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Happiness Is The Road
When we woke up this morning we knew that something was different. We couldn't hear rain on the roof. There was some blue in the sky today and we could see the sun for the first time in what felt like ages. Whilst we were having brekky the guy from the camp site told us that there was a partial solar eclipse today across the Cape York area. We asked when it was happening and he said now! He went and got some special glasses for us to put on so we could see it properly which was really nice of him. There had been a total solar eclipse here on the 14th November last year. With the glasses on we could clearly see the moon crossing the sun and it did go slightly darker. It was an amazing sight.We had a mooch around Port Douglas this morning in the bright sunshine. The beach looked a lot better today although it wasn't as stunning as we thought the beaches would be along this stretch of coast. We have seen far better beaches in other parts of Australia. Next we drove down the road to Mossman and to the Mossman Gorge which is part of Daintree National Park. We parked up at the visitors centre and from here we got the shuttle bus to the gorge itself. The guy driving the bus was very friendly and informative. This part of the rainforest is 135 million years old and is the most ancient and primitive in the world. We went on a walk around the gorge in the lush rainforest. The Mossman river was fast flowing and the rapids looked spectacular. The rainforest was very spiritual and full of the most beautiful trees. It was very humid in amongst the rainforest and we worked up a bit of a sweat. The only down side was the amount of people here who as is usual were walking round making loads of unnecessary noise. Why can't people just shut the f**k up in places of beauty? There was a suspension bridge going over the river on the walk and it was brilliant. It swayed and we had loads of fun quietly bouncing across it. We had a good bounce on the way back as well. We got the friendly shuttle bus back to the visitors centre and had a great coffee in their cafe. The local indigenous people staffed and ran this place as they were all super lovely and helpful. We had a great time here. We decided to drive a short way down the coast to Wonga Beach and have a look at the caravan park there. It was a great quirky site and absolutely beach frontage. I rang a little bell on the reception desk but it wasn't very loud. I rang it a couple of times and then a really lovely lady who was the site caretaker came out and checked us in. She told me that until recently she'd had a lovely big brass bell on the desk but that it had been stolen along with two lovely paper weights. She reckoned that it was kids who had stolen them. She commented that the parents are more to blame than the actual kids as the parents set a bad example and fail to bring up and control their kids properly. With some exceptions I think that this is generally true and I agreed with her. She directed us to an absolutely brilliant spot right on the beach front. From the back of the camper we could see through a few tropical trees to the beach and the sea. This is the best view we've had at a camp site since Cosy Corner at Bay of Fires in Tasmania. We went for a walk along the beach later on. The beach is fringed with coconut trees and there were loads of fallen coconuts on the sand. This was a far better beach than at Port Douglas and it was very quiet. The cloud over the sea started to build later on and looked quite dark and ominous. We expected it to rain again but it didn't. This had been the first completely rain free day for quite a while. We went to sleep to the sound of the ocean and the whirring of our fan. The nights are hot around here.
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