Today we planned to do the cruise near the ferry terminal and then some walks and things on our way up to Cape Tribulation. We left the van park about 9.15 and drove the 15 mins to the ferry terminal. We booked our places on the 10am boat cruise. It was quite a sunny day, so we found some shade to wait.

This cruise was quite different to the one yesterday, both because of the different location and because of the different tour guide. This tour guide was a mangrove expert and loved the flora on the river, but didn’t seem to be as interested in the fauna (except for crocs). We saw about 3 crocs again on this cruise – 2 of them well known by the tour guides and given names, the other one too small to yet be given a name (apparently there is a 90 percent mortality rate with the baby crocs – eaten by bull sharks or larger fish etc.) He told us there have been only 35 recorded cases of humans dying from croc attacks since European history in in Australia – 2 of them have been on the Daintree River (didn’t find out when).  He gave us quite a talk about the mangroves – the adaptations they have in their systems to be able to thrive in salt water. There were quite a lot more mangroves here because it was closer upstream and so more salty. I enjoyed the cruise again for the different information we learnt this time.

We then went across on the vehicular ferry. It was not a very wide river, so this didn’t take long. Then we were driving thought he rainforest up the Cape Tribulation Road. From as soon as we drove off the ferry, this road was under a continual canopy of rainforest, with only the occasional glimpse of sky and occasional glimpse of sea. It was not at all what I had expected, but it was so different to any other region I had driven through previously. It was a slow winding road and we averaged around 50km per hour. There were a few stops along the way on our detailed map that we had. The first one, which was a lookout, we couldn’t stop at as they didn’t allow caravans on that section of the road. The next one was the discovery centre where there were a few walks. It was a narrow road into there, but we managed it and then had a walk along a boardwalk in the rainforest, once again with some informative signs. We found out how the scrub turkeys would build a mound for their nests and from then on Hannah and Beth would point out the scrub turkey mounds whenever we went on walks. 

There were a couple more places we could have stopped but we decided to get to our caravan park first which was right up the top of this road near Cape Trib itself. We had rung ahead that morning and they only had unpowered sites for 2 nights (we could have had a powered for one night but then have had to move to an unpowered the next day). The unpowered sites couldn’t be reserved so the lady I spoke to on the phone suggested we get there no later than 3pm. It was 1.30 by now and we thought we should go straight there. We arrived around 2pm and spoke to the lady at reception. Because we were planning on doing a day trip to Cooktown the next day, we wanted to be able to leave our camp fridge on power with refridgable things  in it. We wanted to ask the lady if we might be able to leave it with them plugged in to a power point. It turned out she had a couple of ’emergency’ powered areas up her sleeve which she said we could check out. One was right next to one of the amenities blocks which had a power point on the outside of it. Michael had a look at this and thought it would be suitable. So, as it turned out, we ended up with the equivalent of a powered site for the 2 nights. And the amenities block was not the main one – it was a smaller one down one end, out of the way a bit. We set up and the kids went to check out the beach – the campsite was right on the beach, like it had been at Armstrong Beach. The tide was right out again and lots of people had taken their camp chairs out onto the hard sand to sit and read or relax. There seemed to be a bit group of young foreign tourists there – German I think. Anyway, the kids enjoyed some time on the beach, swinging on a tree rope they found, while Michael and I did some tidying up and odd jobs.

One of the other places we had planned to stop was a swimming hole (croc safe). So we drove a little way back to that spot, called Mason’s Creek, and walked to the swimming area. To the delight of the kids there was a rope on a tree to swing into the water. The 3 older ones did this, but Bethany was not quite confident enough. She enjoyed just splashing in the water though. It was a nice end to a nice day. We went back to the van park, had showers and then had dinner (spag bol from the frozen meals). We hoped to get an earlyish start tomorrow for the day trip to Cooktown.

The camp ground and just the area itself was so nice, we thought we might even stay an extra night here and have a day to enjoy the area after our visit to Cooktown.

We decided to have a slow day today, just doing things around Daintree Village and perhaps a bit further afield on the south side of the river. This was because there was a vehicular ferry that crossed the Daintree which was $32 return and so we didn’t want to go onto the other side of the river until we were ready to go with the van.

