Daintree National Park

The Daintree National Park lies just north from Cairns and forms a significant part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.  It is one of the most significant living records of the evolution of Australia's plants and animals.  In the past, as the climate changed, much of Australia's rainforest retreated into refuges within deep valleys and on cloudy mountain tops.  Many of these relics remain today throughout the park and the Daintree represents one of the world's oldest living rainforests.

We explored two areas of the national park - the Mossman Gorge and the area around Cape Tribulation.  Mossman Gorge is characterised by an old forest with many trees with very impressive buttress roots and by beautiful boulder strewn rivers - not unlike our mountain streams at in the Cape.  We really enjoyed the quiet of the forest before the mid-morning crowds descended and even spotted some green-winged parrots or wompoo's (as they are known).  

Lovely boardwalks through the lush forest.

This suspension bridge crossed a lovely little stream.

The Strangler Fig trees were HUGE! (spot Geoff on the left)

Lunch at a beautiful boulder-strewn river

The buttress roots on many of the trees in Mossman were some of the biggest that we'd  ever seen. 

Lucy may not be the tallest of people, but these buttress roots were seriously impressive!

A lovely 'calendar-perfect' pool in the forest.

We looked hard for cassowaries, a flightless bird which stands 1,5m tall, has black plumage with a featherless neck and head which is bright red and blue and they have a large boney crest on the top of their head.  They sound rather unreal, and despite there being numerous roadsigns warning us of them, we didn't see any and still don't quite believe that they exist. 

This "speed humps ahead, warning cassowaries" sign was artfully modified - it still achieves the same effect though!

Up near Cape Tribulation we stayed in a lovely National Park campsite right on the beach and we really enjoyed walking the long white stretches of sand.  Unfortunately there's no swimming in the National Park as there is a (remote) danger of being eaten by a "salty", their estuarine crocodiles and we weren't going to chance it.  

The mouth of the Daintree River - what a lovely veiw!

We were the only people on this beautiful wide white beach.

A lovely sunrise

Another classic Australian sign - this time complete with a bottle of vinegar for stinger stings!

Up in this part of the world, the beaches and estuaries are dominated by mangroves and we thoroughly enjoyed exploring and learning about them through a network of signposted boardwalks.  We were surprised to learn that 'mangroves' are not necessarily a few closely related species, but rather a range of plants that all survive in the same habitat - thick anaerobic mud with daily varying water depths (tidal) and salinities.  It was really interesting to see all the different types of prop roots and breathing roots, how some seeds germinate on the parent plant and drop off ready to hit the ground growing.  Others have seedcases which burst open - shooting their seeds into the receding tide.  While others have seeds that survive months at sea before being washed up on remote beaches.

The host tree for this strangler fig had died and completely rotted away, leaving a lovely lattice pattern in the roots/trunk of the fig.

These aren't called Fan Palms for nothing!

This tree had a great example of an epiphytic basket fern in it.  The tide was out, showing the black mud commonly found in these mangroves. 

Many of the roots formed intricate patterns in an effort to hold their tree up and to absorb oxygen.

The Cannon Ball Mangrove tree.  These balls were approximately 15cm in diameter and when ripe would burst open explosively, scattering their seeds.

Looking out onto the Noah River through the mangroves.

We were interested to see how the rainforest changes as you gain altitude, and so opted for a semi-gruelling hike from the beach up to a lookout 680m above sea level (the hike was only 7km return), but much of it was through steamy forest and the path was often near vertical and very muddy.

Really, some of the signs are hilarious.  Geoff couldn't resist doing the necessary at this one :)

The lower reaches of the forest were characterised by fan palms and tall tropical forest

Orange fungi - oh yeah!

We slipped and slid up and down this ridiculously steep slope, hanging onto roots, moss covered rocks and the odd tree trunk. 

We'd been warned about the Aussie definition of a 'view point' but didn't take heed and were horrified when we got to the top/lookout of this tricky hike only to find a tiny window between the trees through which you could peer to glimpse some further away forest. *sigh*.

A small amount of view from the 'lookout'.

At least the lookout was slightly raised off the ground (about 30cm high) so we were out of the mud and above the leeches.  Lunch = vegemite, cheese and crackers. 

Our hike had taken us halfway up Mount Sorrow, and back down at the coast is a rocky headland named Cape Tribulation.  Both were named by Captain (well, Lieutenant at that stage) Cook when his ship was holed on a coral reef there and they had to effect emergency repairs a little further up the coast at what is now known as Cooktown.  Nowadays Cape Tribulation is famous as the only place in the world where two World Heritage Areas meet - the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

Cape Tribulation - peeping out of the sea is some fringe coral reef which comes right  up to the tropical forest which spills onto the beach.

Low tide exposed the fantastic root structures of the mangroves growing on the  beach.

The beautiful Cape Trib beach has this pretty self-explanatory sign - we decided not to risk it.

One of only 2 designated croc-free swimming holes in Daintree National Park.

 Our time up north was fast coming to an end and we headed south to fly to Sydney for the next leg.

The trees in Queensland were really fantastic.  This oak tree had not yet got its spring leaves, but was furry with epiphytic ferns.