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Port Douglas to Wonga Beach and the Daintree

We stopped in Port Douglas for a look around to see how the rich and famous live, the resorts where those sort of people stay are all surrounded by high walls and have large gates, but what you can see looks very impressive, in the township itself, which is very hilly there were a lot of small shops, lots and lots of people and very little parking available. We went to the marina and found a parking spot and had a coffee and a wander around, like at Shute harbour there were some of the maxi yachts which were available for charter and lots of very expensive looking boats of all descriptions. We’re heading for Wonga Beach in the Daintree National Park. Mossman is the nearest township, it’s fairly small but has everything, a shopping centre, main street with all the small shops, a couple of pubs, café etc. The park we are staying in is very nice, quite large but right on the ocean, you can hear the waves crashing on the shore all night but you cannot see the ocean, it’s about 100 metres or so from our site, through the unpowered area, lots of trees and birds. Unfortunately we are a long way from the ablution block and a 300 metre round trip in the middle of the night isn’t the best, but the block itself is great, spacious and plenty of showers and toilets for the number of sites (a problem we were to encounter later on our travels).
Mossman Gorge was very pretty, very comfortable walks through it. The walks for the most part are alongside the river which has some small rapids/falls, plentiful birdlife and some very friendly bush turkeys. Instead of driving ourselves up to Cape Tribulation we decided to take an organised tour. I can’t remember how much it was but quite reasonable and worth every penny. We were collected at the park about 8 am , the weather was a little chilly, but not too bad. There were five of us on the tour, two ladies from England, a young man from Sydney and us. Transport was a Toyota Landcruiser and very comfortable. From the park we drove to the Daintree river where you drive your vehicle on to the ferry for the crossing, quite an experience. The drive from the ferry towards Cape Tribulation was spectacular, views of the ocean on one side and the hills and the rainforest on the other, very beautiful. We were amazed at the number of accommodation and eating places along the way, we thought we had read about the area but we still didn’t realise there were so many places to stop on this leg. Cape Tribulation (where Captain Cook had problems back in the 1700’s) was lovely. There is a boardwalk walk around the area where you can safely admire some of the more dangerous plants like “wait a while”, a plant with long tendrils with barbs on the tendrils and the stinging tree which looks totally innocuous, but touch it and you get all these fine filaments in your skin which are nigh on impossible to get rid of and very painful. We saw the most beautiful moth on this walk.
We then had morning tea on the beach, which was almost uninhabited, surprising considering how many people were around. From here we went on the Bloomfield Track a dirt road which goes all the way to Cape York, it is very rocky and bumpy, but very lovely, and a lot of traffic on such a bad road. We only went as far as the Bloomfield Falls. The parking area is about 200 metres from the falls and it is an easy walk down to them but again very rocky and I had soft soled shoes on, the rocks were cutting through the soles so I gave up about halfway, I could see the falls from there and they were great, Clive’s photographs indicate there wasn’t much else to see so I didn’t miss anything. From here we travelled back to a lovely remote pool area for lunch, if it had been warmer it would have been an ideal place for a swim, but unfortunately toe dipping was as far as most of us went, the weather was pleasant but the water freezing. We had a lovely lunch, cold meat, salads, fruit etc. plenty of it and a wonderful location. Camping is not permitted in the National Park but there was a camper van that had set up it’s tent and was obviously intent on staying at least overnight, can’t say I blame them it was a great location, but we wouldn’t have the cheek to do that (especially so early in the day). Our journey back down the mountain was again beautiful, we stopped at various locations where our guide, can’t remember his name, explained features of the area, especially the large strangler fig trees, they are amazing.
When we got back to the ferry area there was quite a long queue for the ferry so we had to wait a while, not that that was a problem, we wandered down to the water and had a look for crocs. (didn’t see any) then when it was our turn on to the ferry and across the water, to another boat for a short trip on the Daintree. We went down one of the side creeks (which was still quite big) and looked at all the foliage and hoped to see crocodiles I think we saw one small one and a few frogs, but a very pleasant interlude, back to the cruiser and back to the park after a long, informative and great day out.
The next day we took a drive up to Daintree village. A very pretty place surrounded, as one would expect, by hills and forest. Only a few shops, cafes, a small camping ground, but if you wanted to do a lot of walking in the rainforest I would imagine a very nice place to base yourself. Back in Mossman, w ill tour of the sugar mill. The cost shook us somewhat ($30.00 each) but we paid up nonetheless. Firstly they take you into the viewing room and show a short video of the history of the place and the cane industry (I am already regretting taking the combined tour option as the smell from the sugar factory is making me nauseous), however, we persevere and hop on a small coach for a short trip out to the cane fields to see the cane being cut and put in the ‘canetainers’ for the trip to the mill. We also got a lesson on how the cane is grown, planted etc. Then it was back to the mill for afternoon tea and the tour of the mill. The smell by now has really got to me, and I decided not to go round the mill, apparently (from my point of view) probably not a bad decision, the smell apparently got more intense and there were a lot of stairs to go up and down. It was quite a long tour and Clive said very interesting but also very tiring.

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