Friday eve. Picked up and had first night in van at cairns holiday park. Going to take some getting used to living and sleeping in such a small place but at the same time very satisfying to know that that space is ours only and all our stuff can stay there in its own place as we travel around!
Saturday. Unpacked our things and strategically arranged them inside the van. Filled up with petrol and hit Captain Cook Highway late afternoon heading north to Cape Tribulation. Picturesque drive with majority of highway hugging the coast so plenty of sea views to the right and tree covered mountain views on the left.
The van is very easy to drive and coped well on its maiden journey under new ownership.
About 3/4s of the way into the journey it started to go dark. We have noticed it goes dark very early and very quickly so as the sun dipped behind the mountains at about 6pm, within about an hour it was almost complete darkness and there are no street lights or cats eyes on the roads up here. After realising we had to go over the river Daintree on a 10 minute ferry crossing ($23 return) we began to enter the dense jungle landscape that is the Daintree national park. This was a perfect time for us to discover the van has no beam lights, forcing us to carefully drive at 30km/hr with normal headlights while navigating a twisty upy downy battered road through the rainforest. While it made everything more interesting, and slightly creepy (animal sounds and shadows in the pitch black), it added an extra hour's driving, as we were also trying to look out for decent camping spots to pull over and stay (we still hadn't eaten tea).
Eventually we found a small car park off the main track which had basic toilet facilities and close to a beach. The area, especially walking to the toilets in the dark with just a torch, was what could only be described as jurrasic park esque. We thought we were 10 minutes south of Cape Tribulation but later found out in the morning from a tour guide that Cape Tribulation is just the 'area' that we were already in and the beach we were next to was actually Cape Tribulation beach! Any further north and the road deteriorates so much so that our mode of transport wouldn't stand a chance. So basically it was just as well we stopped where we'd stopped. We made up some tea on the stove under torchlight and brushed our teeth in the creepy toilet cabins. It was boiling hot in the van and even more so than usual as the engine hadn't had much time to cool so we were like two sardines being cooked while we slept. Not very nice at all.
In the morning (sunday) we checked out the beach, which was beautiful! Got some great pictures. Then seeing as there was nowhere further north to go we started heading back the way we came, only this time during daylight. We stopped off at various places we'd seen signs for off the main track, namely Dubuji boardwalk (cool rainforest walk), Myall beach (sea as warm as a bath!), Noah beach (lovely long beach with offshore island) and Alexandria lookout (breathtaking views) before getting the ferry back across the Daintree river. We were heading for port Douglas but realised we were going to get caught out by the dark again so we turned off at a place called Cooya beach and ended up finding a camp spot on a strip of parkland sandwiched by a row of quaint Australian houses and... the beach! Score! By the time we'd sorted ourselves out ready for cooking it had pretty much gone dark again but we cooked up some rice and with tinned chicken pretty quick. We were going to eat on the beach under starligt but there were hundreds of tiny bugs and flies. Imagine bush tucker trial style.
Tom nearly stood on a snake after he'd gone to retrieve the camp chairs when we headed back to eat by the van instead. First encounter of the trip. Bright yellow with small head. I never saw it but it didn't stop me double-taking at every snake shaped brach or root on the floor around the van.
Here some pics of Dubuji boardwalk and Myall beach
After grabbing some cheap lunch from Woolworth's we headed to port Douglas but only stayed for a quick walk through the town. It was a very nice place but full of gift/touristy shops and expensive bars and restaurants and since we don't have the cash to splash there wasn't much else we could do apart form check out the main beach, which was actually quite disappointing only when compared with the others mentioned above. Anyways we carried on down back to Cairns only stopping off at Palm Cove, which was lovely, but the weather wasn't great as we arrived. Very dull and windy. We stocked up on food and stayed at Cairns holiday park again. Great facilities. Cooked hotdogs and charged our gadgets in the the camp kitchen. Also 3 hours free wifi.
Our van in the carpark at port Douglas ... And the view from the carpark
Tuesday. Awful nights sleep. Extremely hot in the van, kept waking up every hour, sweat running off the face and everything. Nasty. Needless to say we when we got up we changed the sheets, which were covered in sand as well. Even at 10am the sun and the heat is unforgiving. We would end up sweating from doing something as simple as taking something from out of the van and putting it back in again. We were so happy to have some long showers and shaves (had gone without for 3 days). The holiday park showers are like luxury hotel showers compared to what we've been in.
We made pancakes for breakfast the went to reception to ask what reef trips they could recommend and booked the best one we could afford. We sail out on Thursday as it was fully booked on Wednesday. Sea conditions supposed to be good as well. After that we walked in to town on the hunt for some snorkel gear to use for next time at the beach. After cooking up some more hotdogs on the communal bbqs then walked around nearly all of Cairns and not one bloody shop in the main shopping area sold them! Made us question if we were actually in the gateway to the barrier reef or not!? In the end we found a reasonably priced snorkel and mask at one of the souvenir shops by the marina. We were hoping to get them cheaper which is why we didn't go there first but we were just happy to see them after trekking for an hour or two round town. This made the 15 minute walk back the the holiday park feel triple what it was.
So that brings me up to date on what we've been up to until now. I'm writing this at the holiday park whilst we wait to use the hobs in the camp kitchen. Making Thai green chicken curry tonight! And we are sleeping with the van doors open tonight. It has curtains and we found some mozzie nets we can velcro to the openings. Its been a lot cooler this afternoon as well so fingers crossed for a decent nights sleep!
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