Cape Tribulation & Daintree Rainforest

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July 29 - August 3, 2006

Saturday

Once we reached Cairns we began to focus for the first time in planning our departure from Australia. Up until that point we knew only that we would be headed to New Zealand and then on to China as we were locked in by our soon-to-expire Chinese visas. So while the other visitors to Cairns bathed in the slow-paced, fun-loving and sun-drenched life that the city is famous for we orbited the internet café / video store piecing together enough information to buy our airline tickets to New Zealand. With that accomplished we deferred our exploration of Cairns for a few days and headed north to Cape Tribulation.

The Daintree/Cape Tribulation coast is where the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest meet, the only place on earth where two World Heritage areas exist side by side. The Daintree Rainforest is the largest block of tropical rainforest in Australia and provides a remarkable jumping off point for a variety of reef and rain forest tours.

The drive from Cairns was beautiful but not radically different from any other section of Queensland that we had seen. Large patches of agrarian land slowly gave way to a cliff-hugging seaside road and some dramatic views of the coast before we dove headlong in to the rainforest where, in order to get to Cape Tribulation, we took a cable guided ferry across Daintree River. The ferry, long the only link between Cape Tribulation and little things like medical care or shopping, costs $16 AUD round trip. You pay the whole of the sixteen dollars up front and no one even bothers to check for a ticket on your way back south (we guess they figure if you got the car over there without paying you deserve the free ride back). On the way to our hotel, the Daintree Cape Tribulation Heritage Lodge, we stopped at the Waluwurriga Alexandra Range Lookout Point to admire the forest covered hills and the Daintree delta.

We arrive at the lodge, isolated about a kilometer off the main road and tucked neatly between the gravel access road and a crystal clear fresh water creek, around 3pm. The owner, Darren, showed us around the hotel. There was an open air restaurant, where we had breakfast every morning and dinner once, and a collection of small buildings situated back in the trees about fifty meters away. Our room was very nice with a porch out front, a big comfortable bed, and a TV with a DVD player (the DVD player was necessary because the tv got no reception). We were very excited to have access to a DVD player and took advantage of their extensive DVD library even though we travel with our own collection of pirated goods.

After arrival Roger sprang in to action and took a nap while Amy went through all of the brochures that the hotel had and discussed with Darren what activities he thought were worthwhile. We ended up booking an exotic fruit tasting, a night walk and a Great Barrier Reef tour. We considered doing a canopy zip tour but Darren told us it was the tour that he hears the most mixed reviews about and so we decided not to take our chances at $80 AUD per person.

That night we drove around the area surveying the scene and seeing what we could afford to eat. The various properties that make up the human presence in Daintree are scattered along the winding two-lane main road or tucked away on the mostly dirt side roads. Most of the restaurants are attached to resorts or guest houses and were pretty expensive so we bought some bread so that we could have peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch. We had dinner at the restaurant at Ferntree Lodge We both had grilled barramundi with salad bar and bruschetta which was good but they were woefully understaffed and the wait for our food was painfully long. The focus was the atmosphere, however, and we dined in a light rain on a patio nestled so deeply into the foliage that we could hear critters rustling in the fallen leaves below us.

Driving through Cape Tribulation at night accentuates how isolated the region is. The canopy of the jungle covers long stretches of the road and there are few if any visible lights from the properties in the park. The many curves in the road, combined with the pure darkness, often gave the illusion that we were following the dense wall of trees that managed to stay just a few meters ahead of our car.

We returned to our room intent on using the DVD player (it really is amazing what passes as a treat, even as we were immersed in the wild and exotic rainforest). The opening credits of War of The Worlds proved to be too stimulating for Amy who promptly fell asleep.

Sunday

Our last minute reservation at the resort dictated that our room was situated among a pair of vacationing families. This would not have been a problem had the families spent any time in their cabins instead of eating pizza, slamming doors, and dropping things on their patios. The owners thoughtfully, and without our asking, offered to let us change to a quieter room, an offer we eagerly accepted. After finishing with the move and a block of concerted relaxing we took a rainforest hike and got into the creek by the hotel. The creek is situated just far enough from the river as to remain croc-free, a major selling point for this particular resort (or any resort, when you think about it). The water was clear and refreshing (although a bit cold) and was great fun to swim and walk in. The best area for swimming is situated about eight meters down a steep drop from the resort, making your time paddling around quiet and secluded among the jungle.

