A brilliant tangle of rainforest increases above the Coral Sea, a patchwork of blue colors cleaning over coral reefs and barely-there sand cays. Carved on a knife-edge, where the forest and ocean satisfy, extends a slim twist of roadway with scenes so spectacular that it slows the traffic to a sidetracked speed.
It’s quintessentially tropical – even the “traffic” quantities to a handful of hire carsandtrucks – and fringed with coconut palms and ice creameries selling mango and wattleseed ices. Travellers on the Great Barrier Reef Drive stumble from one spring-fed rock swimmingpool to the next, browsing for cassowaries and under-the-stars jungle magic.
Despite its grand name, this impossibly beautiful drive yearnsfor just a small, albeit outstanding, area of the far-north Queensland shoreline. At simply 140km long, you might drive it in a day, however where the Great Barrier Reef Drive ends, the rugged Bloomfield Track takes the baton, leading on to Cooktown through a wild and beautiful backwater.
Resisting the luxury appeals of Port Douglas en path will be no simple accomplishment, however with 2 weeks up my sleeve and simply a handful of reservations to hold the schedule together, I put Cairns in my rear-view mirror and hit the roadway.
Close to the coast
A sea breeze discovers me at Ellis Beach, shaded by lavish, fruiting mango trees and giant paperbarks. There’s a mild swell rolling in throughout the Coral Sea, bring body internetusers and boogie boarders back to the sand. I line for coffee amongst leather-clad motorbikers preparing for a white-knuckled trip north, then roam with my brew to soak in a freshwater stream, gazing out to sea. Just 20km outdoors of Cairns, this experience has hardly started, however I’ve handled to fritter away a earlymorning sensation absolutely material.
When I do dry off and continue driving north, I’m pulled over onceagain within minutes at the impossibly bewitching Gatz. Piled skywards in towering stacks at the southern end of Wangetti Beach, hundreds of sea-smoothed stone productions type one of the north’s most vibrant art setups. Created by the hands of a thousand tourists, they are permanently altering shape, toppling at the grace of the wind and waves.
No one keepsinmind when these rock cairns veryfirst took shape, however I’ve constantly thoughtabout it advantageous to include a rock or 2. Some thinkabout The Gatz a hazardous roadside interruption, however it’s likewise a bewitching, ephemeral pointer that things of charm are rarely developed to last.
Just 30 minutes up the roadway, Port Douglas beckons travellers with luxury convenience and a hundred methods to fill your days. It does beachy, easygoing high-end like no other location, and its wild, natural area delights even the most jaded of visitors. While I might invest a week freewheeling on Four Mile Beach and snorkelling, cruising and drinking cold brews with sand on my feet, I withstand all these temptations, pocket my wallet and drive north to the Daintree rather.
Chasing waterholes
Rich in Kuku Yalanji culture and inhabiting a rugged piece of Daintree National Park, Mossman Gorge is renowned for its cold tropical swims. Surrounded by towering rock and verdant rainforest, deep clear waterholes collect along the swift-flowing creek, filled with toe-tickling jungle perch and giant granite stones. In the peaceful hours of day, the canyon favorably hums with birdlife, however so popular has it endedupbeing that visitors needto park and trip the common bus, showingup early to beat the crowds.
I satisfy a comparable kind of chaotic when I reach the Daintree River, too. Parked at the ferryboat crossing, waiting for passage throughout, the riverbanks are abuzz with wildlife spotters of all kinds. There are anglers chasing barramundi, birders with fieldglasses and croc-spotters with eyes peeled for the north’s most remarkable hunter to surfacearea in the Daintree’s dirty, muddy circulation.
I eyeball the river as I trip the car ferryboat throughout, however the just crocs I see are the ones on bumper stickerlabels. Instead, I invest a day treking in search of less threatening wild things – Daintree River ringtail possums and spotted-tailed quolls, both discovered just in the Daintree’s uncommon Gondwanaland rainforests.
The spiritual lands of the Eastern Kuku Yalanji individuals are what researchers call a “Living Ark”, safeguarding most of the 19 most primitive plants left on the world. The just method to really value any of what this indicates is by strapping on shoes and taking a walking. The Jindalba path provides reprieve from the midday sun, drawing me in search of threatened southern cassowaries on an hour-long, dubious circuit. The world’s most at-risk, flightless ratite doesn’t expose itself in the forest, however I lateron look one crossing the roadway on the drive to Cape Tribulation.
I head for Emmagen Creek and cool my heels, roaming upstream to slide into my own personal, cold swimmingpool. Just throughout the stream, the Bloomfield Track beckons, however I’m not prepared . I backtrack to roam through cannonball mangroves on the Marrdja Botanical Walk, below arcing strangler figs and towering fan palms flowering with excellent sprays of fragile orchids.
The sun sets over Cape Tribulation and I chase brilliant Ulysses butterflies at dawn, climbing the rainforested saddle to Myall Beach in time for daybreak. I stand below Wundu – one of the wettest peaks in Australia – and watch stars appear from a sandy camp at Noah Beach. It’s a no-fuss alternative that’s far too rustic for some, however this piece of the easy life expenses me $7.25 a night.
I conserve my splurge for Cooktown and set out the next day, crossing Emmagen Creek’s crystalline swimmingpools on a dirty, wilder drive.
Tackling the Bloomfield Track
It’s the wilderness drive with a questionable previous, bulldozed through beautiful jungle back in 1984, inspiteof Daintree Blockade protestors chaining themselves to the treetops and burying themselves up to their necks. Its really path was chose, some state, from the seat of a bulldozer, shamelessly slicing through one of the far north’s last bastions of remote tropical wilderness.
Depending on the season and how justrecently the graders haveactually been through, the Bloomfield Track is either dirty and corrugated, or cleaned out and oily, with heart-stopping hill climbsup and similarly thrilling descents. But what makes this a path worth takingon is what you’ll see along the method: deserted, palm-fringed Cowrie Beach, the wild bathing, blue-green swimmingpool at Woobadda Creek and one roaring, 40m-high waterfall at the head of