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.