Thursday, Friday, November 15-16 - Traveling to and exploring the Daintree and Cape Tribulation

Pearly Beetle by our door






 

Thursday - We packed up and sadly left the truly lovely and hospitable Cedar Park Resort, returned to Mareeba, and headed north. We stopped at several small parks and bird hides, in one of which we saw this rather large and scary spider - which I always seem to find in bird hides! We drove through beautiful green mountains and suddenly started seeing views of the coastal plain below. We descended into the town of Mossman surrounded by cane fields. All along the cane fields and around the plantations run very narrow gauge railroad tracks which are used to haul the sugar cane to a central transport location. It would be fun if they also hauled tourists on these tracks as they weave through this scenic valley.

 

 

Katy, Frances & Hilary in Port Douglas

We stopped for restorative ice cream at 2 PM and at 4 drove into the tiny town of Daintree Village and our next B&B, Red Mill House, which sits on the lower edge of the northern tropics of Australia. Our B&B consists of two buildings overlooking a lovely garden; Hilary, Bob and I have the lower floor and Frances is upstairs. We met Trish and Andrew, the owners, and she gave us much advice on where to find the local bird specialties.

We had to clean up and leave quickly as we had a dinner date in Port Douglas, an hour away. We headed south and drove onto the peninsula on which Port Douglas is situated. We drove past endless ritzy hotel resorts shielded from us by thick cultivated shrubberies and flowers. We arrived in town, parked, and walked to the shore which was lined with palm trees and very pretty. The town is full of restaurants, bars, & upscale shops. We went into Paddy’s Bar and got drinks, and soon our friends from LA, Arnie & Anita, arrived from the resort their TravelQuest group was staying in for the eclipse. We walked around the corner to Harrison’s, a fancy restaurant with very good food and had dinner. Hil and Bob shared 14 hour-cooked lamb with spicy pumpkin and cuke salad, I had salmon with caviar and wild rice and oyster bignees. After great desserts (several of us had shot glasses of sherry and melted chocolate which was amazing!) we drove back to Red Mill and collapsed.

Friday - We met at the car at 6:30AM and drove up the road next to the B&B through pasture land edged by tropical forest, stopping several times to look for birds. The target bird was the Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher, a blue and buff kingfisher with an orange bill and long trailing white tail. We didn’t manage to see him but talked to a farmer who had seen one, but not recently. We returned for breakfast which consisted of a lovely fruit tray with papaya, mango, pineapple, passion fruit, sour sop and mangosteen. The last two I’ve never eaten; the sour sop is like a fibrous cherimoya and the mangosteen is similar to Lychee but in a very thick shell. There also was delicious homemade apple & ginger yogurt and home made bread. After we consumed that, we were offered full English breakfast! We won’t have to eat until dinner!

We set off for Cape Tribulation, crossing the Daintree River on the car ferry and started driving up the narrow Cape Trib road with endless speed bumps and signs warning that cassowaries might be crossing the road. After many miles the road turns to dirt and continues up the coast to Cooktown. We turned around there and stopped at the several boardwalks in the park. The three areas have quite different plants and were really interesting botanically. We walked past huge fan palm leaves, giant cycads, strangler figs, mangroves.

  The patterns, structures and textures were fascinating. We also walked onto spectacular tropical beaches, at the entrance of each, was a large sign warning against going into the water because of the box jellyfish which have powerful and sometimes fatal sting. There ware also bottles of vinegar to alleviate the pain (pee can be used in a pinch!). Incredibly frustrating not to be able to even wade in such beautiful warm turquoise water!



Box Jelly warnings!

We started back, stopping at the Daintree Ice Cream Company where we got dishes of pineapple, mango, black sapote and wattle seed ice creams! Pure heaven after walking all day in the hot humid jungle!

Tropical ice creams

We stopped at the Cross Roads Cafe and ordered pizzas, bought wine and beer, then returned home for showers. Later we picked up the pizzas and had a delightful dinner on our porch - while observing a very cute foot-long Northern Brown Bandicoot foraging on the lawn in front of us!