The world’s oldest living rainforest, the Daintree Rainforest, is a UNESCO world heritage site, and home to a “vast array of flora and fauna.” It has two parts: Mossman Gorge and Cape Tribulation (don’t you just love the name?! I do!!). When you are an overachiever and want to see both parts on the same day, you gotta get up early! We had a quick breakfast at a cafe by us, and then hit the (wrong side of the) road! Rob did an excellent job driving an unfamiliar car in an unfamiliar town with unfamiliar driving standards! There were a few hundred hilarious windshield wiper attacks when Rob tried to use the turn signal, and hit the wipers instead, but overall we were 98% safe and 100% unharmed.

From Cairns, we took the Captain Cook Highway up the northeastern coast of Queensland on a drive called the “Great Tropical Drive” that skirts the ocean and the rainforest. As you would imagine, it was very beautiful.

Mossman Gorge

The Kuku Yalanji people are the Indigenous inhabitants of Mossman Gorge and have a history dating back 50,000 years to the earliest human occupation of Australia. They still own the land here and allow visitors onto their land/the rainforest as a part of a regulated tourism program that operates via a main road in to a visitor center. Once you arrive at the visitor center (and pay a fee) you board a shuttle bus that takes you into the rainforest walkway area.

They have a beautiful hiking path through the forest where you pass waterfalls and incredible scenery, and cross a suspension bridge. We saw lots of birds but no other wildlife… hoping for a platypus or cassowary, but those are a rare and lucky find here. Plenty of beauty though!

At this point in our very hot, humid hike I was done for, so I returned to the visitor area while Rob continued and did the rest of the loop path on his own “walkabout.” He got some great shots, too:

Port Douglas

After our hikes, we headed over to the cute coastal town of Port Douglas to have some lunch and do a quick drive by of their beaches and downtown.

Ferry Crossing

After lunch we continued our northward trek towards the upper part of the Daintree, Cape Tribulation. Our path there required a ferry crossing!

Cape Tribulation

From the other side of the ferry banks, we entered the Cape Tribulation part of the Daintree. We wound our way around the mountain roads admiring the rainforest on our left and the ocean on our right. We also saw some some interesting signs (below).

Our first boardwalk hike in this area was closed, so we changed plans and went to eat ice cream instead 😂😂, as we fitness types do. The Daintree Ice Cream Company is known for their exotic flavors. They have groves and a farm, and grow their own fruits that they use to make their organic ice cream. We got a mix of funky flavors in their “sampler”: passion fruit, coconut, waffle seed, and both yellow and black sapote. My favorite was the yellow sapote, and Rob’s was the black sapote, which tasted like chocolate. Very yummy!

From here we did a few more boardwalk hikes through the rainforest to walk off some of that ice cream 😂. Our first stop was Madja boardwalk for a mile walk there. It was very peaceful and beautiful walking among the giant trees and listening to the bird calls.

Cape Tribulation is the spot where the ancient Daintree rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef. We made a few more boardwalk hiking stops to see the beaches that the rainforest runs up next to. As beautiful as it was on the beaches, they strongly advise no one swim there due to the numerous crocodiles in the area, so we took note!

By the time we hit our last beach, the sun was setting and we drive the 2.5 hours back to Cairns in the dark. Thankfully, Rob was almost a pro by then. It was a beautiful thumbnail moon and the flying foxes were out in force as we crossed the river by ferry.

We debated before coming whether we wanted to take a tour with one of the many companies offering tours of the Daintree, but in the end we love doing a variety of things and were glad we did it on our own. Thanks for adventuring with us!