The Journey to the top starts - Daintree to Cape Tribulation

We left Mt Carbine at 7.20am to meet up with the Black Diamond 4WD club as they passed by at the Mt Malloy Turn off. We joined the convoy making it 8 vehicles, 6 of these were towing campers. We stopped for morning tea at Daintree Village and had a quick look around before continuing the drive to the Daintree Ferry. It is a part of the coast we had been on in a previous visit to Cairns. Lush rainforest vegetation abounds on both sides of the road with occasional glimpses of a tantalizing beach. The ferry ride is $17 per car and camper or $13 per car.

The first of many creek crossings

We were going to stop at the Daintree Discovery Centre but there was insufficient parking for all vehicles, so we continued to Jindalba Boardwalk for lunch. Bob discovers that our back door has locked and we had the dickens of a time getting it open. Some time before hand (back in Mt Isa) we had to drill a hole through the door behind the number plate to access the door's locking system. We thought we had it sorted but obviously it is going to jamb now and then. We made do with with crackers for lunch then Bob and Wes managed to get it open again. One day we will be at a place when we can get it replaced. In the meantime, I go for a walk on one of the tracks to catch up with the others, but apparently , they took a different track which was much shorter than mine hence I wandered the track for ages on my own. Got to see bush turkeys, a tree snake and a lizard of some sort up a tree. I could numerous birds but didn't sight any.
We stopped at Cape Tribulation Campground arriving around 2pm. A non powered site sets one back $30. We set up the tent in short order - we were to become quite proficient at setting up and packing the tent over the next few weeks.

Bloomfield Waterfall

Bob's lovely romantic gesture to leave these flowers for me to find :)

We get to meet the rest of the campers: Ian and Shari were the trip organizers/leaders, Kylie and Wes we knew already from church, the rest we were to meet and get to know over the next few weeks. I am pretty hopeless at remembering names and so I strived to learn just one couple at a time. The campsite at Cape Trib is nothing much but they do have a interesting bar (great for happy hour later which they kindly allowed us to bring our nibblies with us whilst we purchased our drinks there) The beach is easily accessible through a very short walk through some trees.

Cape Tribulation Beach