We bought tickets for the cruise which was just near our van park and went on the 9am cruise which went for an hour. One advantage of the cruise company we choose was that it gave you a multi-pass voucher, so you could go on the cruise as many times as you wanted in a period of about 5 days. And the cruise departed from 2 different areas – from Daintree Village where we were and also from near the ferry terminal further upstream where there were more mangroves. We thought we would do the one near the ferry terminal either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

The cruise in the morning was almost a private tour – there was our family and one other older couple on the boat. The tour guide, Lex, was a local guy who actually grew up only just across the river on a farm with cattle and pretty much spent all his life in Daintree. I couldn’t imagine growing up on a river where crocs were prevalent.Lex was very much a small town guy with such a slang accent, it was sometimes hard to understand him. We saw the big croc again that we’d seen the day before on the river bank – apparently he was the ‘big daddy’ of this part of the river – there were some other smaller crocs in this area too and we saw another 2 on this cruise. Lex was amazing at being able to spot birds and wildlife in the trees beside the river. We would just see trees, but he would suddenly stop the boat and point out a tree snake or a frog-mouth bird (both of which were camouflaged on the tree and quite hard to see, even up close). He also knew the plants around there very well. He went close enough to an hibiscus tree for us all to pick a flower and then showed us how to pull it apart to eat the bottom part of the flower. I enjoyed the tour very much. We got off the boat just after 10am and walked the 50m back to our van and had some morning tea.

The kids played outside for a little while and then we had an early lunch, because I wanted everyone to have a rest after lunch today. Bethany and Hannah seemed to be getting tired a lot – we were having fairly full days. We all lay down and put on an audio CD to listen to for a while – I ended up having a bit of a sleep, but Hannah and Beth didn’t – they had a quiet time at least. 

Around 3.30 we headed off in the car to have a bit of a scenic drive. We followed the road which ran beside the river downstream a bit. There was quite a bit of cattle around in the pastures – they were Brahman cows are Brahman crosses – they looked a bit more like bullocks than cows. We drove past some hills which the kids called ‘tiny wings’ hills (after the game on the iPhone/iPad) – they were smooth rolling hills with lots of little humps. We drove south again past Wonga beach and to an area just north of Mossman which had a scenic drive. There was also a WW2 historic site where a bomb had been dropped by the Japanese. On the way back towards Daintree we stopped at one of the beaches beside the road and went for a walk along it. Then back to the car and back to the van park. It was shower time for the younger girls while Lauren and Sam did dinner (BBQ meat and salad and bread). Usual night-time routine.

The next morning we packed up and headed out of the van park. We stopped at a nearby shopping centre for me to restock on groceries. The kids did some schoolwork in the car while I did this. Then we continued north along the Captain Cook Hwy. There were turnoffs along the way to several of the ‘northern beaches’ of Cairns, but we decided not to stop at these – it was not recommended to swim up here (due to stingers and possible crocs) so it would have been looking only anyway. However the highway met the coast at a place called Ellis Beach and it was a beautiful sight to behold – such azure blue sea. The highway followed the coastline for quite a few kms and is known as one of the most beautiful drives in Australia – I can see why. 

About 15mins along this lovely stretch, we came to Port Douglas. Having heard so much about it ( as the place for the rich and famous), we wanted to have a drive around. So we drove along Port Douglas Rd towards the beach area. There were many 5 star resorts all the way along this road. The beach itself was unusually normal and natural. Then we drove along the main shopping precinct and saw all the fairly upmarket shops. I jumped out to take a few photos but otherwise we didn’t stop. We got back onto the highway and continued north.

About another 15 mins further along, we came to Mossman. We had read about the walks at Mossman Gorge so wanted to stop and do 1 or 2 of those. We thought it would be like most NP walks – just driving to the carpark and going on the walk, but visitors to this area had been increasing so much, that the authorities had decided to protect access a bit. They had built a visitors centre where you had to park your car/van/motorhome etc and then take a shuttle bus in to the walking areas – at a cost of course. We had our lunch in the van before we left to go buy our tickets for the shuttle bus. It was a very short wait and then a 5 min drive in – the aboriginal community was still setup within this area, so we drove past their houses etc. We hopped out at the start of the walking area. The 2 smaller walks were still accessible, but the longer walk was closed due to damage to the suspension bridge. We had only planned on doing the shorter walks anyway, but it meant that these walks were probably a lot busier that they otherwise would have been – there were lots of people on the track. The walks were through lovely rainforest with informative signs along the way. The river walk ended at a vantage point overlooking the Mossman River. A few people were swimming in the river, although the signs said it was dangerous to swim there due to strong currents. We sat beside the river for a few minutes and enjoyed the surroundings and watched the goings on of other people. Then we walked back to the start area a different way. We took the shuttle bus back to the visitor centre carpark and got back in the car.

