11th June 2010 - Clifton Beach to Cape Tribulation

Distance travelled: 260 kms

Cumulative distance: 14,511 kms

After a great nights sleep at chez Scanlon we hit the road for Cape Tribulation around 8.30am. Colin had called the tour company in Port Douglas that does the all day reef tours to get details of prices etc. He also called the bureau of meteorology to check on the weather for tomorrow. There was a strong wind warning for the area so we decided not to book the trip.The road north to Cape Tribulation travels next to the beach for some time. There were a number of locations where we could pull off the road and admire the view. This is a great motorbike road with lots of twisties so the tyres got a workout on both sides. It was not particularly quick as there were quite a number of grey nomads chugging along with their caravans in tow. We took the ferry over the Daintree river. There was a man driving a Jag who took exception with us riding to the front of the queue. When we got off at the other side he floored the Jag and went racing past us. We expected to find him splattered on the rocks on one of the many corners but didn't see him again. Must be a local and knows the road backwards. The road wound its way along the coast but you couldn't see the beach because of the tropical vegetation. The weather was overcast and we had a few spits of rain but nothing serious. Just before we got to the cape we stopped off at a hotel on the beach side for lunch. It was a buffet that was pretty light on choice. After lunch we headed for the cape and nearly missed it as we started heading up a gravel road. There was a rainforest walk to various viewing areas and we tagged along with a tour group to pick up descriptions of the various plants. Unfortunately because of the overcast conditions we didn't see it at its best. On the way back to the ferry we visited a Rainforest Discovery Centre which has won lots of Eco awards etc. It is a complete rainforest environment with boardwalks etc to view it from. There is a tower which looks out over the canopy from which you are meant to be able to see the birds that live there. Nothing moved .... we saw absolutely zero birds. Colin took a picture of an information panel with all the birds that are supposed to inhabit the forest. We are going to photoshop them into our photos. In the evening we took Keith and Wendy to a local restaurant in Palm Cove. The food was fantastic and certainly beat the heck out of what we had been eating at the roadhouses etc so far on our trip.