Saturday 21 November. Cape Trib and the Daintree

Not being able to swim in the ocean, Sue is keen to try a swimming hole in the small river a few kilometres away. We walk along the beach and have to shelter for a while because it starts to rain, and it really does rain with a vengeance.

When it stops we cross the headland, Cape Tribulation, named because it is here that Captain Cook’s vessel ran aground in 1770. A little further south we must wade across a shallow creek that crosses the sand. This is slightly worrying given the prominent warnings seen previously, but we brave it. Eventually there is a path through the mangroves to the road and Mason’s store, behind which is the swimming hole.

Some local teenagers are swinging on ropes and diving into the pool and Sue gets her swim. On the way back we follow the road and get caught in another downpour, and in the night it rains heavily again. It is the start of the wet season and by the end of December it can rain like this for days at a time.

Friday 20 November. To Cape Tribulation

We pick up a hire car at 10am and after a brief foray at Rusty’s for Sue to buy fruit, we set off north from Cairns.

It takes a few hours scenic drive along a sweeping coast road before we arrive at the Daintree River ferry. On the far side is Daintree National Park. Now we are into Tropical Rainforest and it becomes hotter and more humid as the road winds through the hills.

Signs warn “Beware of Cassowaries”. We reach the end of metalled road and carry on for a short distance to arrive at Cape Tribulation Beach House where we will stay. Our room is in one of many cabins set in the forest. There are two other rooms in the cabin and we share the kitchen and bathroom.

It is a short stroll to the idyllic looking beach, but once again it would be foolish to do much more than stick a toe in the water. Signs warn of stingers (box jellyfish) and crocodiles.

We eat at the restaurant and I eat kangaroo – again – but this is the best yet. Two weeks in Australia now and we still haven’t actually seen a live kangaroo - though I must have eaten most of one.

Back at the cabin Sue breaks out the dessert, black sapote or chocolate pudding fruit which we bought at Rusty’s earlier. About the size and shape of a cooking apple, it is very soft and when opened contains black flesh the colour and texture of chocolate mousse. It tastes like a very mild version of chocolate mousse, one where someone has been a bit mean with the cocoa powder.

We sleep (fitfully, it is so hot and humid) with the strange sounds of the rainforest all around us. Dawn breaks with a cacophony of screeches, squawks and screams. Unknown creatures rustle the undergrowth outside our window.

Thursday 19 November. Op Shops

We decide to hire a car so organise one for four days from tomorrow. In the meantime Sue wants to have a look at the markets. We find Rusty’s, which is a big fruit and vegetable market – that isn’t open today. We do discover OP (charity) Shops though, much to Sue’s delight though there is not much of interest in them, mostly second-hand clothes and Manchester! “Manchester?” we ask. “What’s Manchester?” Apparently this is linen and household fabrics, presumably because a century or so back most of these articles would have been made there.

In the evening we eat in the garden at the hostel. I cook steak on the BBQ, then sit competing for bandwidth on the WiFi with all the other Netbook users.

Wednesday 18 November. The Great Barrier Reef

The hostel mini-bus delivers us to the Marina at 7.30 where we join a couple of dozen others on board Ocean Free, a two-masted sailing boat heading out to Green Island. This is about the closest point of access to the reef from Cairns, which is just as well as charming as it is, Ocean Free is probably the slowest vessel making the trip. As we leave the harbour, high speed catamarans and launches power past us heading to the outer reef. For those in a real hurry there are helicopters and seaplanes passing overhead. We motor serenely out towards Green Island, are given tea and muffins and sit happily watching the world pass by for a couple of hours.

We moor at a buoy a few hundred metres from the island over an outcrop of coral. A few people are diving but the rest of us take snorkels and set out from steps at the side of the boat. I’m not much of a swimmer and haven’t really snorkelled before, so I feel slightly nervous. The minimum depth is around 3 metres and over the edge of the reef I can’t see the bottom, but it is such a colourful new world down there that I soon forget to worry. That’s when I stick my head too far under and take a mouthful of water down the snorkel tube – even so after a bit of spluttering I carry on.

(Sue). I was particularly pleased to spot a fair sized ray, which I thought was very exciting, and as instructed in the Reef Teach talk, I knew to give it a wide berth.

