I know, I know - you can't have any more perfect that perfect, but think of it as illustrating a point. Picture the scene: Family of 4 arrive in Australia for a family wedding, all the flights around Australia have been booked in advance but pure indecision meant that only the first week of accommodation had been booked. "We'll be able to book it when we're there. Far more choice and probably better prices...". I'm sure many of you have been in the same situation.
Of course, when we went to find and book some accommodation we discovered that pretty much EVERYWHERE we had thought of going to was fully booked. It was school holidays, and everyone in Australia seems to go to Cairns. So what was the perfect solution? A Camper Van! More on that a bit later, but for now I must publically say thank you to Tracey at Mosman Travel, who (on a very busy day with the school holidays about to start and everyone coming in to book holidays) managed to organise all the accommodation for the rest of our holiday and rebook all of our flights. Especially as we'd left booking the accommodation to after the wedding, which meant we would have arrived in Cairns within 2 days without any accommodation had it not been for Tracey.
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| James was still interested in the planes, but occasionally his fingers were more interesting | And Nicola also likes to be in the photos |
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| The flights to and from Cairns meant that we had to stay in a Hotel for a night before getting / leaving our camper van. | What I did notice in Australia was just how much building work was being done. Strangely I also thought there were a lot of empty shops and business premises too. |
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| Needless to say we enjoyed all the modern conveniences of the hotel - after all, who knows when we would be able to park up next to a swimming pool again? |
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| The great thing about having the camper van was that we got to see so much, this was river in Mossman Gorge (about 10 minutes off the Captain Cook Highway somewhere on the route between Cairns and Port Douglas. If we'd stayed in a hotel we would have missed this completely). | OK, not quite an Indiana Jones style rope bridge, but a rickety bridge never the less! |
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| You can probably imagine Steve Irwin just off to the left getting over excited about this black bird. Its a Bush Turkey, and we saw quite a lot of them both around Cairns and later in Brisbane (well about 2 hours drive north of Brisbane) | At last! A family photo. This gorge was full of tourists, there must have been 40 cars (and several small coaches) parked along the small road and in the small car park serving this small part of rain forest. The plus side of lots of people is there are plenty of willing volunteers to take a photo of all of us. |
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| The old signs marked this area as a suitable for swimming, but most had been marked or covered suggesting its not advised any more. Perhaps it has got more dangerous, but it wouldn't surprise me if the local council were worried about being sued. | I'm always amazed by how smooth solid rock boulders are made by rivers |
The next day we booked a trip on a Quicksilver tour from Port Douglas. If you've ever been to north queensland, you're almost certain to have seen adverts (or quite likely to have been on) a Quicksilver tour of the Barrier Reef. We went on the Wave Dancer to the Low Isles - following an exceptionally emphatic recommendation from my parents. Unfortunately, it didn't go quite as well as planned. We seemed to choose one of the few days of the year that the whole day had visibility of less than a mile, overcast skies and frequent rain (although not too heavy and at least it was warmer rain than back home). The sea was rough, and the large catamaran that is Wave Dancer quickly became the most uncomfortable boat I've been on for many years (I'm sure its better when the weather is better).
The low isles were nice enough, although I wish I'd read the literature properly before we went. The "beach" is actually eroded coral, and although parts of it were fine, most was coarse and harsh on bare feet. That was of course the first thing the on board marine biologist told us during our welcome brief, but I appreciated the Irony. Nicola didn't quite manage to get snorkeling, the flippers hurt her feet and filled with broken coral every time she stepped into the water. However she really enjoyed the glass bottom boat and was proud to be first to spot a surfacing sea turtle, and see them underwater too along with some giant clams and boulder coral. Rhonda also went scuba diving as well and really enjoyed that.
The journey back had its own special memory. We were visiting at the time of the year which had the largest tide movements. High tide was the highest, low tide was the lowest. Low tide coincided with the time we were due back in port. Unfortunately for Quicksilver, the first of their boats back (arriving just before us) discovered that the tide was so low they run aground on their way into port. Fortunately the tide had already turned, so 10 minutes later they were able to reverse out and all the boats waited outside the port for 30 minutes.
All the writing, as you've probably guessed by now, means that we didn't take any photos while we were at Port Douglas!
One thing I have to mention is Australia's Northern Most "Big 4" Camping and Caravan Site, just outside Port Douglas. You may remember that the reason we were in a camper van was because all of the good accommodation had been booked. We probably should have guessed that every good camp site would be fully booked too. Something was going our way, because using the red phone we discovered there was no space anywhere in Port Douglases other camp sites. For some reason the nice people at "Big 4" said they could 'find' us a powered site and sure enough they did. It was about 30 meters from the power point but they lent us an extra long extention lead to reach our camper van. We stayed there two nights in the end and they made us feel very welcome. We were pretty upset to discover there were no more "Big 4" site further North as we didn't really know where would be a good place to stay, but hoping our luck would hold (and the weather could only get better!) we pushed on to...
