Four days into Port Douglas

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

The accommodation in Port Douglas has come as a bit of a contrast to where we stayed in Cape Tribulation. There was something institutional about the metal bed and the other furnishing in our brieze block cabin at Cape Tribulation Beach Huts. The kitchen was a couple of chairs, a fridge, a kettle and a couple of hobs that doubled as a dish rack. But we were two minutes walk from a beach bar and three minutes walk from the beach.

In Port Douglas we have not yet been able to find a bar within walking distance and the beach must be all of five minutes walk away but the accommodation is a bit more comfortable. There may be silk involved in the bedsheets and we have a kitchen with a large window that opens out to a garden and pool. There is a selection of knives I can work with.

So far we have walked most of the way up Four Mile Beach and back again, bought a proper hat in the Sunday market, spent a couple of hours walking through the rain forest and walked along a beach in the semi dark for supper and then walked back in the complete dark, after beer, wine and cocktails, hoping to be able find the gap in the trees that would take us back on the path to home.

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Tomorrow we swim with crocs

Running in zig zags

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

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I had it on reasonably good authority that the best way to avoid being eaten by a crocodile was to run in zig zags. So if facing a hungry croc the idea is that the potential victim turns his or her back on all those teeth and sets of at a gentle trot every so often changing direction. The idea being, I assume, that a croc can only run in straight lines, so it will set off at a barrelling pace after you for its lunch but once it has built up a sufficient head of speed it will be caught by either a zig or a zag and before know it the intended victim can breathe a sigh of relief and come to a halt as the errant croc loses sight of you in all the confusion.

I had cause to have a go trying this out whilst walking along the beach at Cape Tribulation.

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There were plenty of signs warning of danger on the way down to the beach. The signs were erected to make clear that crocs had been spotted in the area so there was a risk of being eaten. Accordingly I kept my eyes and ears peeled especially when crossing the many creeks that ran through the sand into the sea. Then as I crossed one there was a distinct and loud plop, the sound of a large and scaly foot entering water. I turned to go and got ready to zig zag. There was another plop and I started out on my first zig. As I did so it occurred to me that before setting out on the zag I should probably make sure that the system had failed and I had simplex zagged myself into the crocs direct line of travel. So I looked back.

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Turned out the plops I had been hearing was the sound of sand slipping down the sides of the creek into the water.

A Roadkill Burger at Mason’s Cafe

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

First day in Cape Tribulation we drove back five minutes down to Mason’s Store. We had read about it as a place for good burgers and even better there was croc free pool where it would be possible to cool yourself off in clear cold water without there being any danger of ending up as lunch.

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The pool was a minutes walk from the road past a box inviting us to contribute a gold coin by way of fee. Presumably this was to pay the man who made sure that there were sufficient Belgium tourists and dogs to keep the crocodiles happy so there was no need for them to visit the creek and spoil the fun for all those in the watering hole. The pool had been half made by a wall of stones that had been laid across the creek. We had to push past vines and thorns to get there and then stumble across the shallows to a suitable disrobing place.

The water was cool out of the heat and there was a sudden lurch as we realised that at one point the pool was so deep our feet did not touch the bottom.

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We then made our way back to the cafe and a road kill burger that may or may not have contained some of the crocodile recently removed from the pool.

The road to Cape Tribulation

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

It may seem strange to suggest that there were some similarities between the drive across Ireland to Ahakista in South West Cork and the drive from Cairns to Cape Tribulation but similarities there were.

The drive from Dublin to Cork is mostly green fields, mountains and sky. The drive from Cairns along the Captain Cook Highway was mostly fields of sugar cane, small towns, mountains and sky. For much of the way there was a small gauge railway line that ran alongside the road presumably to be used to transport the sugar cane once it was harvested.

The sugarcane gave way once we were passed Daintree and when we were over the ferry across the Daintree River we were driving through rainforest. It took a couple of minutes and we kept a close eye out for crocodiles in the dark brown water but none were to be seen.

The first time you do the drive from Durrus to Ahakista it can seem as if the road goes on forever. To the right of you there is the spine of the Sheep’s Head Peninsula and to the left there is the water and then there is the road that twists and turns leading ever onward but with no sense of where it will end. It gets to a point you expect that round ever bend in the road you will be there but all there is another view of the sea and the road carries on.

So it was on the a road to Cape Tribulation. We were more conscious of the mountains on our left that being able to see them but every so often past a kink in the road we could see them rearing yo covered in green trees and shrouded in cloud. The road cleaved through the rain forest on we were hemmed in by green trees and then we would be able to see a glimpse of the ocean, the Coral Sea, through the green haze on right. Instead of tractors we were looking out for Cassowaries. We had been told that they are capable of killing a man, especially if separated from their young. Every mile or so there was a sign warning us that they had been spotted and we were not to run them down.

And then when we crossed a creek their were signs warning of crocodiles. They had been spotted and were capable of inflicted death and serious injury. The signs were in English and German although we had it on good authority that it was the Belgiums who were most in need of the warnings. Apparently the last man to be bitten by a crocodile was Belgium albeit the wound was superficial. He had been creeping up a creek looking for a good photograph.

We didn’t seen any cassowaries, crocodiles and Belgiums and still the road carried on and so we found ourselves revisiting the first drive to Ahakista and the expectant wait that round each next bend we would be there.

We did eventually arrive and as we did so the clouds that had shrouded the upper reaches of the mountains turned dark and then black and a heavy rain came down. It was the sort of rain that would turn the concrete umbrella on the pier into a sheet of water. It came down heavy and unforgiving. As we booked into reception I looked outside and asked about the weather for the next few days.

It was all going to be much the same. After all we were in the rainforest.