Cape Tribulation

Got up early and picked the girls up at their hostel, then the boys up at theirs. We drove north to Port Douglas, which is a small cottage town, with not much going on. There was a market, so we checked that out, and the girls both bought bikinis, but there wasn’t much for the guys to do.

Next we made our way to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. Had to take a ferry over the Daintree River, which was quick and fairly uneventful. Sadly no crocodiles spotted in the water.

Our first stop was a Rainforest Walk. It was pretty informative, but at $25, a little steep in price. We managed to see a couple of birds, and a giant walking stick thingy, plus plenty of spiders. The rainforest is abuzz right now with cicadas calling for their mates, which can get a little deafening at times. There was also a bit of thunder, but we managed to avoid any rain.

From there we checked out a few hostels, before deciding on PK’s Jungle Hostel. A tree had collapsed and taken out the bathrooms at the second place we checked out, but thankfully this place was unscathed. The girls had bought some food for the trip, so we checked in then walked through the rainforest, down to the beach and had a bit of a picnic. Sandwich meat, cheese, bread, spreads, vegetables, etc. Tasty, indeed. Managed to spot some lorrikeets while we were eating, but unfortunately my camera was back in the room.

After lunch we all hopped into the pool and played some volleyball with some of the other guests. We were all pretty terrible, but I think a fun time was had by all.

The hostel was licensed, which means we couldn’t drink our own alcohol on the property. Not a big deal for me, but the frenchmen needed their wine, so we headed back down to the beach, gathered some wood for a fire, and spent the rest of the night down there. As far as I could see we had the entire beach to ourselves. Other than the three hundred (I lost count) or so mosquito bites I had (they bite through clothing down here), it was definitely one of the better nights I’ve had thus far.

Theresa and I headed back to the hostel at about 1am, with Barbara, Max, and Jon following an hour or two later and kindly waking us up by dragging their bunkbeds to the other side of the room to be closer to the girls.