Exploring Australia Part 4: Port Douglas

The fourth and final leg of our Australia trip was based in Port Douglas. Port Douglas is the last "touristy" town heading north on the entire east coast of Australia. It's actually got a pretty nice vibe going to it. There's lots of places to eat and drink, decent shopping, but most importantly- miles of beautiful beach. And it's the last watering hole on the way to Cape Tribulation. But we'll get to that.

On our way out of Kewarra Beach we stopped in Palm Cove and spent an hour or so stand up paddle boarding. It's a fun way to get in a little exercise and sun. I wish I had some photos of how beautiful the water and islands looked from that perspective. Afterwards, we took our time driving up the coast. We spent our first day in Port Douglas exploring, shopping, and relaxing. 

We stayed in a comfy one bedroom apartment about 5 minutes drive from the city center. It wasn't special, but it was convenient. And they had a couple of beach cruisers that we were able to take advantage of. We cruised on the beach (never done that before!) with a bottle of wine, our books, and a frisbee. That afternoon was the relaxation I'd been looking forward to for the whole trip!

Driving through Port Douglas- obviously snapped through the dirty car window.

With two full days left of on our holiday left, we felt a little stressed. We wanted to maximize all of our minutes in the rainforest, without missing any really good hikes or adventures. So the first day we headed up to Cape Tribulation... or "the end of the road" marked A on the map below:

Zooming on out.... again A is Cape Tribulation, which is where all paved road ends. Australia is huge, and so much of it is uninhabited.

Anyways, if you check out the Daintree River on the first map, you can see that to travel to Cape Tribulation (or Cape Trib to locals), you have to cross the river. The river is like the guardian of the jungle. You have to take a ferry across, and very few people live on the other side.

The ferry, coming from the other side.

Why not a bridge? During flash floods, the river can rise up to 40 feet. Even a multi-million dollar bridge would have little chance of surviving that!

Everywhere!

Yet another sign telling us to be casso"wary". Hilarious guys. Not helpful at all. 

Once we got across, the jungle drive began. We were on the hunt for good hiking, but soon realized that building hiking trails in the forest is a really difficult, dangerous business. And, well, there's one. One real hike called "Mount Sorrow" and then a few boardwalks labeled as hikes. Mount Sorrow boasted the reputation of being really difficult- the guidebook said don't even consider leaving after 10am, and make sure you travel in groups of at least 4. Apparently the trail could disappear at times, and it was as awful and treacherous as the name made it sound.

Since Mount Sorrow was at the end of the road, we decided to do the drive, see what we would see, and decide on if we would do the hike the following day once we got there and checked everything else out.

Jungle scenery

We drove by the Daintree Tea Farm- which was kind of neat. I've never seen a tea farm. I drink tea every day. Exciting? Nope. But I bought a box and took a picture of where it came from- so it's blog worthy...

We stopped on a boardwalk through the jungle, and learned more about all of the vicious plants and animals in the area. Are you all aware that there are several types of dangerous plants and many deadly animals in the Daintree Rainforest? Well, now you know.

I liked all the creeping vines.

More vines.

The Strangler Fig: Starts as a seed dropped by a bird... and starts to grow atop a branch of another tree. Slowly it grows viney roots both north and south, eventually reaching the sun and the earth. As it grows, it weaves around it's host tree- using it to climb up to the light and down to the nutrients. Eventually, the host tree dies of starvation and light deprivation, and you are left with the hollow Strangler Fig:

Looking up...

The closest we got to a real cassowary...

Eventually the rainforest got close to the ocean and morphed into a mangrove swamp. This is a muddy, salty environment where pretty much only mangrove trees and crabs can thrive. All in all, I found it gross.

Mangrove swamp

A very silly bright orange and blue crab...

Beach at the other end of the swamp.

Patterns left behind by "bubble crabs"

So after our jungle-swamp walk and a bit more driving, we came upon the Mount Sorrow hike. Once again, the sign warned us not to leave after 10am, and that only "above average" hikers should even attempt the climb. We also needed to be on the look out for stinging trees, leeches, and of course, be casso-wary. I didn't find this last bit of information helpful AT ALL- because all of the signs told you to be aware of the 6-foot tall flightless talon adorned bird, but none of them told you what to actually do if you met one. Run? Hide? Fight? Cry? Nothing. I have no idea.

We hemmed and hawed for a few moments, and decided to start the hike in spite of the warning sign, and just go for about an hour and turn around. We apparently didn't have the time for the whole thing as it was already 1:30. But in the back of our minds we were both thinking... no matter how hard it is- how long can a 3 kilometer track really take?

