Onwards from Cairns

We are driving along a road through dense rain forest. The canopy meets overhead and the sun breaks through only weakly. But look closer and you see that the forest is less dense on one side. Look closer still and you see glimpses of the sea and even a beach, sometimes only ten yards away. 

This is the road to Cape Tribulation where the Daintree rainforest meets the Coral sea. A few miles further on, just beyond cape trib itself, we literally reach the end of the road as the sealed road becomes a gravel track suitable only for 4 wheel drives heading up to Cooktown.

Since leaving the dive expedition three days ago we've been travelling up and down the Captain Cook highway north of Cairns, exploring the Port Douglas and Daintree areas

When you find them, the beaches are beautiful: golden sands, blue sea, trees and mangroves down to the water's edge, and virtually deserted. But for a boy from the Erewash valley the area north of the Daintree river is an alien environment. It is tropical enough to grow its own brand of tea, and the temperature rarely drops below 25 even in the torrential rain storms which seem to arrive every evening around dusk.

Road signs warn of crossing cassowaries and all of the beaches have notices warning of crocodiles & jellyfish and even provide bottles of vinegar to treat the stings. The only crocs we saw were on a river cruise and spotted by our expert guide Dave, but we did see a number of brush turkeys. Perhaps my favourite creature of all was the flying fox, a bat the size of a crow, which roosts in huge numbers during the day before flying to the cooling sea in massive flocks in the evening. 

There really is a baby croc in there!

The authorities here display their jewels well, with lookout stations near  roads and boardwalks to take you into the heart of the rainforest. We followed one of these today, an eerie experience with all the chattering insects and a good counterpart to yesterday's cable car ride. And that story is for another day.