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Cape TribulationJul 26, 2005
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Beach of Cape Tribulation
Watch out for Kasawaries
...too late. Here're some Kasawaries
It seemed that the rain was persistently following me up the coast. After another rainy day in Cairns I took my chances and booked a 2 day tour up to Cape Tribulation. I also felt that it would be unthinkable to leave Australia without diving the Great Barrier Reef, so I booked a day trip hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.
Cape Tribulation is a cluster of hostels, bars, and shops in the middle of a rain forest. Most of Northern Queensland from the reef to the rain forest is a registered world heritage site. The flora variety in the forest is mind boggling. I kept thinking back to that movie with Sean Connery where he plays a researcher in the Amazon rain forest who finds a cancer cure that is produced by indigenous ants. Just to give you a reference point for comparison, there are about 2000 species of plants in North America. In a single square mile area of the North Queensland rain forest there are almost 4000 known species of plant life. If that's not enough there are currently known 7 species of living proto-plants, the plants back to which all of the modern flora can be traced to. These are the same plants that the dinosaurs made their salad from.
After checking into the hostel I rented a bike and went for a ride. Riding on the beach was easy and fun, but when I tried to head further inland I encountered stones and fallen trees all over the place. That's when I really missed my 6" of SPV suspension. The old and rusted hardtail just wasn't cutting it.
On the way back from Cape Trib we stopped for a boat tour of the crocodile infested Daintree river. Northern Queensland is famous for its salt water crocodiles, which can grow up to 10 meters in length. It was too easy to find a croc in that river. Not even 5 minutes after getting into the boat we were visiting Fat Albert, a 5 meter crocodile, leisurely sunning itself on the bank. A few minutes later we visited his girlfriend and than an old crock covered with scars and missing a part of his lower jaw (he lost it in a fight with another croc). The easygoing exuberance of the crowd on the boat was quickly replaced with the cautious wonder. Kids kept daring each other to dangle something off the side of the boat, but all dares went unchallenged.
After visiting the Mossman gorge and Port Douglas we arrived back in Cairns that night.
