headed north towards
Cape Tribulation, stopping at the 'Daintree Tea Plantation', which was cool as we've never seen (or smelt) tea growing. We then had a quick stop at
Thornton Beach to grab a coffee, which is a much superior drink.
We had chosen to come to
Far North Queensland in August as it is the end of winter, and subsequently has the coolest temperatures and least rainfall. It was a pleasant 27 degrees celsius as we began our drive!
Our first planned stop was at the
Marrdja Boardwalk to explore Mangrove (Tim's favourite tree) wetlands in the rainforest. We spotted several impressive 'Strangler Figs' - a tree species that grows around other trees and eventually kills the 'host' leaving a hollow mesh of vines in the shape of the original tree.
Walk done, we continued our drive to Cape Tribulation (named by Captain Cook because air-conditioning hadn't yet been invented then) and stopped where the sealed road ends (it becomes 4WD track to
Cooktown and beyond). We hadn't planned to have any beach time in the first part of our trip, especially as the omnipresent saltwater crocodile warning signs encourage caution on the beaches and waterways,
Thorton Beach
Nice cafe here but we took our picnic lunch onto Cape Trib beach anyway...
It was so stunning that consequently we ended up staying for a good few hours, sheltering from the sun under some low hanging trees and avoiding huge green ants (one of which had bitten Em on the toe at Marrdja, which is quite amusing because if anyone is going to be bitten by ants it's Em...she has a special talent for that sort of thing which she first discovered in Thailand many years ago...). We also spotted a good number of huge Lace Monitor lizards.
After lunch, we walked through the rainforest over to
Myall Beach - another stunning beach flanked by rainforest, mountains and reef - and spotted (or rather first heard and then spotted) a number of Orange-Footed Scrubfowl noisily grubbing around in the forest-floor detritus. There were a considerable number of huge butterflies, one of which we managed to get on camera. Also, on the beach we found some natural sponge, a few cuttlefish and something nasty and alien-looking that we summised was part of a huge stinger jellyfish.
As the early afternoon heat was becoming quite intense we jumped back into the
air-conditioned car and began our drive back south, stopping at an organic ice cream place that Em had set her sights on ("Floravilla BioDynamic")...Coffee and Wattleseed for Tim and Macadamia Nut and Davidson's Plum for Em, both made on-site and mucho yum. Wattleseed is a bitter bush seed which goes very well with coffee. Davidson's plum is a bitter bush fruit which goes very well with Macademia nuts. We also spotted many different varieties of skink.
After ice cream, we had a quick trip down to the beach at
Cow Bay and then headed back for a swim in the motel pool to cool off and then hit the bbq, cooking some delicious Mackerel steaks we'd picked up in Mossman the day before.
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John Glennon
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Stinger?
I think I found a used "stinger" behind a bus-stop in Aigburth at the weekend....