Cape Tribulation was the second leg of our Australia trip. Cape Tribulation is a little north of Mossman (which is north of Cairns) also in Queensland, Australia.

Thursday November 15
We again woke up early and had breakfast at Pool Terrace before getting on the shuttle to the airport. The trip to Cairns was uneventful except that it was on a small turbo-prop which seated 50, and they gave us horrible brownie cookies we ate anyways.

At Cairns, we got onto a shuttle bus, transferred to another shuttle bus at Port Douglas, and then made our way to the Coconut Beach Resort, in Cape Tribulation, about 90 miles north of Cairns. In all, the trip from Cairns to our hotel took almost 4 hours, and we missed lunch.

Our room was situated in the middle of the rain forest, and very private. You can also see the original picture here. (Warning it is over 1.5 megs). The entire Cape Tribulation area was quite small, and we later found out that probably our hotel was the only one with air conditioning, for which we were very grateful since it was sunny and hot outside.

Unfortunately, the resort was also over a mile away from anything interesting other than the beach, and the shuttle service only ran in the mornings and evenings, so we started walking. The Cape Tribulation lookout was about 4 miles away, but we eventually made it there. I thought about taking a picture, but there were some other people around, and I decided that I would come back at a later time to take a better picture.

As it turns out, I didn't learn my lesson from the koalas, because though we didn't know it, Cyclone Guba was coming and I never got the opportunity to take another picture at the lookout. It was almost dinner time, so we headed back. There was a shuttle that ran from Dragonfly, one of the local restaurants, back to our resort, but we were a little late and thought we missed it. As it turns out, the shuttle often doesn't run on time, so we may or may not have missed it.

We ate dinner at the resort restaurant, Cape Restaurant and Bar. The food there was decent but not amazing: I had the seafood risotto and Suzy had baramundi. Unfortunately, the service was pretty bad. I had ordered a red wine, and they initially poured a similarly named white wine. A beer was mistakenly delivered to our table. Our fruit crepe dessert order got lost, and didn't get ordered until 20 minutes later when another server came by if we wanted dessert, and then it took 10 minutes after we asked for our check before it arrived. Right before it arrived, another employee came by to ask us if we wanted any dessert.

Later that night, it started raining...

Friday November 16
It had rained most of the night, and continued into the morning. We ate breakfast at the Cape Restaurant since it was included in the price. At this point the rain was coming down in sheets; I hadn't ever seen such a downpour except in Taiwan.

At 11:00 a German-Australian woman drove up in a van, and we climbed in along with an Israeli family with 2 boys. The Israeli mom complained a lot about the rain, which had actually lightened up quite a bit by then. This set her tone for the rest of the trip.

Our first stop was a boat cruise, where we boarded a 40 person boat and sailed up and down Coopers Creek looking at the mangrove trees and looking for crocodiles. Thankfully, the boat was covered, though it had mostly stopped raining by then. The guide explained that in the winter, you'll almost always see the crocs sunning themselves on land as the water is too cold for them, but at this time of the year, it was more hit-or-miss. We managed to miss them.

After the cruise, our guide took us to have lunch at the Heritage Lodge. If the rain had been coming down in sheets before, it was coming down in reams now. I had never seen so much rain come down at once ever. Luckily, our guide gave us ponchos to wear. After lunch, our guide took us back across Coopers Creek, which was starting to overflow the bridge, and up to our scheduled rainforest walk.

The rainforest was in someone's backyard, which felt kind of odd. Of course, their backyard contained hundreds of acres, mostly of rainforest, and they had carved out a small trail to run tours. At this point an older German couple joined us so there ended up being eight of us on the tour. Though it was still raining hard, much of it didn't make it through the canopy of the rainforest, and given our ponchos and water-resistant hiking boots, the only real bother of the rain was that we couldn't look up easily.

In the rainforest, we didn't see many animals, but we saw and learned much about the rainforest trees, ferns, fungi, and epiphytes. The only downside to the tour was the youngest son of the Israeli family didn't speak English, and some of the others only marginally better, so oftentimes the guide would have to explain things two or three times.

After the tour, we took the shuttle from our resort to Dragonfly restaurant. The driver of the shuttle turned out to be the owner of Dragonfly. He was an old but spry carefree guy, and seemed to be quite content just enjoying each day. As we approached his restaurant, he asked if we liked bats. When we said we did, he parked the van at the bottom of the gravel driveway at Dragonfly and asked us to walk the rest of the way. He explained that his friend had found 50 or so bats in one of the fruit trees, and he wanted to see if this was true.

