Well we did it! After 23 days, we reached Cape Tribulation, the most northernly point in Queensland you can reach on sealed roads. More on that below!

The journey so far has been spectacular and it is difficult to pick my favourite part but I think it would have to be our cruise of the Whitsundays. I felt so relaxed and just totally in awe of my surroundings plus I got to swim with turtles and that isn’t something you get to do every day. A close second would definitely be our day rafting the Tully River which was Matt’s favourite.

We are exhausted but so excited to see some more of this beautiful country and today we started our journey west. Over the next couple of weeks we will finally be taking Hank real off roading as we head across the Savannah Way to Darwin and that means there will be a lot less updates from me. Mainly because most of our days will be filled with 7 hours of driving but also because there is little to no phone signal out there! We really will be experiencing the true Australian Outback and I can’t wait!

So here is the last two days of our East Coast trip and Daintree did not disappoint.

Day 22

Cairns to Daintree Village – 112km

Mossman Gorge Shuttle – $11-12 (I can’t quite remember!)

Daintree Riverview Caravan Park – $24 unpowered

After crippling Matt’s toe last night, we decided to give climbing Walsh’s Pryamid a miss and head on up to Daintree instead.

We didn’t really have a plan for thr day so drove at a leisurely pace and stopped at all of the lookouts on the way to Port Douglas.

The drive up the Captain Cook Highway itself is pretty incredible. The road leads you right by the water, so you are constantly catching glimpses of the coastline through the trees. If I start glancing off out of the side windows we will 100% end up in the opposite lane, so I let Matt drive.

We arrived in Port Douglas around lunch time and headed up to the 4 Mile Beach Lookout, which you guessed it, looks out over a beach that is 4 miles long. We find Australia has a ‘say what you see’ approach to naming places. Further examples include, Palm Cove, Alligator Creek and Flying Fish Point.

After the lookout, we headed back down the hill to a park and made our new favourite lunch, 20c noodles with some brocolli and a poached egg. Gourmet. We ate by the water under the shade of a couple of palm trees. If it wasn’t for the screaming kid next to us, I’m pretty sure we would have happily stayed there all day reading a book.

Next we headed over to Mossman Gorge within the Daintree National Park. Mossman is home to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people who have occupied the area for thousands of years. Due to this, it is advised to take the shuttle into the Gorge area itself as tourists are not allowed to drive through the community. You can walk and it is around 2km, but it is deemed more respectful to take the shuttle and as Matt had a gammy toe, we were more than happy to do this.

At the entrance, there were several notices advising that the water conditions today were more severe than usual, so swimming was not advised. So of course there were still 20 or so people in the river. It did look incredibly inviting, but we restrained!

The further we walked into the rainforest, the more beautiful (and humid!) it became. We walked across the suspension bridge, which absolutely made me feel like a contestant on I’m a Celeb, then onto the Rainforest Circuit Track which took us up and down hills, over creeks and past some really cool trees!

We camped in Daintree Village itself. The site was just by the river and it was so peaceful (but I dread to think how many crocs were in there!) We of course made ourselves at home in the pub over the road.

Day 23

Daintree Village to Cape Tribulation – 50km (then on to Mareeba + 142km

Daintree ferry crossing return – $28

Mareeba Rodeo Ground – $20 powered

The ferry was a little less spectacular than I imagined but nevertheless we made it to the other side of the Daintree River safely. It was a twisty, slow drive up to Cape Tribulation and we were on the look out for those pesky cassowarys again!

Despite spending time in Daintree yesterday, it still felt pretty amazing to be in the actual Daintree Rainforest. For some reason, despite not knowing an awful lot about the place, it was always somewhere I have wanted to go so it was a little bit of a pinch me moment.

We spent the afternoon walking the Dubuji Boardwalk. At one point, we heard heavy footsteps on the forest floor and both started craning our next to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. After standing in silence for a few minutes, a scrub fowl revealed itself and all excitement promptly died. Despite not seeing a tree kangaroo (which I am devastated about) we did see lots of interesting vines, palms and a humongous spider. We later found out that this was a Nephila Pilipes spider and is one of the biggest species of spider in the world. No thank you.

We then visited Cape Tribulation Beach and spent a little while walking there. We passed a note written in the sand that read ‘will you marry me?’ Which obviously wasn’t meant for me as Matt promptly kicked it. Romantic 😂

It was a little after 2pm and we had seen everything we wanted to so decided to head back to the ferry, thus completing our East Coast road trip!