Our flight to Cairns goes via Sydney where we have a 5 hour stopover, giving us time to go back with Nicky and Andy to their house and check out our future accommodation. Lucky for them, it passes!
www.wotif.com has turned up a Rydges hotel (www.rydges.com), our home for the next 3 nights whilst we try to find a car. Travellers Auto Barn (www.travellers-autobarn.com) only offers a selection of three different vehicles on the day we’re looking, but since they also guarantee to buy the car back from us in Sydney for 40% of the purchase price (not a great deal, but always nice to have a back-up plan), we settle on a Ford Fairlane Ghia with a 3.6 litre, V6 engine for $5,500. Three weeks car hire in Adelaide cost us $1,500 - we’ll get 16 weeks use out of this car, after which time we’ll get at least $2,200 back. Do the maths!
We’re off to Cape Tribulation, so called because Captain Cook’s ship The Endeavour got caught on the reef here in 1770, forcing him to spend several months ashore with the locals whilst they patched it up. It’s stunning here; thick rainforest, right down to the beaches which are untouched by anything except the sea. Unfortunately, you can’t swim off the Queensland coast in summer because of the stingers (jellyfish), some of which can cause death within 3 seconds, which is less time than it’s taken you to read this sentence…ouch, what was that? aaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh………...
Our journey up here has taken us past fields and fields of sugar cane, through the lovely Port Douglas with its 4 mile beach, where we stop for lunch, and onto the tiny Daintree River Ferry, just big enough for 6 cars at a time. Hope it doesn’t break down as there’s big crocs basking just at the side of this river.
Cape Trib Beach House (www.capetribbeach.comm.au ) is our home for the night where we stay in a wooden cabin, deep in the rainforest and eat our meals outside to the cacophony of a thousand tree frogs.
Our morning drive further north to Cooktown is hampered by the fact that, 2km further along the only road, there’s a sign warning that only 4-wheel drive vehicles can make it past this point. Ah well, next time…
We head west to the Atherton Tablelands, passing lots of mango and coffee farms this time. It’s perfect growing conditions for both apparently, with 80% of Australia’s coffee grown up here. In Mareeba, we head to Granite Gorge, a fantastic raging, rocky river, ending with a waterfall with a wooden swing bridge slung across from one side to the other. This being the rainforest, we not disappointed when it buckets down and we’re totally soaked through within a few seconds. It’s so warm and the humidity is 90% so it really doesn’t matter.
Tonight we’re staying in Kuranda, in another rainforest cabin, and this one comes complete with a 3 hour power cut, thanks to the thunder storm raging outside. Our morning plan to take the train down to Cairns and the 9km cable car back up to Kuranda is scuppered when we discover that it’s lots of messing around with buses to do it this way (rather than the usual cable car down, train back up – but you know me, I like to be different), so head to Barrons Falls instead, another gorgeous, rocky waterfall and then a visit to the 200 year old curtain fig tree, a strangler fig which attaches itself to other trees, sends its roots down to the ground and literally strangles the host tree.
We drive down to Yungaburra, a National Trust village with a very Swiss feel, but we fail to see the platypus known to frolic in the river here (makes a pleasant change from crocs). To see platypus in their natural habitat, you need to be still, quiet and patient. And we have Harley. Still, we drive on through the Misty Mountains (very appropriately named today), to Ravenshoe with its 20 wind turbines and extinct volcano and on to Innot Hot Springs where there are 6 pools of natural hot spring water at various temperatures, the hottest of which is 43-45 degrees. I make it into the very relaxing 41-43 degree pool but Will’s not to be beaten…
Passing huge termite hills all along the side of the road, we continue to Mount Garner, an old mining town. Signs of previous wealth are dotted around, with many of the houses having three or four beautiful, but now rusty, antique cars dotted in their gardens.
Final stop is the Millaa Millaa waterfall, where Ruby and Will take a dip in the torrential rain and I stay on guard with a sleeping Harley in the car. All whacked out, we head to Innisfail, and after a fruitless search for a hotel for the night, end up in the rather cell-like Barrier Reef Motel. But it’s only for a few hours and then we’re back to Cairns to collect the car insurance document and, before the rain sets in again, we spend the afternoon at the open-air lagoon pool, right at the side of the beach, but without the stingers. Back to the Rydges, but this time at the Rydges Plaza where we spend the next two nights.
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