Eventually we are called back to the boat for a lunch of cold meats and salads, and afterwards watch as some large fish and a couple of reef sharks are fed from the boat.

We are ferried to the island. Sue and I do a circuit of the beach which takes no more than twenty minutes. It’s a very small island, but beautiful. We see turtles swimming just off the shore, and from the jetty watch 2 metre (harmless) reef sharks swimming below – and the reaction of a couple snorkelling when they come across them (panic).

After a quick swim from the beach we are taken back to the boat and have time for another go at snorkelling before heading back to Cairns.

(Sue) The colours were absolutely fabulous. White sand beaches, crystal clear waters in varying shades of turquoise. We both agreed that it was reminiscent of the Scilly Isles.

Tuesday 17 November

We have a fairly relaxed day today. We go for a wander through town and Sue shows me where she went yesterday. We decide on a trip to the Great Barrier Reef for tomorrow and book it.

We spend some more time in the garden at the hostel posting to the blog and Sue has a swim in the pool. In the evening we visit ‘Reef Teach’ for a two hour talk on the marine life, coral, history, dangers and delights of the reef. If we’re going to be swimming around out there tomorrow I’d like to have some idea of what we are looking at – especially if there's a chance it could kill me.

Afterwards we have pizza at a restaurant on the esplanade and head back ready for an early start in the morning.

Monday 16 November. A dead horse

Finally having some WiFi connection for a reasonable price and nothing particularly pressing to do for the day, I decide to have a go at setting up a blog. Sue is complaining that it would be much easier to have an online diary than having to send individual emails to everyone. OK, OK, I’m on to it.

I sit in the garden at Traveller’s Oasis and join Blogger - easy. I start uploading photos and add text - easy. I post the results – disaster. Words and pictures are all over the place, everything out of order. Sue brings breakfast, tea, coffee, lunch. She gets bored and goes off into town on her own. I sit in paradise tearing my hair out and grinding my teeth - blogging a dead horse. Eventually I find a format that seems to work. It doesn’t work as I would like it – everything is in reverse order for starters – but I think we are stuck with it. It takes most of the day to post the first three days of the trip, but at least I know how it works now.

(Sue) I wandered off up through the main drag where we had walked the previous evening. When I got to The Esplanade, I realised that what we had assumed to be an architectural water feature /cityscape, was actually a swimming lagoon. It was absolutely heaving, there being droves of people swimming, paddling, lounging and making use of the numerous public BBQs. I thought that I had better take a few photos so Phil would be able to see what he had missed when I returned.

I strolled towards the marina area, along the boardwalk, and hoped to find some pelicans.

Marina Flotsam

I found half a dozen or more individuals and groups of people fishing with lines on reels rather than with rods. The Aborigines seemed to favour raw prawn as bait, for grouper I think they said. I told them I was looking for pelicans, and they laughed, because I had come to the wrong side of the bay, and pointed to something on the other side that I couldn’t see.

About 10 mins later I found my first pelican, and marvelled at how big they are. I have only seen pelicans in the wild once before, in Mexico, years ago, and did not remember them being as big as these Australian birds. There were scores of birds feeding on the mud flats at low tide.

I got back to the hostel around 5.30, bearing in mind that we were going out for a BBQ at 6.30, and took Phil a present of cold beer. He was still fiddling with the net book.

We were ferried in a minibus to the sister hostel where the owner was cooking food for everyone on the barbie in the tropical palm fringed garden. It is apparently a regular event on a Monday. ‘OMG’, I thought – more crocodile, and kangaroo, and emu as well this time, served with a good range of salads. I successfully gave Phil my croc and kangaroo, and an american woman was the eager and willing recipient of my emu, which having failed to yield to my knife on second and third attempt, no longer held any interest for me.

It was great fun, enjoyed by lots of different nationalities, and included a didgeridoo playing / blowing contest, with a prize of an activity trip. If that were not enough, we had tokens for a free drink at a nightclub afterwards. Those needing to be up early for planned trips were ferried home and the rest of us were shuttled to the club for the promised drink.

We didn’t enter the competition to win a $100 bar tab. Entrants were partnered with complete strangers and had to simulate as many sexual positions as possible in 60 seconds. We made our excuses and left. (Sue)