We didn't spy any bats in the trees on the path. At the Dragonfly veranda sat a wizened guy sporting a ZZ Top beard and holding a blanketed crate. A Chihuahua peaked out of the crate, and nestled inside were several week-old pups. The owner introduced him as the guy who noticed the bats, and then asked him to point out the bat tree. We wandered back down the path and, helped by the guy's high spotting skills, managed to find a couple of the bats. He said that yesterday there were dozens, and that closer to twilight more might show up. On the way back up the hill again, we ran into another one of the owner's friends. This one carried a tackle box, and they explained inside was a small two-foot long python they had caught the other day. He asked if we liked snakes, and when we said yes, he opened the box up to let us peer inside.

With the animal tour done (or so we thought), we made our way up to the restaurant to finally sit down. We had initially thought it was pretty unfortunate we didn't have a car for this leg of the trip, but if we had, we would have missed out on one of the most entertaining and distracting interactions of Cape Tribulation.

We got seats right next to the railing looking into the rainforest, but before we could decide what to eat, the owner came around again and asked if we liked frogs and turtles. When we said yes, he grabbed a flashlight and a jug filled with what looked like meow mix and told us to follow him. We stopped at a pond in front of the restaurant. The pond was partially lit from underwater lights, but it appeared to be empty. The owner started waving his flashlight around the trees. Again Suzy and I failed to find anything as we followed the beam, but after a few seconds, he asked us if we saw the frog. Looking more carefully, indeed there was a green tree frog hiding among the green leaves. We were both pretty impressed with his spotting skills.

All of a sudden, the owner shook the jug up and down causing the food bits to make a din as they hit the walls of the jug. Soon afterwards, several turtles and barramundi swam up near the underwater light. He tossed one of the food bits into the water, but before a turtle could get it, a barramundi darted in and snatched it away. He left about a dozen more food bits on the railing and departed, warning us not to feed the animals too fast.

We finished throwing the food bits at the turtles and fish and went back to dinner to order our meals: Suzy had a beef curry and I had linguine with pesto sauce, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and chicken breast. Both were excellent, as was the Turkish bread we ordered as an appetizer. To finish things off we split a mud pie, which in Australian evidently means a chocolate brownie cake. It was all very tasty.

After dinner, we went to their Internet cafe to catch up on email and find news on Cyclone Guba, which was looming nearby. We later found out that overnight a cyclone watch had been posted overnight for our area. The owner and his tackle box friend greeted us again, and asked if we wanted our picture taken with the snake. He lifted the snake out of the box, and the snake slithered onto his arm and then onto ours. Unfortunately, neither of us had brought our cameras because of the rain, but the owner snapped a couple shots and said he would email them. After that, he drove us home.

It rained pretty hard for the rest of that night too.

Saturday November 17
We woke up and again got breakfast at the Cape Restaurant and Bar. When we returned to our room, we realized we had a radio in our room. When we checked for stations, there were only two AM stations within range, but luckily one of them was right in the middle of reporting the news. Cyclone Guba was about 600 km north of us, heading south at 5 km/hr. It was mostly meandering, and they would issue another official alert later that day. By then, the cyclone watch for our area had been lifted.

At this point, we weren't concerned for our safety, but because the only way back to Cairns in any reasonable fashion involved going back over Coopers Creek, and knowing it often overflowed (evidently a few years ago it had remained impassible for 11 days straight), we were worried about being able to catch our flight to Sydney the next day out of Cairns, especially since it had been raining so much.

We went back up to reception and were reassured that there would be no problem getting across the creek, but that we could check back after 11:00 when the government would be issuing an update. It was only raining lightly now, so Suzy and I decided to take a walk along Coconut Beach. Predictably, we were the only people along the beach. We walked along the beach up to the point where they had warned us not to pass because of crocodiles, and, not wanting to be attacked by those crocs, turned around and went back to the front desk for an update.

I expressed my concern about the creek and having a flight to catch the next day, but they again reassured me there would be no problem. They said it rained like this all the time, and that our shuttle transport company would bring a special vehicle able to navigate the creek even if it did flood. At this point, I was beginning to feel like maybe I was being a panicky American tourist. He said he would check up on the situation later with the company and let us know if the situation changed.

We missed the last shuttle going into town, so we started walking. We ate at Whet, one of the restaurants near town. Slowest service ever. I think they had to go wake up the chef who then had to go kill the animals before making our food. I had an unremarkable calamari. Suzy had a noodle salad with chicken and prawns. The prawns were ok but the chicken had tons of fat and the dish itself was very greasy.

Two hours after setting foot into Whet, we were finally able to leave. At least we again had a railing seat looking out into the rainforest. We made our way to the Bat House, the one activity we were most excited about for the day. Bat House was free but asked for a two dollar donation. Inside we found a young American woman who was doing a summer internship tracking bats with radio tags. She showed us a newly born bat clinging to her chest, as well as an older bat in the corner.