We were still trying to work out where we were staying that night. There were a few options – Wonga Beach (just south of Daintree River), a van park on the southside of the river, or a few van parks on the north side of the river or closer towards Cape Tribulation. Powered sites for 2 nights seemed to be limited, so this affected our choice. I would have liked to stay at Wonga Beach as I knew how much the kids enjoyed being right near the beach, but it was full. So we ended up deciding to stay at Daintree Riverview Caravan Park, right in Daintree Village (only 30 mins from Mossman). As it suggested, it really was right on the river, and one of the river cruise companies departed right from beside the van park. It was quite a basic van park, but it was all we needed and fairly good value. Not long after we’d arrived and set up, I was supervising the younger girls outside for a little while and a lady called us over to where she was standing near the fenced area which overlooked the boat ramp. She had binoculars and had been looking at a croc that was lying on the riverbank on the other side of the river and downstream a bit from where we were. We had a look too. Apparently he is one of the several resident crocs on the river. It was another reminder for Hannah (who is always asking when we can swim) why we can’t go swimming in the rivers and beaches this far up north!

I was feeling a bit headachy that afternoon, so Michael got dinner ready and I went to bed early.

We left the campground around 9.30 – a bit later than we planned to, but everyone had slept in a bit. It was about an hour to Mareeba up a steep, windy road. We passed Kuranda on the way and decided we would stop there on the way back for afternoon tea. 

We got to the rodeo about 10.30 or so. The Boldens were already there and had texted us to say they had saved us seats in the stands. We found them there and sat to watch the events for a while. We enjoyed the experience of watching the rodeo events – the first rodeo we had all been to. There were some events that were fun to watch and others (like the bucking bulls) where we squirmed a bit as some of the cowboys were getting hurt by coming off the bull badly. One guy had to be taken away on a stretcher in the ambulance, and another guy also went away in the ambulance but was able to walk in. The Boldens, who had been to 3 rodeos previously said it was the most accidents they had seen at a rodeo. We ate our morning tea and then lunch in the stands. We stayed for about 4 hours. Lauren was quite happy sitting next to Caitlin the whole time and chatting with her as they watched. Sam wanted to have a look around at the other stands and exhibitions a couple of times. Hannah and Beth also needed to go do other things every now and then. I took them looking at the other stalls for a while, and then later Michael took them for an icecream and a type of jumping castle ride. I enjoyed being able to sit and chat with Karen for quite a while when Michael took the younger girls for a walk. 

We all headed off around 3pm. The Boldens had planned to go and look at a horse near Mareeba which Caitlin was interested in buying as a better beginner rider horse than her current horse. She had saved up money from working at McDonalds. She invited Lauren to come along with her to look at it, and we said this was OK. Ryan wasn’t keen on looking at horses so he asked if he could come with us instead – we said that was fine – then Karen said she might come with us also. So Stephen, Caitlin and Lauren headed off to look at the horse, while the rest of us headed towards Kuranda. It was only 10-15mins there. We went for a walk along the couple of main streets but unfortunately all the eatery shops were closed (or closing) – the last train and skyway had left so the shops mostly shut. There were some souvenir shops open which we looked at, and then the kids had a play at the playground there. Then we headed back to Cairns. 

We got back to our caravan around 5.15, Karen and Ryan joining us there as Karen didn’t have keys to her house. We had a drink and a snack. It turned out that Stephen and the older girls were not going to be back until about 6.15, and the Boldens were planning to go to church again at 7pm (special speakers on). So we suggested we order in pizza and all have a pizza dinner at our caravan before they headed off to church. Michael went to the nearest pizza store and got the pizzas. He arrived back about 5 mins after Stephen and the girls arrived at the van. We were all hungry. We stood or sat outside and ate pizza from the box – saved on washing up! Then the Boldens had to leave. We had all really enjoyed reconnecting again after so many years. The older kids discussed getting together again soon – we decided maybe Caitlin and Ryan could visit us one holidays, and then Lauren and Sam visit them – we’ll keep that in mind. Us Branches then did our usual nighttime routine and got ready to leave Cairns tomorrow.