While planning this crazy adventure, Tara did a lot of research. (Sure she’s a planner, but this attention to detail is also an important aspect of her professional life.) I don’t think that I could overestimate the amount of research and number of itineraries that she created. She bought and read several travel guides, found internet sources and read reviews, and spoke with people that have lived in or been to Australia and/or New Zealand. There were many nights when I would be doing homework and she was busy scribbling notes into a spiral notebook about her findings.
One of the things that got her really excited was the Daintree Rainforest. This is one of the oldest rainforests in the world and accessible from Cairns. She had an entire day planned with a local photographer (Paul) to drive to Daintree, Mossman Gorge, Cape Tribulation and some other picturesque locations that Paul was sure to share with us. Unfortunately, Mother Nature did not get the memo (or simply ignored the request) to keep the rain to a minimum.
When Paul picked us up at Kookas and introduced himself, he started talking right away about the weather. He had done some checking and while the weather that day wasn’t expected to be especially terrible, the rains had been relentless the past couple days and many of the creeks and rivers were overflowing and some of the roads were flooded. Specifically, a ferry that would get us up to Daintree and Mossman was closed. He kindly offered to postpone a few days, but that was a non-starter as we had another activity booked the next day and a flight to Tasmania the following. So, we did what any reasonable people would do, we improvised.
Paul was not native to Cairns, but had lived there going on 30 years. He already had a contingency plan in the works, so we jumped in his car and headed south out of Cairns instead of north toward Daintree. He played the consummate tour guide as he drove and gave us history of the area, asked about where we were from, and learned about our skills as photographers and interests. He used that information to craft a little tour out of the city, up to the tablelands, around a big loop, and finally back to our B&B.
Paul took us to a number of waterfalls and short hikes in, around, and through rainforests. At one of our stops, Tara had the bad luck to drop her lens cap from her camera into the river. We were on a deck at a waterfall viewpoint and we all heard the distinctive sound of the lens cap on wood and then a couple other sounds. It bounced off the deck, down 6-8 feet and into some large rocks. Paul made a valiant effort to try to retrieve the lost accessory, but ultimately was unable to find it (don’t worry, we bought a new lens cap the next day and felt really bad about littering).
Paul had just about everything covered. He even brought a couple extra umbrellas. This was certainly a good thing, because off and on through the day the rain came down – hard. We seemed to have really lucky timing, because there were several times where the rain stopped just as we pulled up to one of our photo stops, did our hike and took our pictures, and the rain started back up just as soon as we got back into the car. It didn’t happen every time, and sometimes we got really wet, but what can you do? (No rain, no rainforest.)
Our last stop of the day was to a very large tree named the cathedral fig tree. It was a monstrosity. It had roots growing out from branches that eventually merged back into the trunk over time. It was even large enough to support the colonies of ferns that appeared in its upper branches. At Paul’s recommendation, Tara and I climbed into part of the trunk that looked like it encircled us for some photos as Paul worked the camera for us.
After that, Paul deposited us back at Kookas nearly 11 hours after we met. A long day for sure, but well worth the experience.
To see a gallery of Cairns photos, Click here.
