Trials and Tribulation

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January 20th 2009

Published: January 20th 2009

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Pensiongapper

Holloway Beach

First main beach just north of cairns

Cairns to Cape Tribulation Tuesday 20th January 2009

Northern Queensland is in the grip of monsoon rains. It is hot, it is silly heat, and the rain is torrential! Whilst in Cairns we were in the “dry eye” of this huge cyclone of weather that is circling around the north east. Townsville to the south was flooded at the end of last week and now, Port Douglas, where we are at the moment, is getting its share of the rain. To add to our little problems, thousands of Chinese tourists are arriving for the Chinese New Year, which is going to be a big event next Monday, especially as it coincides with Australia Day, which is a Bank Holiday, and accommodation is getting scarce. We have a brilliant room above a pub at the moment, but have to leave this morning, in the dodgy scary weather, because it is fully booked for the rest of the week. There is an outbreak of Dengue Fever, due to the heavy rains, and Cairns Hospital has taken in 147 cases so far, so we are spraying on the repellent night and day! Crocodiles are supposed to be disturbed and turning up in unusual

The Barron Falls

Din Din

places so the public is urged to “take caution”. This is, of course, “God’s Own Country” according to Aussies, but one cannot help thinking that the Devil had a hand in creating it too! Apart from all of this, Northern Queensland is STUNNING! Love it! Between the rains we have been able to see quite a bit of the countryside so far. It is a shame we have to leave the pub. The Central Hotel is an old hotel built in 1878 in the gold rush, only has eight basic rooms, plus en suite, fridge, coffee and a balcony looking over the garden, great live music and no restrictions on using the air con: when we arrived one of the guys said “I’ll show you where to bunk down mates, stick on the ol’ air con and leave it on to get yer room nice an’ cool”. It is only $70 a night which is less than many hostels and the pub grub is inexpensive and good.

We picked up our little budget rental car (a Hyundai Getz) on Saturday morning and headed up to the Barron Falls (called Din Din in Aboriginal) and Kuranda, having taken a quick

Basket fern

Parasite ferns make a basket shape on the trees, Karunda

look at some of the northern beaches on the way. The morning was dry and the waterfalls were in full flow. This isn’t a very good season to enjoy the Barrier Reef but it is a great season for waterfalls; we’ve seen dozens already but the Barron was the best so far, surrounded by rain forest and tumbling down a deep gorge. Kuranda is a small village in the rainforest, very picturesque and not as “touristy’ as we expected. Reached by a winding uphill road, this region offers splendid views of the rainforest, sugar plantations to the north and the Coral Sea and some of the Barrier Reef islands to the east. At one of the look out points someone had put a dead snake on a wall next to the plaque on a monument. I was standing next to the snake reading the inscription when John suddenly pulled me away, bruising my arm. He thought, quite naturally that it was real, with its head raised up on a stone ready to strike. Someone obviously thought it was an amusing joke to place it there, but it wasn’t very funny! We stayed the night at Ellis Beach in a cabin

Palm Cove Beach

Beautiful beach but dodgy for swimming!

on a small site right by the palm fringed sea (where warnings were in force for crocs and Box Jellies). We didn’t see anyone braving the surf! Didn’t like going out in the dark much to get to the loo! In the night we heard a lot of screaming, like babies crying, but we knew what it was so we didn’t think that infanticide was taking place. It was the curlews crying, they sound really human. Got a nice photo of a curlew family by the cabin the next morning.

On Sunday morning we drove up to Port Douglas and after finding our accommodation we visited the Sunday craft market and then just lazed about for the rest of the day. Yesterday, after a night of heavy rain we set off for the Daintree and Cape Tribulation. Just north of Mossman, which is at the start of the Daintree National Park, the road comes to a halt at the Daintree Ferry. Once across the ferry, over the huge fast flowing brown river (which is usually green) one enters a wilder world of truly dense rainforest, a habitat for thousands of species but not really designed for mankind. No wonder

Worm for breakfast!

Outside our Ellis Beach cabin

those early settlers called the cape “Tribulation”. We didn’t make it to Cape Trib; we were about 10 kilometres short due to the flooding across the road. It wasn’t that deep but running fast across into a river gorge. It was impressed upon us that we should not drive the rental car through floods and that the insurance would be null and void if we did, so we turned back. Some cars went through but most turned back as we did. On the way back down we took a small boat trip for an hour on the river (just the two of us and Bruce the guide, in a boat designed for eighteen passengers) to look for crocs. We saw five small juveniles but the adults were not to be seen. It was still a good river trip and only spitting with rain. Big male crocs tend to stay in the water in the wet season (either that or they have headed for the beach)! Females are up side creeks nesting. Despite the disappointment of not seeing large crocodiles, we thought it was still better to see the small ones in the wild than big ones in the many zoos

Family of screaming Curlews

"That lizard just ate our breakfast!"

and centres around here. We also saw bright green tree frogs. This area is a haunt for the endangered Cassowary but sadly we didn’t see any. After leaving Daintree we headed back down to Mossman Gorge. Mossman had been without power for one hour just before we got there, due to a brown snake getting between two power points and shorting out the whole town. Didn’t do the snake much good either! Our son Dan told us that the gorge was well worth a visit (he was here eleven years ago) and his advice was good. Both the Mossman and Daintree rivers are fed from waters off the Northern Dividing Range and due to the recent heavy falls the Mossman Gorge was a powerhouse of raging tumbling water. Spectacular! This day, with the drive up to Cape Tribulation, the Daintree and Mossman was undoubtedly our best sightseeing day so far in Australia.

We have been here in Queensland a week now and have another week to go so there is still plenty of time to see a lot more of this lovely part of the country, weather permitting. Our plan today was to head inland towards the Atherton tablelands

Ellis Beach

Taken from a Cook Highway lookout point

but the rain is so heavy we might stay safely holed up here another day in Port Douglas, that is, if we can find somewhere to stay. It is now 9 a.m. so we need to pack our gear and get going!

POSTSCRIPT

10a.m. Great news! We just went down to the bar to check out and we can stay here another night after al! Probably a cancellation due to the weather. We can now unpack the rucksacks again. There really isn’t any point in driving anywhere today, the rain shows no sign of stopping and it is really torrential. We’ll just have to stay in the pub!!!

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Aboriginal settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia about 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century. No formal territorial claims were made until 1770, when Capt. James COOK took possession in the name...more history