After a shower we headed down the road for a fruit tasting at the Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm (http://www.capetrib.com.au/ and http://capetribexoticfruitfarm.blogspot.com/). On the way to the fruit tasting a cassowary crossed the road on a speed bump in front of us. While we were too slow to pull out a camera it was thrilling to see this animal, unique to this area and one of only 1,500 left on earth. We had tried to stay at the Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm B&B, a very private two room guest house on the working fruit farm, but it was booked until September. After going to the fruit tasting, it looks like the B&B would be a really interesting place to stay. The owners are knowledgeable, quirky, and unique people and we can not imagine how colorful a prolonged stay here could be.

The fruit tasting was one of the most interesting tours we have done so far on the trip and it was definitely one of the best values. The fruit tasting was $15 AUD per person and there were about 30 other people there. Alison and Digby, the owners of the farm, were at one time teachers living in Melbourne. Seeking a change of pace the couple relocated to Darwin, which was apparently not a big enough change, so they moved to the far more rural parts of the Northern Territory where they lived out of a camper van and taught Aboriginals. Still not feeling fulfilled they decided to move to Cape Tribulation and live off the land. They moved to Cape Tribulation before anything was developed and life was pretty difficult (the road at that time was unpaved and it took four hours to drive to the ferry crossing, also the location of the nearest phone). When no one could tell them what they could grow in Cape Tribulation they decided to travel to various places around the world with a similar climate and find out what grew there. Before long the inexperienced farmers started growing everything they could find and they now grow about 150 different fruits. They don’t make any money from the fruit itself and do not jump through the costly bureaucratic hoops to get the “organic” certification. Still, last year was their best year for fruit and they sold about $5,000 worth. They are clearly better business people than you would think from that considering they made about $450 from the fruit tasting we attended and they offer the fruit tasting almost every day of the year.

We got to learn a lot about how things grow (Digby was a biology teacher in his former life) and how to prepare a variety of fruits we will probably never see again. We tasted 10 different fruits: Tahitian lime, breadfruit, pommelo, solo papaya, starfruit, black sapote, yellow sapote, rollinia, custard apple and soursop. Amy’s favorite fruit was the yellow sapote and she did not like the pommelo (similar to an orange but with a skin more than two inches thick) or starfruit. Roger’s favorite was rollinia and he did not like the solo papaya. After the tasting concluded, the owner walked us around the property to take a look at the different exotic trees and plants.

That night we had dinner at our resort, which was very good. We sampled the rare kangaroo on mashed potatoes, which was much better than the steak we’ve had in Australia, and the seafood platter (grilled fish, calamari and prawns) and split the sticky date pudding for dessert.

Later that night we went on a night walk with Cooper Creek Wilderness which cost $35 AUD per person. It was a pretty good tour but there were too many people. Four or five people would have been a good number in our opinion but we had nine people (nine felt like even more thanks to the German family that did their best to scare off any animals we might have been able to see if not for their loud voices and wild flashlights). The German patriarch was busy videotaping the entire night walk, including such unique and exciting things as beetles and walking sticks, truly the stuff of indy film legends. We didn’t see anything too interesting although we spotted a variety of lizards, birds, tree frogs and fruit bats. We aren’t sure we would really want to see anything too interesting, anyway, as the rainforest hosts a variety of large and poisonous snakes that we would rather not see at night (or during the day, or in a glass enclosure, or in a book…).

Like many visitors to this wild and wonderful ecosystem we concluded our day of adventurous eating and sightseeing with a viewing of Christmas With The Cranks (they did not have a copy of Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot). Amy is happy to report that she fell asleep early in the feature, again, and she suspects not a moment too soon. Roger stayed awake for the entire “film.”

Monday

We signed up to do a Great Barrier Reef trip with Odyssey H2O because, although it cost a rather pricey $134 AUD per person, they cap the number of passengers at 30 people. We were supposed to be picked up at 7:45 and by 8:15 no one had arrived yet so the front desk called and we found out that Odyssey didn’t have our booking. Luckily they sent someone to pick us up at 8:45 and take us out to the boat. The driver took us to the beach and told us to start wading out into the water toward what was to be our boat (Amy had on pants). Wading and wondering we were finally collected by a little boat. We were really not happy with our decision at this point but that quickly faded once the boat made it out to the reef. There were only 15 people on board and 5 crew members and it was an amazing day. We snorkeled for about 1 hour and then had lunch. After lunch one of the crew members gave us an informal lecture about different fish and the reef (timed to coincide with our digestion) and then we snorkeled for about 1.5-2 hours. They offered an introductory dive but because the water was not very deep we had heard there was little advantage to scuba diving so Amy didn’t try it. It was really good snorkeling and the coral was really large and diverse. Our underwater photos simply can not do the Reef justice.

