Author: Mr A
Location: Diwan, Cape Tribulation, Queensland
Wednesday morning we awoke to a thick fog shrouding the surrounding hills and even reaching down to the Daintree river that we overlooked. Just when you thought this place couldn’t bring you another feast for the eyes it did. The weather changed before I could brew up, and once again we were in bright sunshine.
We packed up and headed off to the ferry that would take us over the Daintree River, making sure that I pumped up the suspension to give clearance when we went on. I need not have worried though as it was high tide and hardly an articulation in sight.
This was Tassie’s first trip across water, she was looking a little puzzled out of the window, not too impressed with seeing water in all directions.
I had got a little anxious about the next part of the drive, having been told a variety of things ranging from “I wouldn’t take our van over there” to “you’ll have no problem”. It’s actually hard to know what to believe, as people have such different ideas of what they and their rigs are comfortable to tackle. I needn’t have worried on this occasion though, it was a simple enough road with a few tight bends and a couple of hills, with one eye up at overhanging branches and the other in the lovely big Clearview mirrors ensuring the Zone didn’t cut in too much. The only real risk as always on bendy roads like this was, is Harry Nutter trying to prove how “manly” he is (or just not caring?) travelling too fast from the other direction on blind corners, and we have had our fair share of those on our trips. My tactic is just to drive at a speed that gives me some time to manoeuvre out the way. So far, touching my head, it has worked.
We were finally in the Daintree National Park proper, and there’s something symbolic about crossing that ferry. We had expected it too be a little more “out there” than it was though. There are cafes, lodges, ice cream factories times two (noted) and all the trappings of civilisation. Still, with some nice little twists though, like the tea plantation selling their products at the side of the road using an honesty box system. Tea picked and packaged in less than 24hrs, was their claim. I like the sound of that, I thought, and we can vouch for the freshness of the flavour having tried it later that day. About as far as you can get from the bits of tea dust that Bushells seem to put in their tea.
The caravan park we had selected (oddly called the Rainforest Village, given it was a petrol station and a lovely open space for camping) was the furthest pet friendly one travelling north along the Cape Tribulation road.
The bitumen ends in another 20km or so, then its a rough four-wheel drive only track surrounded by National Park all the way to Cooktown.
This camping spot is a relatively new one that has sprung up to provide a central base to explore the area for those like us travelling with fur children. We really liked it, lots of trees, big sites, thick lush grass, bird calls from the plentiful trees. More importantly Tassie gave it an eager paws up by jumping out the car and casting an approving eye and twitching nose over her new home for the next few days.
After a quick set up and lunch (thank goodness for Coles bake at home bread – all the way from France – when you need a quick, tasty filler) and headed off back down the road a short distance to the Daintree Discovery Centre.
We were immediately given the pitch from one of the staff to justify the $35 p/person admission (and $3’s off for oldies like me). We paid up and I’m so glad we did, it was so worth it to learn on our first day here from all the educative displays, and the audio you were given on a little device to carry around with you. As we walked in one of the staff who brings her Eclectus parrots to work (now thats a phrase I doubt you have read before) offered us some quality perched-on-our-shoulder time with them. They are indigenous to only this area of Australia and quite beautiful.
We spent several hours here, it could have easily been longer, there is so much to see and read about. 
For instance, the Daintree Rainforest contains 12 of the 19 oldest plants on the planet and many other species found nowhere else on earth. The fauna coverage is also huge as well, the Daintree has 20% of Australia’s bird species, 35% of its marsupials, frogs and reptiles and 65% of our bat and butterflies species!
The Centre is owned and operated by the local aboriginal community, and partnered with people like CISRO for research being conducted there on climate change impact, and no good news in that, as you can imagine.
We could have stayed longer – much longer – but we decided to head off for a walk, hoping really for a cassowary sighting. Alas, it was not to be. However, we did get to experience again the majesty of being immersed in this unique ecosystem. Some of the trees we spotted were huge, especially next to the lovely little package of Mrs A. Some of these are over 500 years old apparently. Brightly coloured cassowary plums littered the floor, and crystal clear streams regularly meandered across our path.
