QLD - Cape Tribulation

Originally, we hadn’t planned to head north from Cairns, but quite a few people told us how beautiful Cape Tribulation is – it’s one of the only places in the world where the rain forest meets the ocean – so we rejigged the schedule and headed on up…

First stop – we just couldn’t resist taking a picture of Yorkeys Knob ;) This was en route to Port Douglas, where we stopped for lunch and a swim. Now this was a nice place. You can see the golden hue coming off this place and the new super apartments being built. It’s a lot less touristy here, and consists of just one road lined with nice looking cafes and bars. The beach (known as 4 mile beach) had a stinger pool so we could “safely” swim in a cordoned off area without the risks (though some small bluebottle jellyfish do get through). The water here was fabulous, so clear and warm. The life savers sign quoted the water temperature at 32 degrees :-D



We then caught the car ferry across the Daintree River, looking for the big "Saltie" crocodiles that are known to live here (there are boat tours to see the crocs, but we decided to save our $’s). We didn’t spot any so continued our drive through dense rain forest - it’s just so beautiful here and everywhere you look is just green. We stopped off to see some views of Thornton’s Peak (yes that’s correct, there must have been a famous Thornton out there!). And Thornton’s beach is undoubtedly the best beach in the whole of Australia ;)



We camped at none other than the “Cape Tribulation Camping Ground”, the only one up here - it’s in the middle of rain forest and right next to the beach. This was an amazing spot. The receptionist said we could swim at the beach as there were no stingers (yet!!), and that we could walk up the beach to the river, but just to watch out for the resident croc up there. We decided against doing either of these (valuing our safety too highly) and got chatting to some other travellers whilst playing a few games of pool (all outdoors). After dinner we spotted a bandicoot looking for scraps!



The next morning, at 5:30am, Ev got woken up by a chorus of birds… and Marc! Marc wanted to go for a walk… and as he asked so nicely, off we went through the little bit of trees that lined the camping ground and went for a walk along the beach. This turned out to be a great idea as the sun was just beginning to rise and it was just fabulous.



We tried to find some coconuts so we could have a bush breakie, but couldn’t find any that the birds hadn’t gotten to first. So we ended up going on a walk through the rain forest and mangroves (mangroves are areas of rain forest in tidal areas).



So back to the campsite just as everyone else was rising at about 7:30am, and we’d already seen the sun rise on the beach, looked for coconuts and been on a great walk through the rain forest. We could have quite easily have stayed here for another few days, just to relax, do nothing, and enjoy the serenity…