Welcome to the Daintree, where the rainforest meets the sea.

We got a complimentary snazzy breakfast of pancakes courtesy of the park this morning.  Had a chat with some fellow Victorians, also with an Expanda, also towed by a Prado … and then we were on our way to as far north on the east coast that we’ll be going on this trip.  Cape York will need to wait for another time.

The drive up to Cape Tribulation is pretty slow.  60kmh for most of it leading up to the ferry.  40kmh after that with a bit of roadworks thrown in too. But what’s the hurry?

Our stop for 2 nights will be Lync Haven Rainforest Resort.  This place is nestled in the rainforest with plenty of walks to do on their property and critters to see.

Once we setup the van we headed off to Cape Tribulation beach, now known as Kulki beach.  This is the last beach before you hit dirt heading towards Cooktown.  The place was packed with tourists as this is where everybody goes.  Trivia of the day: Cape Tribulation beach was the first mainland beach we’ve set foot on since Cable Beach, Broome.

Packed with tourists I tell you!

Today was a bit of an explore to figure out what we’d do tomorrow, so we made our way back checking out some of the beaches along the way.

Next stop was Thornton Beach, where we had a cleansing ale and quick look around.

Finally we got down to the last beach at Cow Bay.  The kids had a ball here, as there is a fallen tree that the local kids are progressively making into a huge cubby on the beach.

The rest of the beach is pretty much deserted apart from a few fishermen and walkers.  This is the locals beach.  Trusting their intuition this is probably where we’ll start out tomorrow!

We did a walk this evening and saw a Cassowary with chicks.  (We didn’t move a muscle).  He just kept about his business and walked ahead of us on the track for a few minutes.  That’s the first one of those I’ve seen without a fence in between us!  We also saw and heard plenty of birds and a couple of bandicoots.  I may have to tackle the track again tomorrow without the noisemakers in tow and see what I can get photos of.

Bandicoot hiding in the bush

The resort has a restaurant here and we decided to eat there tonight.  The food was fantastic.  Hannah made friends with the owners girls and was as happy as a lark to have some ‘girl time’.  There’s a very tame cocky here that she got to hold and a few parrots that enjoyed a scratch too.  We even had a bandicoot run under our table while we were having dinner.

A surprisingly quick sleep considering the racket all those nocturnal animals make … don’t they understand that people are trying to get to sleep?

The portable Internet is surprisingly reliable here, especially given that I can’t get the phone to work to even send an SMS!

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