After the humid heat of Darwin, Cairns with it's 'chilled out' atmosphere seemed almost mild at 31degrees (ha ha, get it?!) What the city lacks in interesting architectural style it makes up for with it's tropical air; surrounding hills blanketed in rainforest, palms lining the streets and fragrant frangipani flowers reminding us of our honeymoon in the Maldives. If only the internet had smell functionality!
On an economy drive and with economy in numbers, the three of us decided to visit tropical Queensland without a tour and their 100% mark-ups. Hiring a car the size of a golf cart (which was unfortunate based on our collective heights of almost 6 metres!), we headed to Cape Tribulation that is considered the ultimate pilgrimage for sun and nature worshippers in the North East.
Trundling along in our 3 cylinder Daihatsu Charade we stopped off at Port Douglas, our mini car looking out of place next to the expensive Mercedes, BMW's and Utes. Made famous (or infamous) recently by a shame-faced Rebecca Loos seeking an escape from the English press, the pretty beach town radiates wealth and seems to be a general recluse for retired business people and their yachts. The views along the Port Douglas beachscape were suitably tropical but unfortunately it's breeding time for the crocs and the sea is full of stingers too so the water was out of bounds.
Onwards and upwards, our second stop was the Daintree rainforest; the oldest in the world and home to an astounding 70 animals and 700+ plants found nowhere else on earth. The
canopy walk saw us walk from the forest floor where we strained your neck to see the distant tree tops vying
for the sun, to half way up the forest where we looked out onto basket ferns and twisted strangler figs and finally a climb up the tower enabled us to look down on the forest and see the birdlife. The rainforest was stunning and the discovery centre gave us a unique insight into the ancient eco-system as well as giving us the expectation that an 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' star would round the corner chomping on a witchetty grub at any moment! The next stop was the Daintree ice-cream company where we ate ice-cream flavoured with exotic tropical fruits ; black sapote (chocolate taste), wattleseeed (mocha), soursop (lemon) and mango. It was with sticky faces that we checked into
PK's Jungle Village just south of Cape Tribulation itself. Whilst not the nicest or cheapest hostel in the world, nobody could argue with it's unrivalled setting in beautiful rainforest. After Lucy's first night on her own in a hostel and Steve & Beth's first night in their tent, we all set out early to explore Cape Tribulation...before we got burnt to a crisp by the midday sun. Starting at Myall beach we were a little disappointed at what seemed a pretty but rather normal beachscape and it was only when we reached
Cape Tribulation 6km later that we were awestruck. It's quite simply a beach straight from the bounty adverts. More importantly, it is the only place in the world where rainforest meets reef and that makes it even more fantastical; the rainforest spreading from the beach up to mountains towering high above and dwarfing the palm trees fringing the beach. Unfortunately it was too hot to linger so after a walk along the beach when even our tummy buttons filled with sweat (which was nice) we set back for lunch at PK's. Later we headed to Mossman Gorge, an area renowned for it's good freshwater swimming then via
Golden Drop Mango Winery (we kid you not and it's delicious). Armed with 2 bottles of the said golden drop, we headed back for Cairns for our next Aussie adventure.
<< Home