I admit, I was very wary during the whole tramp. We came along two other couples coming down, which made me feel better about my survival chances. But between the cassowary threat (I wanted to see one so bad until we got out here) and the endless spiny palms and plants, I was a bit on edge. It was more of a run-shuffle-hike than a leisurely walk. Mount Sorrow indeed.

Anyways, after about an hour or so, we debated turning around. But we still had plenty of light and we'd already gone 2k. So we persevered on... and it became more and more like this:

And then like this:

And this:

After probably 90 minutes total we decided to turn around. We didn't know how dark it got under the canopy in the afternoon, and I was thinking about how all animals come out to eat in the afternoon as well. Yikes.

When we got back to the bottom (and I pulled a leech of my ankle- eeeeeeewwwwwwww!!!!!) we realized that we had made it about 3.3 of the 3.5 kilometers. We probably only had 15-20 minutes to go. And we had plenty of light left. I know it was a bit gutting for Scott to have not made it. But honestly I was so damn thankful to be in one piece, with all of my limbs unscathed and with only minor blood loss.... I really didn't care. We got him an ice cream and he got over it.

Well deserved post-hike beach time.

On our last day we decided not to make the long journey back to Cape Trib. Instead, we re-visited the idea of Mossman Gorge (the place with all the crowds that totally turned us off and we left the previous Saturday). It was now Tuesday, and we woke up early with a plan. Instead of taking the $6 tram to the gorge with all the people, we decided to make it a run. 2k isn't very far, but at 10am in the tropics, it's far enough! We got a nice workout, and were rewarded with a dip in non-croc infested waters.

After our swim we hiked the "difficult" 2k loop through Mossman Gorge. It was more beautiful rainforest, although very similar to all the rest of what we had seen. Below, a picture of just one of the many mean plants disguised as a pretty palm:

Look at all those spines!

More photos from Mossman Gorge Rainforest walk:

We finished up our day with that bike ride along the beach, and dinner in Port Douglas. We partook in trivia night at the local irish bar, and lost badly as usual. It was the perfect ending to a pretty perfect vacation.

Beach at Port Douglas

Exploring Australia Part 3: Kewarra Beach

Our next stop was Kewarra Beach, only about a 20 minutes drive north of Cairns. I booked it basically with the intention of enjoying Cairns and the surrounding area some more, just from a unique location. When we arrived to our new jungle hut location, Herbert the Cane Toad welcomed us.

I'll be keeping my eye on you.

What are you smiling at?

I was really impressed by the construction of our accommodations (ie: get ready for tons of pictures). Carine and Ian were our hosts, and clearly had put years of sweat and effort into this place. No amenity was left out, and the decor was unique and beautiful. There was a really peaceful quality to it, I think because of the indoor/outdoor flow. Although there were real walls, there was no closure from the outdoors. The bathroom was fully outside. Thank goodness for beautiful tropical weather!

Our first morning in Kewarra Beach we slept in until 6:30am. That's as long as the birds would let us sleep. We had a leisurely morning, but tied our running shoes on around 10am and headed to the beach. We found that Kewarra Beach was a long stretch of sand, which went for 6 kilometers unbroken, until you arrived at Palm Cove. There was a pier at Palm Cove that we could easily see from Kewarra, and we said those famous last words: That doesn't look so far.

Running on the sand was actually lovely. I intend to start doing it here in Christchurch. The 6k went by pretty quickly, and we enjoyed a smoothie in Palm Cove before heading back. 

Between the 30 degree weather and the humidity, we were pretty worked after our run. We took our time recuperating, but eventually made our way up into the Kuranda rainforest. We spent some time looking for cassowaries (more on that later), and went on a wee jungle walk out to Barron Falls.

Barron Falls 

Bush turkey, we meet again

Barron Falls was just a bit more than a trickle due in part to it being the dry season, but also because the Barron Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station has got a weir behind the head of the falls. Regardless, I still thought it was impressive. 

What do you do when a big spirally vine is hanging in your path?

What would Tarzan do?

One of the major benefits of booking accommodations with a kitchen is saving money and eating in. This by no means meant we had to scrimp. For half of what it would cost to go out, we made ourselves a lovely dinner and I baked chocolate chip cookies. Oh, how I've missed ripe tomatoes, fresh basil and real mozzarella. Summer in NZ can't come soon enough!

