Great breakfast, tea, toast, peaches and apricots with natural yoghurt, followed by full English breakfast. Spoke to Cilla (a good friend of
Bev's who lives in Tasmania) to try to arrange staying with her whilst Henry is parachuting for three days north of Melbourne. Found out Cilla is staying in Melbourne! She insisted on contacting friends to see if I could stay three nights with them and would phone me back (I can).
We left our excellent value for money hotel to pick up a car for our travels over the next ten days. This meant a late start to the day, 11.30, heading out to Cape Tribulation which we knew would take at least two and a half hours. We drove past Port Douglas and caught the car ferry over the Daintree River, complete with crocodile warning!
The road was definitely taking a turn for the remote as it wound its way into the Daintree rainforest with various river crossings and roadworks that were repairing parts of the road that had been eroded away.
Stopping at Masons Cafe around 14:30 Nicola asked Mrs Mason "now we are here what should we do?" to which the reply was "you're a bit late". A good job she could only think of 2 things.
We made our way to Cape Tribulation wary of the warning in the car rental agreement that only 4WD vehicles could use the road further north. We missed the turn-off completely and began to get the distinct feeling that the road was not as good as it had been. The appearance of a forest river crossing made our mind up that Cape Tribulation must be to the south of us now!! A quick U turn and 10 minutes later we finally arrived at the infamous Cape. Perhaps Captain Cook would not be the only one to suffer in this part of the world.
In the event the Cape while being a nice beach lacked something. What it did not lack was the warning of esturine crocodiles and the need to keep clear of the water and particularly swimming. The presence of a couple frolicking in the surf therefore led Nicola and I to assume they were either illiterate or crocodile lovers.
The trip back allowed us to visit the main tourist attraction in the area, Daintree Discovery Centre a purpose built visitor centre that was packed with useful information and well worth the visit. There are extensive boardwalks and a tower into the forest canopy complete with audio guide and booklet. The main animal is the Cassowary, a 6 foot bird related to the Emu and Ostrich that is a vital part of seed transfer in the forest. Needless to say it can be dangerous if encountered alone so Do Not Touch It!
We were not lucky enough to see it but perhaps this was just as well.
The return to Cairns was uneventful and we stopped off at Port Douglas to see if we had missed anything by staying in Cairns. The meal we had was very good but there are a tremendous number of nesting birds that definitely disturbed the peace around dusk so all in all a good call to stay in Cairns.