A famous sailor once said that when he was in this neck of the woods. Well, to be more accurate he was out at sea and he discovered a reef the hard way (James Cook was his name and he discovered the Great Barrier Reef by hitting it with his ship the H.M. Barque Endeavour. That part of the reef is now known as Endeavour Reef). It was Cook that named the area "Cape Tribulation" but fortunately for us his first impressions were very wrong.
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| Despite the area being 'found' over 200 years ago, the only real way in and out of the area is by ferry boat. Although the river isn't that big, I think the reason they still use the ferry is that it stops the area being over populated and over visited by tourists. Cape Tribulation is a national park. |
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| My Appologies for the width of these photo, but the view is worth it. The left hand photo (click on it to see a better quality bigger version) shows the Low Isles - that's where the Quicksilver boat took us the previous day. If you look at the big version you can just about make out a white stick that is the light house on the island. If we'd have waited a day the weather would have been perfect! The middle picture shows the Daintree River (the ferry crossed slightly further upstream) and the right hand picture shows Port Douglas. Port Douglas is the dark green hill directly below the highest peak in the middle of the picture. If you look a little to the right of the dark green hill you can see some white specs which is the port itself. |
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| The road on Cape Tribulation went through a variety of scenery, from steep cliffs at the edge of the road to driving through the middle of the rainforest. | Many of the bridges were timber with a thin layer of tarmac for grip. Most were single carriageway. |
We drove right to the end of the road in Cape Tribulation (we were only allowed on 'sealed' tarmac roads and that didn't take us very far. After that the road becomes gravel only suitable for 4 wheel drives). We stopped in the only campsite we knew of (it was the only one advertised in the camping magazine we were given in Cairns, but I think there was another campsite nearby).
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| Our campsite was a long way from the beech - a whole 10 trees away (the light on the other side of the trees is where the beech starts, and I was standing at the back of our camper van to take this!) |
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Having made the long* journey through the palm trees, to the left was a long stretch of perfect sandy beach (the road ends about where the headland starts, and I'm told there are more beaches like this one on the other side). As you can see, today was a busy day on the beach - there were another 5 poeple within a mile of us. *not as long as a piece of string |
To the right, there was more beach. You can see the mangroves reaching out into the sea, and over there there were a lot of pebbles underneath and around the mangroves. |
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| Having arrived safely, Nicola, James and Daddy immediately began constructing sand castles. | I know it doesn't look so hot here, but it was. It was a bit more overcast on this day and the photos didn't come out so well. In the distance are Daddy, Nicola and James. You can also see the Coral Reef out of the water. As I said earlier the tide was moving to its highest and lowest, so overnight the sea would come up right to the tree line, and during the day it retreated past the reef. When out of the water the reef doesn't look as colourful (you could easily walk through it at low tide). |
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| Occasionally, there would be a traffic jam on the beach. | We'd bought the children some lycra swim wear that protects them from the sun, we also used a lot of sun cream! |
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| In England James has a habbit of jumping in puddles from the rain. Over here, he found much bigger puddles to jump in (and Mummy and Daddy didn't seem to mind either). | As the tide retreated it left some shallow ponds on the sand. In them there were a lot of small fish caught out - we even saw some flying fish dashing and jumping out of the water to escape us wading through their home. (Well, I assume they were flying fish - they certainly jumped a long way out of the water). |
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| Cape Tribulation was as beautiful at night as it was during the day. | Erm, what can I say if there are two photos the same.... how about 'Twice as beautiful' ? |
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| More photos of all of us... | ...Clearly it was a longer drive than I've been making out. The camper van in the background is very similar to ours - A mercedes camper van with an automatic gearbox and if you can connect to mains electricity you can use the air conditioning unit (you can see it on the roof - luxury!). The camper van we hired had been made in England (various manufacturers labels and phone numbers were visible - trust me to notice that detail). |
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| Can I have some more lunch please Mummy? | Nicola made Mummy's Birthday Card out of a beach. Daddy wouldn't let mummy bring it home though. |
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| Another rare photo of Mummy ... | ...With James escaping to see the picture on the digital camera (when I was a boy we had to wait weeks to see the holiday photos, now children get to see them on the screen of a digital camera immediatleeee by gum!) |
There's a couple of other notable things about our stay in Cape Tribulation, Cape Tribulation camping where we stayed was constantly turning people away (we were lucky enough to arrive early and then stayed for a few days). The people at Cape Trib Camping were just as nice as the people that ran the Big 4 site in Port Douglas - when I wanted to use the internet to check my email, they told me about the local pub that had internet access and even gave me a lift the short distance up there. The pub was called the Dragonfly, and they were really friendly too. At one point they offered me a lift back because they were going that way but as I hadn't finished and it wasn't that far back to the camp site I turned them down. It wasn't far to the campsite, about 2km if you go the right way. Yep, you guessed it - I went the wrong way. First I left the drive to the dragon fly and turned left. I realised this was wrong fairly quickly, as it was going up hill (and the campsite was by the Sea). Having then reached the main road (complete devoid of street lights) I decided it must have been here I should have turned left. I then walked probably 5 km before I reached the gravel road that we'd found when we arrived. I then had to walk all the way back, past the turning to the Dragonfly to get back to the campsite. Oh well, it did me some good to burn off the calories of all the food I'd been eating on holiday.