Spotting birds up in the canopy isn’t easy, particularly when you have my poor eyesight, but thankfully eagle eye Mrs A was there to draw my attention, and my trusty bins soon picked them out.
It was then a quick dash to the ice cream place that fellow Zoners Wendy and Frank from Cairns had recommended, the Daintree Ice Cream Company. Given Mrs A’s dairy allergy, I got the better deal here having the special of the day from fruit all grown on their property, a delicious combo of coconut, mango, wattle seed and black sapote. If you are not familiar with the latter it basically tastes like chocolate mouse. Amazing…Mrs A was not quite as blown though away with her rosella fruit sorbet, well at least she didn’t make noises like I did.
Back at the Zone we then spotted two Wompoo Fruit-Doves up in the tree next to us. Their calls are very distinctive, which is a good job as despite being so colourful, they are hard to spot once they are stationary up in the canopy.
As I hope you will have decided by now reading this blog, if you haven’t been to this area before you simply must. It’s hard to describe in words just how special it is, Mrs A does a much better job with her images I think. It’s sensory overload from the sights, to the sounds and then those smells unlike anything else.
I won’t steal her thunder other than saying it’s a cracker. More minor successes followed, storage space is limited for clothes even in the Zone, so both our wardrobes are showing signs of wear. I’ve decided to continue with the worn and faded look. After years of spending far too much money on clothes I’ve now mostly given to Vinnies, I can’t bring myself to over indulge anymore.
Mrs A picked up a few more things, then indulged in a chocolate sorbet – yes that is just chocolate, not rotten teeth!
We found some locally grown tea and locally made chocolate, and I even caved and bought myself some new shorts – all in all a successful little foray into civilisation before moving north tomorrow.
We returned to encourage a sleepy cat to go for a walk and to get started on packing up in preparation for moving on. After questionable first impressions, we are going to miss sleepy old Newell Beach.
The walk was a tip from the waiter at our restaurant last night. He did try to diplomatically point out it was quite a tough walk, casting his eye at me when he said that. Little did he know the young beast that lurks under this ageing frame.
After nearly 3km of bush bashing up this path, we beat a tactical retreat. Three kilometres doesn’t sound like a lot, and its not, unless every step is fought uphill and against the scrub. So it was a slip and slide back down the path, with a “ouch” punctuating every few minutes from one of us.
Back at Newell Beach, birds were everywhere – Australasian Figbirds (yellow one with red eye band), Rainbow Bee Eaters, and honeyeaters:
And down at the boat ramp a view towards Port Douglas looking tantalisingly close, but further by road.
After returning to the Zone we decided to bite the bullet and have a go at fixing our Dometic window, as the fly screen was failing to retract and flapping about. Now we had been given some tips by the ever useful resource of the Zoners Facebook group, but still, this was new territory for us. Screws were undone, and the window taken off, (quite a feat given I barely know one end of a screw driver from the other)! Thank goodness for my ever practical wife.
It was pretty obvious what had happened, one of the retaining lugs had fallen off the bottom. So that was pushed back on and after a few attempts we had it re-assembled, with a very timely phone call from Peter Thomson, a fellow Zoner with deep expertise from his past life with Bushtracker Caravans. Peter recommended we glue it to prevent future issues, so we took it off again and did so. The proof will be after 24hrs when the glue has dried, does it work? Your lives will be a chasm until then right?
We spotted this place on WikiCamps that was a bit light on reviews but was described as variously “Open” then “closed” and a “gravel car park”. It actually turned out to be one of the nicer bush camps we’ve had. Yes its a gravel car park and the gates to the beautifully mown grassy areas that surround it are locked, after hoon damage from car tyres and rubbish left lying around.
Then there are big grassy paddocks around the car park are surrounded by towering, forested hills. The light is just so vivid, and we love it.
We felt so at peace here, we decided to stop another night before heading into Cairns.
Tassie loves it here too. She did a long walk around the area, exploring the pool, digging in the sand and climbing on the boulders – for a 75 year old she isn’t going too bad – she takes it all in her stride, sniffing new smells and creating new memories…we definitely recommend a short stop here if you want a restful break in fantastic scenery.
