Cape Tribulation

Driving onto the Daintree River ferry

On the ferry

Daintree rainforest

Tropical fruit tasting

Black Sapote or Chocolate Pudding Fruit

Soursop, a type of custard apple

Jaboticaba growing on the tree

If I thought we were in the tropics at Wonga beach, now we really know we’re there. It was cool coming over the Daintree River on the ferry this morning, only a very quick crossing, pulled across by cables attached to two big wheels. The road up the cape feels like it’s only just cut into the side of the rainforest, and seems like, if left for a while, it would just grow back over it. We first stopped at the Discovery Centre which has a big network of elevated walkways and platforms of differing levels through the rainforest which was beautiful. There were quite a few people at the centre so no chance of sighting the elusive cassowary, but there was lots of interesting information about plants and animals/birds, and Peter and Jenny really enjoyed it. Then we pushed on to our campsite at the Cape Tribulation campground on Myall Beach, which couldn’t be closer to the beach and has a nice big shady tree for us to camp under. It’s packed full but stretches along the beach so doesn’t feel as crowded as it probably is. The beach is a lovely stretch of sand lined with palm trees laden with coconuts just the other side of the tents across from us, and the water is amazingly warm, just like a swimming pool. We had a dip late this afternoon when the tide was pretty high but it’s so shallow for such a long way that it really was just a dip as we gave up wading after a while when we were still only up to our thighs.

After lunch at the tent our family headed off for a tropical fruit tasting tour nearby which was really fun. A couple who live here have a big farm/orchard on which they grow a huge variety of different tropical fruit, and they give a talk about each fruit, telling you how to eat it, before passing around tastes of 10 different fruits. We tasted breadfruit fried with salt, pepper and Cajun spices which was delicious; Jakfruit which Conor decided as ‘a bit slimy but good’, tasty I thought; then Pommelo, a citrus fruit which looks like a really huge grapefruit, very thick layer of peel but really tasty, popular with both Conor and I; then Solo Papaya, with a squeeze of lime which was delicious; Jaboticaba – all Conor wrote about this was ‘yuck!’ but I thought it was interesting, little black fruit which are apparently only ripe for about a week and that’s it; Yellow Sapote which tasted really like sweet potato but was so starchy it left a film on your teeth for a long time afterwards (‘horrible!’ according to Conor); Black Sapote, otherwise known as chocolate pudding fruit but tasted nothing like it, apparently some people cook it up with cocoa and sugar and put it on banana pancakes; Star Apple which we had actually bought in Cairns at the market to try and I quite like; and Soursop which we all really liked, a type of custard apple, Conor wrote ‘sour, soppy and yummy!’. After the tasting we had a tour of the orchard to see some fruit on the trees, and we were also shown turmeric roots growing up out of the ground, a vanilla plant, dragon fruit plants (which are basically cacti) and the guide snapped a twig off a cinnamon tree for us to smell, which was really cool. He explained that he hasn’t bothered with his vanilla plant this year – you have to manually pollinate each flower, which is only receptive for about half an hour in the morning, and then 9 months later you might get one vanilla bean, which explains why they’re so expensive. Apparently they’re native to Mexico, but even in Mexico the native bee which used to pollinate them are extinct.

Nick and I both wondered how they make a living, or why in fact they’re still trying to make a living there, as they don’t really sell any of the fruit on a commercial basis. They apparently got a good crop of purple mangosteens 18 months ago which they made a couple of thousand dollars of profit on, but they haven’t had a crop since. All of the other fruit seems to be too hard to transport, or too labour intensive to compete with cheaper growers, and yet they’ve been persisting for 20 years here. The boys both really enjoyed the experience anyway and so did we – Conor is always asking me to buy different tropical fruit just to taste them so it was an easier way to do that! It’s a pity Durian isn’t ripe at the moment because I hesitate to buy a whole one of those just for him to taste and discover he doesn’t like it.

Jenny and Peter were relaxing at the tent while we were doing that so we joined them later for a swim in the sea and then drinks on the beach while the kids played in the sand, which was very civilised. Things are looking good for a relaxing day tomorrow….

Beach walk along Myall Beach

Curly vines

View of Cape Tribulation beach

We had a nice relaxing day yesterday, starting with a beautiful walk along the beach and over the headland to a lookout over Cape Tribulation – when Daniel heard we were going for yet another walk, his only response was “do we have to go on EVERY walk in Australia????”, but he and Conor had a great time playing on the beach in the afternoon while the adults lazed and read. In the words of Are We There Yet, it really IS where the ‘rainforest meets the sea’ here, just beautiful, and has a very beachy relaxed feel about it, while you can see the rainforest covered mountains just the other side of the road, with their tops dipped in clouds.