Helen and Randall on the road

After another very average night’s sleep in the Waterfront Global Backpackers we picked up our slightly embarrassing Wicked Camper:

Pacman Camper (with wickedcampers trademark rude message on the back)

and headed north out of Cairns towards Cape Tribulation, ensuring we paid attention to the dire warnings:

and being a little alarmed by the temperature gauge being constantly well over half even when pootling along at 80 km/h.

The road along the coast was quite beautiful, with the deep forest on one side and the beach on the other:

and where the road did head inland it was criss-crossed by narrow-gauge railway tracks used for the sugar cane and fruit harvests.

At Daintree Village, the ‘frontier’ after which there is no mains electricity, we crossed the croc-infested river on the chain ferry:

After this point we were really in the rainforest, and the road signs and excessive speed bumps (cobbled!) reflected this!

Eventually we reached Cape Tribulation and checked in at PKs Jungle Village, a fantastic camp site with everything from tent pitches to ensuite cabins, plus a pool, a bar, wireless internet and fairly decent communal camp kitchen facilities, all set amongst winding paths through tropical gardens:

Our pitch

We were the last van pitch; number 10 right next to the beach:

and had an early night after our first camping dinner:

and the next morning we got up early for the sunrise at the beach just a 2 minute walk away down the rainforest boardwalk…

Later in the morning we headed to the Daintree Forest visitors centre, a really well curated information centre about the Daintree Rainforest (at it’s oldest point between 110 – 200 million years old, compared to the Amazon’s 7 million!) with an aerial walkway that takes you up into the forest canopy:

then we headed back to the camp site, failing to have ice cream as planned at the Daintree Ice Cream Company because they were cash only and we only had plastic (the two ATMs in Cape Trib being out of action) – big disappointment!

The road was interesting in terms of signage and this rather sweet but a little alarming wooden bridge:

Back at Cape Trib we did another rainforest boardwalk and spotted some fresh cassowary poo although no actual cassowaries (boo!) then sat on the beach with a bottle of fizzy wine, watching some backpackers play beach cricket, until who should come wandering along the beach but Phil and Enrico, two of the people who had been on the Vagabond with us…after a chat with them, we went off to make dinner, then ran into them again in PK’s bar so the evening was rounded off with too much beer.