Cape Tribulation

The next morning we caught the first ferry across the Daintree River so we were the first tourists to reach Cape Tribulation that day (except for all the tourists staying on the Cape overnight).

Note warning sign

An excellent strategy as we were all alone on the first few boardwalk trails we walked.

Once we crossed the river the road followed along the coast, then wound up into the hills where we stopped for this fabulous view.

We stopped at several boardwalks that wound through the rainforest with excellent interpretive placards.

We learned that Daintree rainforest has the tallest mangroves in the world. 

They are tree-sized rather than the usual shrub size.

Mangrove seed

Eventually the other tourists caught up to us.  A group of Italians told us they had just seen a cassowary with 2 chicks.  We rushed back, but of course the cassowary curse held and they were gone!

We saw a very cool strangler fig, though

We did see a pademelon (tiny kangaroo-like marsupial) foraging in the forest. Somehow this seemed like a much more authentic experience than the ones we saw grazing on the lawn of O'Reilly's Retreat Lodge.

At the end of the road (though if you have a 4x4 you can take the rough track north to Cooktown) we checked out the beach. 

Some people were actually swimming here, but between the crocodile warning signs and

we thought perhaps not and instead took a short trail to an observation deck where supposedly you can see both turtles and crocodiles.

Today there was just a stunning view

then we drove back to the Ferry and on the other side we signed up for a crocodile tour on the Lower Daintree River.  This was a whole other tour than the birdwatching tour we had taken the previous day, with several vanloads of day tourists up from Port Douglas.

We saw a few crocs, but none as large as the previous day.  Well, except for this maneater:

And then it started to rain, hard, for the rest of the day and throughout the night.

The furthest we ventured was across the street from our lodge for a classic Australian meal:

Daintree Brahman burger with a slice of pickled beet, yum.