Camper - Cape Tribulation

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The weather hasn't improved; it has been raining all night. We briefly head into the general store to get a few essentials. We are planning to go to Cape Tribulation today, which by all accounts is a place of great natural beauty, but also a place where amenities are few and far between. So we want to make sure we can survive the night if we fail to find a restaurant or anything. However, the general store is rather lacking in basics itself. The shelves are rather bare! We do manage to get some essentials, however, and set off...

The weather fails to improve; in fact, it gets a little worse if anything. We manage to pick up a couple of cheap raincoats on the way up - actually, they are more like plastic bags with a shape! Very stylish, I can assure you. We find out destination campsite, which looks like it would be quite pleasant if it wasn't for the rain! The helpful lady at reception suggests a local mangrove boardwalk wouldn't be too bad in the rain, or we could visit the bat house. We set off in search of the former, which begins at the nearby beach, sporting the aforementioned style-wear.

On reaching the beach, we realise there is no obvious sign of where the boardwalk starts. So we pick a direction at random, and set off. Fortunately, we seem to have picked the right direction, as we find the boardwalk after about a ten minute walk. The boardwalk was... well... mostly, it was wet. They apparently don't call it the rainforest for nothing. And before you say 'well, what did you expect', we had it on good authority that this kind of thing was unlikely at this time of year! Ah well... after the boardwalk, we make our way to the bathouse, where they care for injured flying foxes that they find. Mostly, they manage to rerelease them into the wild, but a few cannot be released, mainly because they cannot fly. They bring these into 'the bat house' on a cyclic basis, where they can meet the public. Today, we have the honour of being welcomed by Pushkin, who is amazingly cute. Actually, we are initally greeted by an American biologist who is very helpful, knowledgable and responsive to our questions, but Pushkin really steals the show... especially when, in the (unnamed) biologist's explanation of his physiology, and in particular the use of his thumbs, he ably demonstrates by lowering himself from the netting he is hanging from to an upright position, and promptly peeing all over the (adequately prepared) floor below. After meeting Pushkin, we go to explore the reforestation project they are also engaged in. The land surrounding the bathouse had been cleared to graze cattle, but reforestation had begun nearly 20 years ago. They provide a walk through the reforestation area, where you can see the trees planted at various stages, and the new trees that have established themselves in the meantime.

After that - well... there seems to be nothing for it. It's time to hit the pub. We find a quiet bar, where we have a couple. But it's getting a little chilly, so we decide to go back to another place we saw near the end of the boardwalk, where we hope it might be warmer. But... mmm... we appear to have gotten a bit lost. We try at least 4 different directions from the bar, and none of them seem right. So eventually, I ask one of the bar staff, and another one of the staff overhears, and offers to give us a lift back... well, that's nice! We greatfully accept, and soon find ourselves back. And so we drink a little more. Well, maybe more than a little more - enough, in fact, to result in some of the pictures below... and then we walk home in the dark, through the rain, Blair Trib style.

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