The Odyssey crew tried to get Roger into the water and one staff member even offered to take him out after lunch. Roger got in a couple of times with Amy but has decided there is no point forcing the whole water thing anymore. He has snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef and now he can quit doing something he doesn’t like for the sake of getting over it. Roger looks forward to living on high, dry land, surrounded by paintings of the sea.

We had a nice conversation with a family with 4 kids (one of who was mentally challenged) from Portland, Oregon who were traveling in Australia for 1 month after having just been in New Zealand for 1 month. After having been in Australia for awhile we were really impressed with how well behaved their kids were compared to the Australian kids we had observed.

After we got back to our resort we went to the creek for a little walk/swim and then back to our room to shower. We wanted cheaper food so we went to the Crocodylus Village, the Daintree backpacker spot, to see what kind of cheap tasty treats the hostel was serving up. They only had 4 offerings, each for $12 AUD, in the crowded and edgy dining patio. Roger had the “exotic, amazing, a fireworks display in my mouth!” spaghetti and Amy had a “sublime… this is the food people live to eat!” baked potato. When we exited the din of the resort we were again greeted by the disorienting pitch darkness of the rainforest at night. Without street lights and with the canopy of trees blocking any ambient moon light we stumbled blindly, feeling our way along the sides of parked cars in the driveway, to our car. We travel with flashlights, of course, but had elected to keep them safely inside our room. We have yet to have them with us when we need them.

Back in our room we enjoyed the delicious pinot grigio from our Yarra Valley wine tastings. The pinot grigio is the only wine that was as good when we actually drank it as it was at the wine tasting. We also watched Open Water, which was not a very good movie but was terrifying considering we had spent our day snorkeling. Although the movie is set in the Caribbean, it is actually based on the true story of two American scuba divers who were left behind during a diving tour near Cairns. After Open Water we watched the Interpreter but two movies was too much to ask of Amy and she slept through a good portion of the movie. Roger wishes he had.

Tuesday

Our breakfast was disturbed by watching a French family with 4 boys feed the wild animals and fish in the creek below from their plate and eventually directly from the buffet. We got more and more frustrated that their parents did not stop them before Amy could not take it any longer and finally asked them to stop because it is bad for the animals. Between the German tourists who literally blinded the wildlife with their flashlights and the French family completely disregarding the resort’s signs (and common sense) in not feeding the animals we have decided the old adage about good fences making good neighbors is perfectly true (and we would like to thank the Atlantic Ocean for being such a lovely fence).

After reluctantly checking out of our hotel we went to the Daintree Discovery Centre which features a canopy tower and a set of walkways through the rainforest. It cost $25 AUD per person to enter and you are able to walk around and see different trees and animals (no animals for us today, however) in as natural a state as can be considering the walkway, tower, tourist…. The canopy tower allows you to climb higher and higher to see the various levels and the top of the rainforest and it gives you a nice perspective on what you usually just see from below. One of the walks passed a killer plant called the Stinging Tree which was arm’s length from the boardwalk. It would have been very easy for anyone walking by to grab it and it was something that would have been behind a glass case in America. Our favorite part though was the turtle. We entertained ourselves for quite awhile moving back and forth with the camera to see him wave us off like we were paparazzi and he was TomKat.

On our way back to Cairns we stopped at the Daintree Ice Cream Company for ice cream and shared a taste of the 4 different flavors they featured that day which were very good - apricot, blueberry, wattleseed (similar to mocha) and soursop (similar to a creamy lemon sorbet). We also stopped to call Amy’s parents to wish them good luck on her dad’s election which was later that day (we’re happy to report that he was victorious). Our last stop before Cairns was Mossman Gorge. The area around Mossman Gorge is an aboriginal community and they are the guardians of the Gorge. We thought the Gorge was pretty nice but nothing fantastic so we just took a quick look and snapped some pictures because it was very crowded with visitors.

