CAPE TRIBULATION – rainforest meets the reef

We already love the Australians! There is no Sir or Madame but „Mate“ or „Love“. They don’t forbid – they recommend (…better not to swim with crocs). Dundee as it’s best! We love it!

Our roadtrip starts on Monday 26th in Cairns where we get our Camper: a little van with a kitchen, a bed, two chairs and a table. Very simple but that‘s exactly what we were looking for. The only issue: sometimes the car wipes instead of blinking… okay… we admit it: It is completely our fault as everything is located differently in australian cars 😂.

After being (food) shopping queens @ Woolworths our 2h30min trip to Cape Tribulation get started. A huge number of danger-signs (crocodiles, kangaroos, cassowaries, flooding, …) let us know that there’s no doubt: we are in the wild.

Right after our arrival we go to the beach to enjoy the last daylight and to hold our feets in the refreshing water. While enjoying the sunset scenery, suddenly a cassowary appears! This large and highly protected bird is walking along the shore – just 15 meters away from us – what the locals almost not believe when we tell them. It seems to be very uncommon to see this bird so close and in such a surrounding… 😍

The next day we grab our hiking shoes and here we are… back on the trail – more precisely on the Mt. Sorrow Ridge Trail. It’s a short, fine but quite steep trek that leads us through the rainforrest to a viewpoint, where we can see the two coastlines of the cape. For lunch we are attacking our selfmade sandwiches (disappearing within seconds) while sitting on the beach and enjoying the view. As most of the beaches here it is not a good place to swim… as there are crocodiles in the sea – no joke!

It is low-tide and the right moment to spot one of these impressive creatures! Very close to our camping-site is a creek where a large crocodile has been seen lately. We follow a small path and passing several Crocodile Warning Signs before we reach the water. It is quite scary to know that a large crocodile is around without seeing him. We expect him behind every bush, in every shallow water and every crack scare the hell out of us. And suddenly, there he is: a 4 meters long impressive crocodile is sunbathing right in front of us and there is just a river in beetween. Seeing this mighty predator is just fascinating and we realize that we are just small insignificant worms next to it.

Still, there are people who don’t seem to see it that way. The day before there were tourists who jumped in and splashed – at exactly this spot. They probably had more luck than brains 🤨.

Afterwards we need to refresh ourselves in a closeby waterhole (where we get a „crocodile-free-garanty“). The day ends with a coffee at the beach and later with a bowl-meal in a nice restaurant (the WHET) where we taste our first crocodile as well – yummi!

But is that it? Not at all. Our way home leads us through complete darkness and lot of shining eyes appears in the spotlight of our lamps. While Ina feel uncomfortable very quickly I try to be cool (what I usualy am). But the coolness is over as soon as a black snake appears on the walkway. What follows is an impressive jump, a scream and a fullspeed-sprint like a maniac. If someone would see us, it must look ridiculous 😂.

Our last morning in de Daintree-Forrest is a variety of activities: we enjoy two board walks, visit a icecream factory and walk through a tropical fruit garden. Lunch is prepared in our car-kitchen including a loud fire-alarm cause by the smoke. Kitchen chef Ina is not impressed at all and almost shows no reaction (it seems that this is happening to her all the time). Completely different is the reaction of Lukas: he is running arround, opens every single window, tries to produce wind on his own and doing his best to convince the alarm to stop. By the way: we were cooking directly in front of the icecream factory café 🙈😂.

On the way back we spontaneously decide to do a crocs tour and it’s a good decision: we met Scarface (approx. 70 years old and 5m tall) and Elisabeth (nammed after the Queen of England 😂) …. WOOOW!

Flashed by this experience we decide to stay at a closeby camping site and to take another croc tour – but unfortunately no Crocs this time but instead we enjoy the beautiful nature and colorful birds.

The next 24 hours will be used as transfer down to Magnetic Island. The trip is fascinating and leads us through beautiful landscapes and a forrest-fire as well 🤔🤨😲. In Townsville we take the ferry to our next destination: Magnetic Island.