The Daintree – a tropical wet rainforest

The Daintree – a tropical wet rainforest.

The campsite in Atherton at Lake Tinaroo turned out to be a popular spot for weekend warriors. By Saturday morning we were ready to move on. Next stop Kuranda. Tia had fond memories of Kuranda from 14years ago. Things have changed of course but it is still a very laid-back bohemian village with a tree-lined main street and lots of cafes, clothes shops and trinket stores (great!?). Some of the original markets remained although re-built after a cyclone. I behaved myself and left Tia to shop for about an hour while I caught up on e-mails and posted some more photos for the blog.

Close to Kuranda is the Baron Falls – quite spectacular in the lower river level we saw but would be a real site in full flood. Driving down off the tablelands to the Cairns coastal plain was challenging with the Jeep in low gear to prevent the brakes from overheating - great views however over Cairns and the coastline. The Cook Highway runs up the coast right on the edge of the ocean and we stopped to watch some para-sailors and hang-gliders make the most of the conditions. The site reminded us of the Wollongong coast.

The Daintree World Heritage rainforest can be accessed from Cooktown (long way around) or via ferry over the Daintree River. We chose the latter. The road is bitumen from Daintree River to Cape Tribulation and this helped us reach our campsite in reasonable time. You can see evidence of the different political motivations in this area. Here is a world class wet tropical rainforest with private properties and commercial operations dotted along the road. A quick look at the map reveals that the world heritage preservation area weaves around these pre-existing properties in an effort to preserve what is left. There is no doubt that some of the resorts would be a treat to stay at but this little wood-duck’s budget doesn’t extend that far!

The beach-side camp was nothing less than fantastic! We were less than 50mtrs from the beach but protected from it by a thick cover of rainforest. The Daintree is heralded as “where the rainforest meets the sea” and it does. We took a stroll along the shore having been assured by the park owner that there were no croc’s in the area. I don’t think Tia was convinced and when I suggested a swim the next day she was not enthusiastic. To her credit she followed me into the water but stayed some metres behind. I think this was a cynical plot to use me as bait!

I was keen to do as much of the Bloomfield Track as possible so we set out the next morning to explore. I am very glad we decided to leave the camper at Cape Trib (that’s short for Cape Tribulation which is just too hard to keep repeating). The road deteriorates to a 4WD track and is great fun. Numerous creek crossings and rough track made this a challenging run. It seems that we may have done the track at its worst. The graders have not been through since the wet season. I can’t imagine what it would be like in the wet. The track would become slippery and the creek crossings deeper and faster (what are you doing next Feb or March, Chris?? Two vehicles and a load of snatch straps could be the order of the day!). We were lucky enough to experience some of the beaches completely on our own. Couldn’t see a sole in any direction (except for the imaginary crocs). This was very special.

Did I say that the Daintree was a WET tropical rainforest? Let me assure you – it is! We got a real drenching the next night. Tia’s suggestion, which was a good one, to leave the tent set up for a couple of hours to dry out was scotched by another downpour. We decided to dash to Cairns to re-group before heading off to PNG. This was a day earlier than planned but worth it.

Spent yesterday in Cairns just goofing around. Booked a Tully River rafting experience for our return from PNG. The company we decided to book with offered three levels of experience. Level one has a few rapids and lots of nice views. The second has more rapids and is guaranteed to “clean out the cobwebs”. The third is labelled “Extreme Adventure” and offers swimming rapids, rapid surfing, and lots of holes. Which one do you think Tia wanted? Which one you think I wanted and which one do you think we booked? I will reveal the answer to these questions in the next blog if we haven’t drowned (just a little clue there).

I may have mentioned in a previous blog that the packing and unpacking process is taking a little longer than desirable. We have decided to lighten our load while here in Cairns and will send back to Sydney a lot of excess equipment etc. After three weeks on the road we are now looking at all the stuff we packed and are asking ourselves – why? Silly things like too many plates, mugs and glasses; too many cooking pots and too much clothes. Once we relieve ourselves of this overburden we should be able to pack up much faster.

Until next time.

Alan and Tia