December 15th, 2005 - The Medicine Man

After yet another overnight bus to Cairns we hopped straight onto a transfer bus even further North to Port Douglas. Port Douglas is a quaint little coastal town that was originally settled for exporting mined Gold and other precious metals out of the Atherton Tablelands. Cairns quickly overtook the main port and now Port Douglas is just a little fishing town popular with tourists. We wondered out to the waterfront and treated ourselves to fresh mangoes that had fallen from trees out by the harbor for a mid-morning snack. There isn't much to the town other than a peninsula with beach on one side, mangroves on the other, a small port and heaps of resorts.

We organized a tour into Cape tribulation for the following morning since public transit in the area is non-existant and it worked out cheaper in the long run than to rent a car. The tour consisted of a river boat ride down the Daintree river, a walk along a boardwalk in the National park through the rainforest and an accomodation in the Cape. Ferntree was our little rainforest resort and along with 5 other buildings in the near vecinity somehow constituted the town? Everything is forced to run off generators and resorts require water filtration for wastes and well connection for water. The hostel had two amazing pools that Laure and I spent several hours relaxing and cooling off within under the shade of the palms. The afternoon we arrived we booked a Canopy Tour of the rainforest. Although pricy, it was worth it for the experience for the zip lines and the view. I felt like Sean Connary in 'the Medicine Man' although with backup, after backup on my harness and for only 5 platforms down a mountainside. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie we were in rock climbing harnesses strapped into zip wires running from one tree to another high in the upper layers of the rainforest. We also got to slide upside down! The next day I dragged Laure out to another scenic lookout, before heading back to our oasis.

The next day we stopped at the Alexandra lookout, the Mossman Gorge and Port Douglas before returning to Cairns.