The following day we drove up to Mossman Gorge because we had been told by heaps of friends and strangers that we absolutely could not miss it. Apparently, neither could the rest of Australia. We were met by probably 200 cars and a big, brand new welcome center. For only $6, they would drive you the massive distance of 2 kilometers so you could then walk the massive distance of 2 kilometers in the rainforest. Sure you could walk the 2k to the gorge for free (I was told that under no provisions would we possibly get a lift back if we hadn't paid $6 upfront, so I better be prepared to walk it in both directions) but clearly only crazy people would give up the shuttle ride. We were put off by the copious amount of people and commercialism of the whole thing- and so we actually just turned around and left.

Upon the recommendation of our host, Ian, we chose to do the Stoney Creek hike (near Mossman) instead. It's a hike that's made it into the trail guidebooks and onto the internet, but it is unique because there is no trail. It's simply a rock-hopping track up the creek for 2.5k. This may sound easy, but let me tell you, it was slow going! There's a bit of fancy footwork and actual thought that has to go into rock jumping and non-ankle twisting!

This hike was unique for it's creepy animal count. Besides the cute turtle that we saw first, everyone else was slithery or spiky or 8-legged. Ick!

Can you spot the Lace Monitor? He's right in the middle of the picture. He's a massive lizard!

Photo of the "trail"

Tree snake that we thought was definitely poisonous because she looked so mean. But she's not.

Stoney Creek Falls

 Although we had one more day left staying in Kewarra Beach, we decided to spend the next day up in the Daintree Rainforest. I'll talk more about that in the next post. The drive from Kewarra Beach to Daintree was nearly all coastal, and offered stunning views, as well as miles and miles of barely populated beaches.

When we arrived in Daintree Village, we somehow expected a village with cafes and shopping and maybe a hotel or two. What we found was 2 burger stands, 1 information booth, and 4 different crocodile tours. Right.

After a surprisingly tasty homemade hamburger, we decided When in Rome... and we booked ourselves a croc tour. We'd both been hoping to see one without really meeting it- so obviously this was the best way to go about that. We lucked out again, and got a tour guide all to ourselves. He took us out on a pontoon boat on the Daintree river.

A bit about crocs: they're very territorial. They will live in the same 1-2 kilometers of river for their whole life. Which is about 100 years! This makes them a bit easier to spot- and the guys on the boats know each croc individually and have named them. This by no means makes them safe or tame.

The crocs in the Daintree River are saltwater crocodiles. The males can reach up to 7 meters, while females grow up to 4.5 meters in length. Their age can be determined roughly by how long they are in feet, so the 10-footer below, is approximately 10 years old:

Crocs have been on this earth for 200 million years... with no real evolutionary changes in the last 80 million years. They are essentially living dinosaurs (and they look it!). They are not picky eaters, and will devour anything from fish, to birds (the guide referred to the blue kingfisher as a "flying chicken nugget"), to calves and cows, to your dumb human who hangs off the side of the pontoon boat. They have insanely powerful jaws that will end life in an instant, and an even more powerful tail that will propel them from 0-50k/hr in an instant if they see something they'd like to eat.

An interesting fact about the female: she can be impregnated by several different male crocs at the same time. (I think there's another word for this in our language.... but never mind). The guide said this is an evolutionary tactic that allows the species more genetic diversity. So it's actually quite advanced. Also, the sex of the young is determined by the heat of the sand they are incubated in. Cooler sand produces females, and sand above a specific temperature will produce males. As with all species, more females = survival of the species. Mom will sit near the nest, not to incubate, but to protect. But only within a day or two of her young hatching, the hormones in her brain will switch off (that's the technical term, right?)... and if her young haven't swam off- she'll eat them!

This is Rusty, a 40 year old female who is currently knocked up (no idea how they know this)...

Rusty is basking in the sun (it was hot this day). She stores the heat from the sun in the "tiles" on her back. When she's warm enough, she'll dive underwater where she can sleep for up to 5 hours without breathing. When she gets cold, she'll emerge again to warm up. Crocodiles are so lazy (until they don't want to be) and have such a slow (cold-blooded) metabolism, that some only need to feed a few times per year to survive. 

Rusty sunbathing and napping.

The other cool animal we saw on the croc cruise was this Great Billed Heron. They're known for being elusive and shy, but they're actually Australia's largest heron, and can be up to 3 feet tall! This one appeared to be every bit of that. The guide told us that they're quite rare. 

So that concludes our time in Kewarra Beach. Our last stop, about an hour north into "Far North Queensland" was Port Douglas... coming soon.