Author: Mrs A
Location: Daintree Village, beside the Daintree River, Queensland
Tuesday morning saw us hitching up and pulling out of Newell Beach and heading north, but not before we received a very generous gift from a stranger.
While out walking last night, we had a chat with a lady who lived in a house beside the campground. She had heard our plans to head across on the Daintree River Ferry, and let us know she had some spare tickets…so just before we left, she hobbled across the road (she had broken her ankle!) and gave Mr A four tickets (two for the car, two for the Zone), accepting no payment. It really restores your faith in humankind when such kindness comes out of nowhere.
The actual river crossing is tomorrow, today we have treats. We drove up to Daintree Village, a tiny little settlement on the banks of the Daintree River, about 10km past the ferry which takes you up to Cape Tribulation.
It is such a sweet area, with tin roofed pub/cafe/Australia Post, an information centre, general store and campground. Right beside the campground (which has a viewing platform across the river) is a boat ramp and wharf, which from the 1800s up to 1933 (when the road from Mossman was opened) served as the main route in and out of the settlement. It was from this wharf that residents exported butter (it is a dairy farming area) and brought in everything else they needed to live relatively comfortably. Today it is where small craft take visitors out on crocodile spotting tours, or bird and wildlife spotting tours if you choose to go with a local expert as we did.
Our first task for the day was to pick up our Vinomofo delivery from the ‘post office’. If was quite surreal collecting our fine wine over the counter beside a menu for crocodile curry and pies!
Next we travelled back along the road to Daintree Eco Lodge and Spa. I had booked in for a two hour session as my birthday gift from Mr A. Needless to say it was luxurious, a massage with essential oils, body scrub, hot mud and washed down with warm water from the local waterfall, followed by a more intensive massage and deep conditioning hair treatment. I emerged smelling like a geranium joss stick, tingling all over with slightly greasy looking hair!
From here, we returned briefly to camp, before wandering down to the boat ramp and our bird watching cruise on the Daintree River. There were only three other guests on the cruise as well as the skipper, so it was easy to explain my perfumed and conditioned hair status!
What a cruise. Not just the birdlife (to name a few we saw Striated Herons, Wompoo Fruit Doves, Great Egrets, a beautiful Sacred Kingfisher, Rainbow Bee-eaters, Sunbirds, Spotted Catbird…) but the stories of other wildlife (the snakes, the bats, the crocs) and the flora (Ylang-Ylang tree flowers – the main ingredient in Chanel No 5, the numerous fruits and seeds from the mangroves, the reason for the changing colours of the native hibiscus – yellow on day one, which drops off once pollinated, turning to orange and later a deep pink on further days until pollination is successful).
We spotted four saltwater crocodiles – two huge males (around 5 metres long) have their territory in this section of river, and two females (only about 3 metres). They looked pretty relaxed on the beaches, warming up their bodies in the sunshine ready for a cool night of hunting ahead. I definitely would not fancy going swimming here.
Apparently several years ago, Crocodie Hunter, Steve Irwin, flew up the Daintree River in a helicopter checking out the crocodile numbers and investigating all the waterholes on the way up. They found crocodiles as far up as 40km from the estuary in a waterhole at the top of a high waterfall – somewhere that traditionally people (including us) would have thought was safe from crocodiles. It made us re-visit all the beautiful waterholes we have swum in across the Kimberly, Lichfield and Kakadu in a new light!
Sunset was a whole new deal. Our skipper asked whether we would mind heading back a little late so we could watch the incredible phenomenon of the flocks and flocks of Eastern Great Egrets flying along the river to their roosting spots. Absolutely incredible. The breeze had totally dropped and as we sat there waiting the sky changed dramatically, from salmons and peaches to a deep Pinot red. Even the locals raved about the sky later on and the following morning!
The birds were also magical, and kept on coming…the photos do not do it justice, you really need to hear the flap of their wings and the frantic cries of the stragglers asking their mates to wait up.
We returned to camp for showers (revealing my extremely silky hair after its long condition!) and dinner. What a memorable day!
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 moved swiftly on to the fortified wines which were a little more palatable. We walked away with a bottle of Kaffir Lime, which would be lovely with a splash of soda water as a light aperitif, and a Chocolate port for those moments which require a little more decadence. We have a delivery of delicious Margaret River Amelia Park wines being delivered to Palm Cove ready for our return to Cairns, which will much better suit our palates.
Once away from the swimming areas it is relatively peaceful, moss covered rocks with a crystal clear creek tumbling down all around, surrounded by old growth rainforest of the Daintree National park. 
Birds flitted around, perching sideways on the vines that hang down from the canopy above and swooping across our path to catch the insects we disturbed as we strolled along. Being rainforest there was a lot of rotting wood, and with that an amazing array of colourful fungi – I drove Mark crazy with my gasps when I saw the next amazing colour scheme I had to capture.
Giant fig vines which had long overtaken their host tree were a key feature, looking like incredible sculptures with their expansive roots and vines, often more than a century old.
It is definitely a photographer’s paradise, with often two or three people already set up in front of lovely waterfalls with their cameras on tripods, stealing the best positions for their digital artworks.
We returned happy, having had our taste of nature and got showered and ready for dinner.
Fortunately we were pleasantly surprised – not only an interesting menu (for example an entree of prawn & crab salad, burnt corn, pickled coconut, chilli, shallot, green pawpaw and a ginger citrus vinaigrette, and mains of Spanish Mackeral with a rainforest salad – mesclun, Quandong, rainforest lime, roasted macadamia, lemon myrtle & vanilla vinaigrette) but also a great wine list. Top marks Mojo!
Returning to the caravan we found a pair of Ulysses Butterflies fluttering around the Zone – attracted to flowers planted specifically to entice these beautiful insects. Such a treat to see them.
We had booked the Toyota Landcruiser in for its 100,000 km service and so dropped it into the workshop while we went into the city.
The service did not reveal anything untoward on the car and gave us peace of mind for the next few weeks. We have booked it back in to get new shocks when we return to Cairns at the end of the month.
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.
A beautiful view south towards Hinchinbrook Island was our reward on reaching the top, which we enjoyed along with a pair of sea eagles which glided before us. We’re just loving the richness of this tropical environment.
Other than a purple fingernail, and a few minor bruises (including a black and blue ego) there was no bad outcome from this one, and he was soon back in his boat continuing the trip.
We were dropped off at the caravan park, and we hurried off for hot showers to warm up.
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.