There was also a self-guided tour available, which we took despite the rain. It proved to be a great complement to the guided tour we took the day before with a good ratio of overlapping and new information.

As we finished the tour and left a donation, it started to rain reams again. To avoid walking in the downpour, we bought some breakfast bars at the market across the street, and then went to the bar next door to get appetizers and drinks.

Eventually the rain let up a bit again and we walked home. We checked again at the front desk, and they again reassured us there would be no problems. We shrugged, as by then the last shuttle had already left, and we didn't know of anything we could do to control future events. When we returned to our rooms we discovered the resort didn't clean our room while we were gone.

At 6:00 we again took the shuttle to Dragonfly. This time I ordered the Dragonfly Salad, a mixture of salmon lox, prawns, feta cheese, and avocado in a tortilla basket. Suzy had wild boar sausages. Again, both dishes were very tasty. By this time, the rain had again let up a bit, so we were hopeful the creek wouldn't pose a problem.

The shuttle stopped at our resort, and the Dragonfly owner got out with us and beckoned us to follow him. The path to the Cape Restaurant ran via a raised wooden deck cut through a small patch of rainforest. We followed him along the path until he stopped about two-thirds of the way there. He told us to listen, and when we stopped we started hearing the frogs call out to each other. It was very serene and surreal to be out in the middle of the rainforest listening to the frogs less than ten feet away from us call out to each other. With a wave, he bid us goodbye and disappeared up the path.

Sunday November 18
It hadn't rained much of the night, but starting around 4:00 or 5:00 the rain stated coming down hard again. Our shuttle pickup was scheduled for 7:00, though he had arrived early. Our shuttle was a Toyota 4-wheel drive with an attached metal trailer. We put our luggage in the trailer, but I kept my computer and camera with me under my poncho. Usually while we travel, I keep my camera bag in my carryon bag, but I had decided to keep it with me to make sure it didn't get wet. It turns out that was a very good decision.

We wasted about 20 minutes waiting for some people who took a different shuttle out at 6:30 and didn't inform him. (It turns out they were smarter than we were). Then we went to a neighboring hotel to pick up another guest. Because the streets were narrow, the driver tried to go off-road into the grass to try and turn around. We almost got stuck in the mud, but he managed to get back to the road, but failed to make the u-turn.

Evidently trying this once wasn't good enough, so he tried again. This time too we almost got stuck but managed to get out by going forward again. Fortunately, the road ended in a circle after another mile or so and he was able to turn around and pick up our last passenger.

During this entire time the rain came down hard. Because of all these problems, we left late, and by the time we got to the creek, it was flooded. And by flooded I mean the water rose 0.6 meters above the roadway. The driver remarked that when he came over the creek three hours ago it wasn't overflowing at all. We stayed there and watched the road for a little while before heading back to a cafe a couple miles back to wait it out and so he could call and ask for instructions. He said the shuttle he had would be unable to get through anything more than 0.2 meters of water.

By now it was 9:00 and the water had dropped to 0.4 meters deep, and we thought we probably were going to miss our flight. But at least our flight was only going to Sydney. Also on the shuttle was a Japanese couple who had a 1:20 flight back to Japan.

The instructions arrived for our driver -- go pick up two more people back at Cape Tribulation. Okay...

An hour later, he came back with two additional people, and we drove back to the creek: it was still at 0.4 meters deep, and at this point I was hoping we would be able to make any flight that day. We stayed there, stuck with a dozen other cars for about 10 minutes until a huge truck came by. The flatbed of this truck could fit a small SUV.

The driver informed us that for AU$80 this truck would be willing to tow us across the river. I had briefly considered the viability of paying AU$300 to charter a helicopter to get Suzy and I across the creek, so AU$80 sounded very reasonable, and the other four passengers and Suzy agreed to pool our money for the tow.

As it turned out, the truck owner was friends with the shuttle driver, so we didn't have to spend any money. We got a tow for AU$20 and the driver expensed it. We got our Toyota tied on via ropes and pulled across the river. Suzy and I were worried when the engine started sputtering, but it never stalled and we were on our way again.

We arrived at the airport at 12:50, too late for our flight but with just enough time for the Japanese couple to make a dash for it. We later found out that because international flights fly so infrequently and they can often make up time in the air, they will often hold a flight for a few minutes if they know some late passengers are close, so it's possible they made it.

We had to pay a small fee but were able to get a 4:05 flight to Sydney. I was just happy we were making it into Sydney that day, as we had a tour planned for the next day already.

 

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