Today we are going north, as far north on the highway that a 2 wheel drive car can go – which is Cape Tribulation, Northern Queensland! It is about a 90 minute drive in total to get to Cape Tribulation, with a couple of stops and a ferry ride on the way!
After yet again a wonderful breakfast of an omelette, chicken sausage along with some fruit, we were off on our road trip! Our first stop is Mossman Gorge, which is in the Daintree Rainforest, which has a raised walkway in the forest to see the gorge and also accessible transportation from the visitors centre to the entrance to the walkway to get there! It is only about 20 minutes up the road, so an easy drive to start!
Arriving at Mossman Gorge the rain forest is LUSH and thick – the Visitors centre is also very appropriate like most visitor centers we have encountered in Australia – not ostentatious and sticking out, but melding into the environment! Despite the humidity and temperature that was rapidly increasing, I passed by the ice cream freezers in front of the information counter and bought our admission to the Gorge. We could have walked the 30 minutes up into the gorge however $15 AUD was worth not having to do it in this heat! The first bus was not accessible so we waited for the next bus which had a ramp for me. Off we went on our 10 minute drive up the road to where the tree top walkways and entrance to the Mossman Gorge begins.
Mossman Gorge is part of the “Wet Tropics” UNESCO World Heritage site due to its exceptional natural beauty, outstanding example of evolutionary history and is a significant habitat for rare and endangered species along with unique plants and animals that are not found anywhere else. The Wet Tropics Area goes from Townsville, which is south of Cairns, to Cooktown which is north of Cape Tribulation and covers 894,420 hectares.
We walked through the tree tops to first the swimming area and then the view point – there were more trails that could be walked however they involved stairs and were not walkways so as directed by the bus driver, we stayed off them. At the view point here is my panorama view of what we saw – the water was so clear!
Most of the water that feeds the Mossman Gorge is not from rainfall, which I found to be very interesting! It comes from the moisture in the “wet” forest that drips down into the soil and then forming the various rivers that lead out to the sea.
After stopping by the cafe in the Mossman Visitors Centre to get some cold drinks, where the cafe also acts as a training centre for indigenous youth, we were on our way to Cape Tribulation and what I will call the most expensive ferry ride in the world!
On thing that I had read about in the Mossman Gorge and people are warned about are the Cassowary birds. These are fairly large birds based on what I had read and they are also fairly aggressive and one should stay away from them. Several people had spotted them based on my readings in the Mossman Gorge, however we did not see any. They are native to Northern Australia along with some other tropical locations such as New Guinea. The birds are flightless, and they are the third-tallest and second-heaviest living bird, smaller only than the ostrich and emu. Cassowaries are very wary of humans, but if provoked, they are capable of inflicting serious, even fatal, injuries. They are known to attack both dogs and people. The cassowary has often been labeled “the world’s most dangerous bird” however statistically the ostrich still kills more people each year (2-3).
Driving up to the ferry that crosses the Daintree River, which costs $51 AUD return for a 15 minute cable crossing in each direction (I think these ferries are free in the interior of British Columbia) there was a wooden image of a Cassowary that I took a picture of just so I could have a life sized image. Then shortly after that the small motor home we were following along the road stopped and we wondered why and guess what was in the middle of the road blocking the one lane bridge? A live cassowary bird just strutting about! Here is the wooden image and then the real thing! It is quite at LARGE bird! The 1M marker that you see beside it and the Oliver Creek sign is to let drivers know how high the creek is above the road – so that cassowary is at least 1 metre tall!
We then continued our drive up the highway to Cape Tribulation. It was like the road to Hana on Maui at times! Lots of turns and also driving through a cut in some heavy vegetation! Then came the speed bumps! Not sure which brilliant engineer invented them however I think they ran out of concrete when forming the speed bumps and so they decided to “fill” with huge rocks. Well, over the years the concrete has worn away and left what I would call “speed bump rumble” strips! Very interesting to drive over!
Here is my panorama picture of Cape Tribulation Beach –
As we are as far north as one can do on the regular road, we are now heading south towards Port Douglas again! I did not know until I saw the sign, that this road is actually called the “Great Barrier Reef Drive” and it goes from Cape Tribulation down to Cairns! Interesting as in the next 24 hours we will be driving the complete 125 km distance!
Along we drove, past some very organized road construction, over some one way bridges over some very peaceful looking rivers, past the Daintree Tea fields and yet more “speed rumble strips” until we got to the Daintree Ice Cream company which was our reward for our excursion of the day! Wow – did they have some GOOD ice cream! I had chocolate coconut while Andrew stuck with the awesome plain chocolate flavour! Now, for the last little bit of our journey being some tourist busses who were also visiting the same Ice Cream stop on their way back from Cape Tribulation!
Back at the Sheraton Port Douglas now, we packed up as we have an EARLY departure for Cairns the next morning! We are taking the Queenslander Train from Cairns to Brisbane which is an overnight train that departs the Cairns Train Station at 7:40 am and gets in the following day at 9 am to Brisbane’s Roma Train station! We are an hour north of Cairns and need to gas up the car and drop it at the airport prior to taking a taxi or Uber to the train station… Departure time? 5am! Time to hit the sack for some quality sleep time – who knows what type of sleep we will get on this train ride tomorrow night!