Thursday July 3rd & Friday July 4th - Cape Tribulation

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Thursday July 3rd

I woke up at 7:00 after a 10 hour sleep. I was the only person left in the tent. I got out of the tent to find Mike and Katja in the car. Mike was asleep behind the driver seat using the driver’s headrest as a pillow. Katja was awake reading a magazine in the passenger seat. We had breakfast and got out of the caravan park just after 9 O’clock. We continued north along the coast crossing the Daintree River by cable ferry. Once across we were officially in Tribulation. We continued north stopping at boardwalks along the way. They wound through the dense green rainforest with plenty of educational signage which explained the climate and its history. We stopped at many beaches along the way as well. While on the beaches you have good views of mountains completely covered in dense rainforest. We reached the farthest point we could reach by about 2:30. We decided we had enough time to leave the park. We returned the same way we had come making one stop at the Alexandria range lookout point. The views south along the coast were amazing. After taking the ferry back across the river we took a right into the other section of Daintree National Park. While on the way we decided we had done enough bush walking and that this could not equal up to what we had just done. We decided we could use tomorrow better by continuing on. We went back to Mossman where we got a site at the caravan park.

Friday July 4th

The first place we went was Mossman Gorge. The information we had made it seem like there was a few gorges with one main one which there was a walking trail around. We arrived in the parking lot and looked at the map. There was no gorge on the map. There was just a jungle walk and a river walk. Between the two walks there was a suspension bridge of about 20 metres which turned out to be the highlight of the gorge. On the way out there were more and more people as we got close to the parking lot. When we reached the parking lot it was completely packed with tour buses and they even spilled out onto the entrance road. The majority of the people were World Youth Day participants from Sydney who were exploring the rest of the country with what was left of their holiday visas.

We got out of the park just after 12 meaning we still had lots of the day left. We returned to Cairns via the Captain Cook Highway. When we had driven it before it was pitch black out and couldn’t enjoy the views but this time the weather was perfect and we could really enjoy the scenery. Once we arrived in Cairns we parked at the same mall where we had our incident a few days before so that we didn’t have to pay for parking. I went to Peter Pans again so that I could check my mail and updated my photos for a bit. After that we all met up got groceries and then continued on this time south west of Cairns into the Atherton Tablelands. West of Cairns we had to go through the Great Dividing Range. It was a winding road rising quickly up through the mountains. At the top there were great views back towards the ocean. As we continued we reached the peak and went over the other side. Instead of the road going sharply down there was a large flat land which was great for farming. This is what they consider tablelands. It was now twilight so we drove to the next town which happened to be Atherton and stopped for the night.

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