When we got to Cairns we needed a place to stay so we stopped at an accommodation booking service. We told the woman what our budget was and that we wanted internet and a bath tub. She offered us a list of places beyond our budget and didn’t have any clue whether they had the only 2 things we wanted. Very helpful. So we went to the Best Western (www.bwcairns.com.au) which was pricier than we wanted but it included free internet in the room (a big savings in Australia). The Best Western was very nice and was designed with rooms surrounding the lagoon pool. We really wanted to try the lagoon pool but it was too cold during our stay right up until the day that we left, of course.

That evening we walked around the pier and lagoon in Cairns for the first time. The lagoon, a massive and deluxe public pool looked like a lot of fun and appeared to be very popular. We had (and continued to) used Cairns mainly as a place to plan rather than a destination in itself, though, and discovered it a little too late to make much fun out of it. Although we were hoping for seafood for dinner we ended up with lackluster pizza which led to a frozen pie from a convenience store for Roger on the drive home.

Wednesday and Thursday

The remainder of our time in Cairns was filled with errands planning our upcoming visit to New Zealand and catching up on computer matters. The one memorable thing we did during our last two days in Australia was splurge on a seafood meal. We went to the Raw Prawn on the Esplanade for dinner. There are many seafood restaurants in that area that discount your meal by 25% if you order by 6:15. We’d eat seafood for breakfast if we could save 25%. Luckily mussels on the bottom yogurt wasn’t necessary and we were able to enjoy a lovely meal with two different seafood platters containing fried barramundi (a most delicious fish), fried prawns, fried Morton Bay bugs, fried calamari, cold mussels, oysters, smoked salmon, boiled Morton Bay bugs, chips and salad. We also started with an appetizer of prawns stuffed with a macadamian nut mixture and fried like a spring roll and finished with coffee and sticky date pudding. The meal was amazing but we were so full by the end of the meal that we were in a lot of pain. It may have been the best seafood platter we’ve ever had which made it worth the $80 we spent.

Trying to fit seven weeks of accumulated junk from traveling in a car into a backpack is not fun. Because we had two more weeks in a car in New Zealand we brought more to New Zealand than we probably should have (is it necessary to travel internationally with travel coffee mugs?). We also still had 2 bottles of wine from the Yarra Valley that we brought with us.

The flight to Sydney was only notable for the moment when the pilot pointed out the Quantas airbus flying 2000 feet directly above us. When we arrived in Sydney it was totally unclear how you get to the international terminal. There were no signs or information telling us where to go and after asking we were told to take a bus which required a 30 minute wait.

Upon arrival in New Zealand, we went through immigration and customs, a fairly rigorous process because they want to make sure you aren’t bringing anything foreign into their pristine and isolated island. If you have hiking boots that have dirt on them they will clean them. Roger was stopped when a seed in an outer pocket of his backpack showed up on their scanner. He had a long forgotten lychee seed that he stuck in there rather than throwing it in the water when we were in Halong Bay, Vietnam. You can be fined up to $200 for not declaring something but luckily we made it out without a fine. We shared a shuttle to our hostel with a nice couple from Australia who, strangely enough, were going skiing even though she had a cast on her leg. Our room at the hostel was tiny but we had a bathroom, tv and fridge and, most importantly, ESPN so Roger was able to watch PTI and Sportscenter for the first time in a very long time. We ended up going to sleep only hours before dawn, barely realizing that our seven week odyssey around Australia had concluded.

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Photos

Amy preparing to tackle the Great Barrier Reef
Floaty device required

Driving at Night at Cape Tribulation
Not a street light to be found

Cassowary Poo
Cassowary plums included

Exotic Fruit at our Fruit Tasting
You couldn't touch the fruit because some of it was so fragile it bruises at the touch

The Stinging Tree
"Warning! If touched this plant can cause a painful sting. The large, oval or heart shaped leaves (and stems) are covered in thick hairs covered in mineral silica - the chief constituent of glass. If you brush against these hair-like tips they penetrate the skin, break off and release a poison irritant. The effect of the sting is severe and may last for months. There is no effective antidote known so visitors must avoid these plants. This plant prefers open, sunny areas and is often found along walking tracks so beware."

Great Barrier Reef
The little dot with the floaty is Amy

Candy Land?
No, Cairns

A Tasty Treat
and doesn't the peanut butter look a lot like Australia?

Comments

[Andrea]

Leg Cast Skier?
Umm, are you sure the lady with the cast wasn't covering up some other problem so she could meet her true love in a ski resort like Christy McNichol in that movie we've seen 400 times? It's possible.