Anyway, the Dragonfly also served food, and as it looked so nice when I was in there the next day all four of us walked there for dinner, (well James was in the push chair but you know what I mean). When we were almost there a mini bus stopped next to us with the Dragonfly written on it. Now the Dragonfly is run by two brothers, and was started by the father who now drives a minibus round to pick people up that are going for dinner or a drink. Seeing us walking along the road, he stopped and offered us a lift (a really nice man, because we could have been going to the other pub further along the road, or anywhere for that matter, but he stopped to give us a lift anyway because he saw the pushchair). When we got to the Dragonfly we asked for a table for four and then the waitress asked a strange question (well it seemed strange to me at first) - "Do you have a reservation?". Well, no, of course not. We are going to a pub surounded by a population that's less than the population of my home village in England - and most of that population lives at least a half hour drive away. Of course we didn't make a reservation! - I didn't say that of course, I just thought it. You see, the Dragonfly has such a good reputation, that people for hundreds of miles around seem to go there very regularly. If you don't have a reservation, then you simply won't get a table. Its in the middle of nowhere and you need a reservation! Fortunately for us, they are very nice people. There was a large low table, used mostly for games of chess and such during the day I would guess. They were happy to cook a meal for us if we didn't mind sitting there. We didn't mind, and dinner was superb (and not very expensive either).
When we'd finished, the father offered to take us back in the mini-bus when we were ready. On the way, he played his harmonica in the bus and when we arrived back at the camp site he chatted with us for a while and taught nicola a new song - "Nellie the Camel has three humps..." - Nicola sang while he played his harmonica.
It's quite clear why the Dragonfly was so busy.
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| On the way back to Cairns we stopped in at the Daintree rainforest centre. It is a well organised area of the rainforest with aerial walkways, low timbered walkways and a large tower to let you see all levels of the rainforest. | It was full of useful information about the plants and animals found in the rainforest. Interesting information (like how little is edible to humans, and the bits that are can only be eaten after lots of preparation, cleaning and filtering - the Aborignals that lived in this area were very talented to be able to survive here). There was also a plant that's leaves had fine mica points (mica is a natural form of glass) - if you touch it the mica would break off into your skin to cause you great pain for about 6 months. There's no antidote for it either, so from that point on I was a bit more cautious about walking though the rainforest! Fortunately, were were heading back to cairns |
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| On the way back we drove inland to see some different scenery before using the highway towards cairns that dropped in over the mountains. The highways around here are all single land, with the occasional dual carriageway (normally only for traffic going up hill). This is the view from Karunda (or some similar name, where there is a cable car and all the tourists tend to go) across to the airport at Cairns (that little white stick in the middle of the picture is the tower). | In a short (and most enjoyable) week we were back in the hotel in Cairns to catch the 6am flight to Brisbane. Building work continues in Cairns. |
Just before I finish I would like to make a request. This was undoubtably a fantastic part of our holiday. From the point in Sydney when we though all was lost, to the discovery of Cape Tribulation where for us at least paradise was found. The thing is, if I tell you about the great things at Cape Tribulation you may well be tempted to go there, then you may tell your friends and they may go there, and so on. That means that when we go back (and we intend to) - we'll have to book a table at the Dragonfly a whole year in advance. Clearly this isn't good, so in true Men In Black fasion please look into the nearest light and forget all about the great things at Cape Tribulation, after all I don't want Cape Trib to be full of tourists when we go back ;)
Now, all you remember is that the Rooties went to Cairns and were happy, so now you can click here and find out about their time in Brisbane (if you're still awake that is).