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Published: July 22nd 2006
CAPE TRIBULATION-WET TROPICS
Daintree National Park
No trip to Australia is complete without visiting the world’s most ancient listed rainforest which are millions of years old and is home to a host of unique plants and animals. The area is where tropical rainforests meet the reef and covers 17,000ha. However, it only covers 0.01% of Australia’s surface area but hosts 33% of it’s mammals, 50% of bird species and about 60% of its butterflies and 65% of ferns. Captain Cook damaged his ship Endeavour on the reef in this area - hence the name: Tribulation. The Indigenous Kuku Yalanji people called the area Kulki.
This proved to be a particularly special trip as we were able to meet up with Cris and Claire in Cairns and decided to share the experience of travelling together for a while. We were also glad to have some familiar company and compare travel tales. We have spent a lot of time on our own and haven’t met many other like minded grey nomads yet! Cairns is a busy city with numerous tour operators and dive/snorkel trips to the Barrier Reef. There is no beach at Cairns, only mud flats but they have built a
The Farmstay
Bat Friendly area! saltwater lagoon pool near the Harbour.
We spent a few days at the tiny resort town of Port Douglas where we were all able to delight in swimming in the warm sea, though due to rain and prevailing winds it was somewhat stirred up! There are no dangerous marine stingers from June to September. This would be a real problem if you visit here from October to May as the fabulous beaches are not safe to swim in.
Access to Cape Tribulation from the South is by crossing the Danetree River. At the ferry crossing you are made aware of the presence of crocodiles in the area.
We stayed at a tropical fruit Farmstay located in exotic fruit orchards gardens- www.capetribfarmstay.com
The accommodation was an experience in itself. We had a room which opened out onto the open veranda and Cris and Claire had a tent room outside. The seating and dining area were undercover and the shared kitchen had two open windows. In the evening a large bat would do circuits through the kitchen windows and pass under the open veranda areas and we would have to dodge while playing ‘pass the pigs’! There were lots of
wonderful exotic jungle noises at night, toads, frogs, screeching curlews, owls, barking geckos and of course heavy rainfall.
Breakfast consisted of a range of exotic fruits, some where really delicious and others were shall we say - different?
The first night I found it difficult to settle when I discovered a large spider on the curtain. John wasn’t too keen on moving it either; anyway we (he) managed to put it in a plastic container over night. The next morning it was identified as a Huntsman, not poisonous at all. I know I need to conquer my fear of spiders and making a rapid adjustment to being in a Rainforest has helped me to do this. Cape Bugulation may be more apt name!
We walked along the beaches that Captain Cook would have seen, did several board walks above the coastal mangroves, amongst vines, palms and butterflies. When we on the beach we had a look up the creek and saw a saltwater crocodile about 2 metres long on the sandbank, at times like this it’s good to have a zoom lens! Since 1985 there have been 15 fatal crocodile attacks in Queensland. 46% of victims have been affected by
alchohol and 53% happened at night and 73% had been set upon while at the waters edge or wading in it and one chap was killed when fishing from his boat. Since we did this trip a young girl was taken near Darwin, apparently getting water in the dark. It pays to read the warning sign - see photo!
We were also very fortunate enough to see Cassowaries (large hideous looking flightless bird). More about these special birds on another blog entry.
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Cris & Claire
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Think I need to update our blog!!!
Hi guys, Was really great meeting up with you, seeing some familiar faces and sharing travel stories. I've still not had a chance to update our blog and am now over a month behind - this is mainly due to sitting up late with you guys for two weeks and not being confined to our tent as soon as it goes dark!! Maybe once you've finished updating up to Cooktown & back then I can just copy & paste it into our blog & just change the names. Looking forward to seeing you again in Sydney - once our ant-hunting madness is out of the way (no-one else will know what I'm talking about but there you go).