Crikey Mate! Crocs at Cape Tribulation!

Cole TrainMarch 16, 2018 Travel 4,437 Comments

Preparing to head out on to the Daintree River in search of some crocs!

Real Australian Adventure in Cape Tribulation

After being in Australia for 5 weeks and having seen 0 dangerous or scary animals, I felt it was high time to head out in to the rainforest to see what I could see. Armed with my new adventuring hat, I booked a day trip to Cape Tribulation.

However, as I mentioned before, we were staying at a party hostel in Cairns. I had been out until about 4AM that morning, and the bus picked us up at 6. Alex decided to sleep in and skip the day trip, but I’d be damned if I missed a single thing while I was here. So off I went, sitting on the bus still drunk, and then hungover, the entire way.

I do not recommend this to anyone.

Our first stop was the town of Port Douglas, where I sat on a bench with my head in my hands, occasionally drinking water or eating bread with hummus in an effort to not be sick.

Then we got back on the bus, and headed to Mossman Gorge.

Mossman Gorge

Pictured: view of the gorge from a suspension bridge.

Mossman Gorge is part of the Daintree National Park, and is at one entrance to the rainforest. It’s a really nice walk, but I can’t remember much else. I was still not feeling the best. On the bright side, at least I remembered to take a lot of photos! I think they do a decent job of illustrating just how Jurassic-Park-like everything here is.

Finally feeling a bit better, it was time to head to Cape Tribulation!

Cape Tribulation

Getting to Cape Tribulation meant adventuring fairly deep in to the rainforest. The roads here are not the best, but our tour driver was excellent.

Cape Tribulation is named so because it’s where everything started to go wrong for James Cook as he was exploring Australia. His ship crashed in to a reef nearby, which was the start of all the problems he’d run in to. For me, since the trip started with a 6AM bus tour along windy roads after a long night of drinking, I can relate to Captain Cook just a little bit.

Into the woods we go!

We stopped at a hostel by the beach. There isn’t much out here, but if you were thinking of staying in Cape Tribulation for a night or two, this is where you’d do it.

Finally you get to Cape Tribulation beach. It’s a very nice beach, and I would spend more time on it if it weren’t in Northeast Australia, where deadly jellyfish occupy the waters all summer long. There also may or may not be crocodiles, and those things are wily.

This is a golden orb spider. I took a photo of it because it’s as big as my face. No, I did not get close enough to prove this. Would you?

On our way out of Cape Tribulation, we even saw a family of cassowaries! Cassowaries are one of the largest birds on the planet, can’t fly, look like little dinosaurs, are very shy and avoid humans. We saw a big papa cassowary with three chicks crossing the road. I tried to get some video and photos, but there were some other tourists who showed up and chased them away. Our tour driver had some choice words to say to them.

Finally, it was time for our last event of the day.

Crocodile Hunting!

Alright, so we weren’t actually hunting crocodiles. We headed out on to the Daintree River in the hopes of seeing some crocodiles though, which was exciting! You have to keep your hands and feet inside the boat at all times: crocodiles are very good at pretending to be driftwood until you’re close enough that they can snap at you. You also have to be sure to stay more than 3 meters (10 feet) away from the shore at all times, because that’s about how far a crocodile can launch itself out of the water to attack prey. They’re also very patient, so you can’t ever turn your back to where you think there might be crocodiles: they’ll follow you for as long as it takes, hiding in murky water out of sight until it’s time to pounce.

We didn’t have to worry about that. The worst thing that happened on our trip was our boat disturbed a wasp nest in the trees and some of us got stung.

The Daintree River is nice in the summer time.

It honestly reminds me of East Bay at home.

The largest croc we saw! Apparently this is a good time of year to see the babies but not much else because it’s so hot: the adults spend all their time at the bottom of the river.

There’s a croc in this photo: can you spot it?

Now THIS looks like somewhere you’d find a crocodile.

A sandbar that we didn’t want to get stuck on. Was hoping to see some crocodiles here, but it was just driftwood.

Fun fact: the sex of a crocodile is determined by the temperature of the eggs. If the eggs are around 28 degrees Celsius (plus or minus a little bit), the crocodile will be a male. If the eggs are at a higher or lower temperature than that, the crocodile will be a female.

Coming Up Next: The Great Barrier Reef!

Finally, my next post will be about my time spent diving at the Great Barrier Reef. As always, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out my post about Cairns, my home base while exploring the Northeast coast. See you next time!

Australia, Backpacking, beaches, Cape Tribulation, crocodile, Daintree, East Coast Australia, Mossman Gorge, rainforest, Travel

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