Today was a "quiet" day after the big day we had on Wednesday. It was the last day we had the hire car so we drove up to Mossman Gorge for the morning and made stuff up for the afternoon.
Once again we decided to try and visit Mareeba and once again ... I got us lost! :) I guess we weren't supposed to see Mareeba. Maybe next time ...
Being a relaxing day between the long Daintree excursion the day before and our Kuranda tour the next day, we had a nice breakfast and packed a picnic lunch before heading to the Mossman Gorge for the morning.
Mossman isn't very far north of Port Douglas and the Gorge is only about 15 minutes inland from Mossman but the road is basically one lane. I've driven on a lot of windy, narrow country roads in my life but the little road to the Gorge has my vote for the worst one so far. Probably because you driving through rainforest and there is more temptation to look around instead of watching the road!
We made it to the car park without meeting anyone coming the other way though, a benefit of going early, and although there were already a few tour buses and a fair number of cars in the carpark, it was pretty quiet on the tracks.
The two walking tracks are about 4km in total. We probably should have worn something better than thongs but the tracks were pretty good and we had our togs on the off chance we decided to brave the cold water - and it was cold!
The Gorge was ... Gorgeous. Our photos don't do it justice. Plus the battery died just after the Swing Bridge about 1km into the 4km walk. With a little jiggling and luck we still managed to get another dozen photos though including evidence of Bel climbing out on the rocks into the middle of the river to bask in the sun! Not a lot of sun, as rule, in the rainforest. It was only where the river was wide enough that the tree canopy couldn't close over that we saw any sun at all.
The water in the river was so clear that you could see the fish swimming around in it. At the main lookout, where a lot of people go for a swim, the fish are obviously so used to people that as soon as you sit on the bank they make a bee-line for you! Some of them looked almost a foot long.
We wimped out on the swim. It is so much cooler under the rainforest canopy that we were actually cold. The water wasn't exactly luring us either! It felt icy when I first put my foot in it but it wasn't that bad. Both Bel and I had pretty stiff and sore backs from all the driving the day before though so we decided to avoid the cold water and headed back into town for some fuel and fresh batteries!
The afternoon didn't go as planned. Again. Back on Tuesday we were given a three day pass to the Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary. Originally we had planned to get up early on Thursday and go back there for breakfast with the birds. We forgot. After Mossman we drove around for a little looking for a nice place to have lunch. We headed inland towards Mt Molloy. The plan was to head down to Mareeba but after consulting the map we didn't think we'd have time to get there and back to Port Douglas in time to return the hire car.
Heading inland was interesting though. Mt Molloy isn't that far from the coast but the forest couldn't be more different from the Rainforest down in Mossman. As you get a little further up into the hills, the forst dries out until it is all gums and termite mounds!
We passed the Abattoir Swamp Conservation Park but decided not to stop there for lunch. Something about the name just didn't sound appetizing! Mt Molloy is a bit of a one horse town. Nothing there to see. Didn't even get the camera out. Not far passed Mt Molloy we decided to head back to the coast.
We stopped at Newell beach which was ... dead. No-one there and nothing much to see. It was about this time we realised we should have headed back to the Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary for lunch and the afternoon. It was a bit late by then so alas, we missed out.
I didn't really want to have lunch at the beach again so we headed back to Mossman where I remembered seeing a picnic area near the bridge crossing the Mossman Gorge River. (I don't remember what the river is actually called but that'll do!)
It would have been a beautiful spot to sit and eat except for the rather large crocodile warning sign near the edge of the river. We sat and ate anyway but it was a little nervous. :) No Croc's though.
In fact the only Croc we actually saw in the wild was on the banks of a river somewhere between Port Douglas and Cairns but that's tomorrow's story.
After lunch we headed back to Port Douglas, cleaned out the car and took it back. We wandered the streets for a little while and I bought a nice Port Douglas t-shirt.