In season at the moment are bananas (Mission Beach is the centre of massive plantations) and they taste just so full of flavour, so it was a steal at 7 for a dollar! Then “bush mandarins” – not so smart looking as a city variety…apparently..but tasted just great, and 6 for a dollar as well we couldn’t go past them. Now custard apples, a favourite of ours, they were just gigantic and we just had to have them, not worrying at this stage how our caravan fridge was going to squeeze them in. A quality problem to have.
Eating really fresh produce, and spending the time to find it, is something we are really enjoying and we think benefiting from in our overall health. Certainly when we have access to quality produce like this makes an incredible difference to the taste of the meals produced in our Zone. It’s also a good feeling to be giving our money to these local vendors not the big supermarkets.
We lost no time in jumping on the bikes and heading off for a 22km explore. We had seen a multi-use track marked through the Djiru National Park, so we rode out of town to find that. We had high hopes of spotting a cassowary, but they were not to be seen today.
Was that anything to do with my “Crusher” as we call it, charging through the woods with all the stealth of an elephant stampede?
We were excited today to be heading out to Dunk Island, which sits just offshore from Mission Beach. What the booking agent had forgot to mention was that we would be wading out waist deep though the beach break to board our water taxi. No jetty in sight. A little wet, we settled for the ten minute transfer out there. For $40 return a head it seemed OK value for this part of the world (I can hear my friends in Asia giggling) and we were soon unloaded into another world.
We skipped past this testament to the fragility of investments in this part of the world and hiked up to a lookout on the peak of Mount Kootaloo, and when I say up I mean…straight up.
Forty-five minutes of pretty sticky walking brought us this incredible view across the Family Group of Islands.
Quickly we were joined by 5 backpackers who had come over with us on the water taxi, and finally caught up with the Agile Andersons, we headed back down for a picnic lunch on a deserted beach. Well, until the backpackers turned up again…they really are keeping this economy afloat up here.
We had a very bumpy ride back to our pick up point and even wetter on the way back into the beach, but who cares when the water is 27 degrees and not a croc in sight..and let me tell you I was looking hard.
While organising the bikes at the shop the assistant pointed out a koala wandering along a neighbouring tree, a great start to the day!
We headed off from Nelly Bay to find breakfast. We had been recommended a place in Arcadia called the Bikini Tree, and settled ourselves in. A salmon stack for madam and a baked egg dish for me, both cooked just right.
Fortified we tackled some more big hills, which on an e-bike means just changing down gears and letting the 250 watt motor help you up. It’s great to see this form of transport really catching on globally, and for a hilly place like this they are ideal.
Interestingly, when we posted our trip visit on Facebook a friend commented that her great, great, grandmother was the first white woman to set foot on the island. There is evidence of aboriginal occupation since the last Ice Age, when this would have been just another group of hills joined to the mainland before sea levels rose.
A refreshing dip concluded the afternoon and all too soon it was time to head back to the mainland, tucking away some great memories of this little corner of Australia.
So eating done we decided the rain had cleared enough to go out for a hike along the beach and then up to the headland to a stunning lookout over Ball Bay, Halliday Bay and around to the next suburb of Seaforth.
The whip bird was right down on the forest floor as we came round a corner of the path, most unusual to see them that close – though he didn’t hang around for a photo, unlike the Grey Fantail, which put on a lovely show for us, and the fruit bats which do little else than hang around (ha ha)…
The crisp air made the whole walk so refreshing. We ambled though this rich diversity of plants and animals and felt so relaxed and alive. It’s the simplest things that give us pleasure. As long as Mrs A has her camera and I have my binocs and there’s a bit of wildlife around, all is good with the world. When we first got married and came here 16 years ago, we dreamed of doing longer trips and seeing more of Australia. Well here we are – converting those dreams to memories.
Thanks to the people of the Pioneer Valley for making us so welcome and providing such a well kept campground at the Finch Hatton showground. Would thoroughly recommend other travellers come and see for themselves.
Then it was a short drive and a scramble up the next lookout which had views right across the plains to the north and east. You are constantly reminded of what a vast country we live in at moments like this.
The final lookout was another window to a vast landscape, one we would be heading through tomorrow.
