I’ll be honest, I thought I’d enjoy North Queensland for the adventure more than the place. But this trip is challenging my expectations. I’m getting into this rich red soil, green rainforest, scrub-for miles, windy, creek-filled blessing of a region in ways that remind me of the kind of connection to Australia I discovered when I came back from a stint in Europe.
Over the last week, time has started stretching like a killer python lolly. Hours and days are passing at a lazy pace I’ve never really discovered, and I’m not taking it for granted for a moment. I’m rediscovering a lust for reading, I’m slowly reversing the coat of rust that built up on my spanish vocab, and I’m recommitting to yoga and exercise in a way that evaded me while I was working.
The path that has unfolded for us over the past week has been, broadly, a few nights in rainy Port Douglas featuring an afternoon at Mossman Gorge, following the Bloomfield Track up through the Daintree, and tracking through Cooktown and Hope Vale to stay at Elim Beach and the Kite Safari just north of it, from where I am writing.
There have been so many beautiful moments that you’d probably find yourself tuning out if I tried to describe them all, so I’ll just touch on the highlights.
An unexpected highlight was the view of a bend of river near Wujal Wujal at the end of the Bloomfield track. The river takes a wild u-turn near the township. I think I find it so enchanting because it evokes the same awe I had at seeing a similar u-bend in the river winding through Bern, Switzerland – however this sight was so incredibly, uniquely Australian (including the scorching sun we were in while enjoying the view).
The Daintree as a whole is a highlight. It’s an expanse of thick, rugged rainforest, punctuated by slightly-too-frequent tourist attractions. Dan got a taste for green ants while listening into the tail end of a tour. We had some absolutely stunning creek and waterhole swims in the Daintree and just north, still in the rainforest region – Emmagen Creek, Wallaby Creek and Home Rule Falls were outstandingly refreshing. While I’ve grown up around salt water, I’m getting a taste for fresh water.
Home Rule Falls deserves its own paragraphs. If you told me that it was designed by the ancient Greeks to honour their gods, I’d believe you. The falls flow in sections in different directions, with some waterfall rock walls decorated as if as a vertical garden. I wasn’t expecting one of the prettiest waterfalls I’ve ever seen, but that is what we got.
We’re now on the pristine sands of the beach south of Cape Flattery, buffeted by relentless winds that make kite surfers run to pump up their kites – and that make the rest of us want to lie low. Dan’s been out for hours yesterday and today, carving it up with the other guests at the Kite Safari. The wind is so strong that we can’t even put up our tent – we’ve put up our small hiking tent and loaded all our gear into it, and we’re sleeping in the back of the canopy.
Don’t know quite what’s in store, but I know it will be filled with delicious food because our car is stocked to the brim with half a pantry of goodies.
VRPS
[Kite Safari]
The Two Swords 