Cape Tribulation
My last few days in Australia have been hectic, fast paced and awesome. I’ll start at the beginning…
Monday morning, still on a high from the previous days rafting trip I left Cairns for Cape Tribulation, which is home to apparently the oldest surviving rainforest on the planet, the Daintree, and with the great barrier reef not far off shore. The tourist term is “where the rainforest meets the reef”. Stunningly beautiful would be a good description. Crocs, sharks, jellyfish, massive spiders, snakes, this area has it all! My tour on the way North stopped at a few worthwhile locations but the rainforest around Cape Tribulation beats the rest hands down. The fact that it rained all day, very heavily for most of it couldn’t even conceal that. My hostel at the cape was made up of little cabins surrounded by rainforest, very close to the beach with nothing else anywhere near.
I was supposed to go on a snorkeling trip to the reef on Tuesday, but when I called the day before to confirm they informed me that the boat I was booked on was out of the water for repairs this week. There was one other local fast boat doing half day trips to the reef but the agency I booked with didn’t deal with them so they offered to put me on a boat out of Cairns when I was back there. Despite the fact that it was a nicer boat, with more stuff included I only reluctantly accepted knowing that trying to get my money back would not be nearly worth the hassle. I didn’t really want to see the reef around Cairns with all the stories of overcrowded trips and damaged coral, more on that later.
I decided to go on the local boat the next morning so I could still see the reef in Cape Trib, and it’s nice up there. Saw a couple turtles, and swam with one of them for a while, the visibility in the water was great and the reef there is home to a massive group of clams. Massive in the sense that these clams are larger than me, I didn’t know such things existed.
In the afternoon once I returned from the reef the weather had cleared off somewhat so I walked around Cape Trib beach.
My last day I did a hike along beaches and through the rainforest to a water hole in one of the rivers, such an awesome place. Surrounded by rainforest, the water wasn’t even cold and it was too far upstream for the crocs to be. Beautiful swimming spot, this area is amazing!
Later that day on my tour back to Cairns we stopped for a Daintree river cruise to try and see some crocs, just finding one female, only about 1 1/2 meters long. No sign of the 6 meter dominant male that lives on the river, I can’t really imagine a crocodile that big…
Tags: Australia, Travel
Adam
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