Serious Travel Article (STA) 3: Massacre on the North Queensland Coast

In far north Queensland, wedged in between the Great Barrier Reef and the Great Dividing Range lies the city of Cairns, but in spite of its awe inspiring location, Cairns is just like any other city. Complete with the same old shops, smells, noises and grime of any other city, just with a few extra tourists for good measure. Terrified by the prospect of city life in paradise, we decided to head north, hopefully far enough for the highways of Cairns to turn into dirt tracks.

As soon as the outer suburbs of Cairns are in your dust, you begin to understand what the Australian tropics must have been like before the advent mass tourism. On the flat land, fields of cane grow high enough to hide an Elephant while just beside them run hundreds of miles of rail track to transport the harvested cane. The trains themselves look utterly ridiculous and ready to topple over with the slightest turn or breeze. Tracks no more than 2 ft wide support cargo more commonly seen on the rail tracks of Britain at the dead of night, you just want to push them over! The road north from Cairns then transforms into a magnificent coast road, stretching out like a ribbon as the lush green mountains tower high above the sea. Stopping to admire the view, the mid winter heat became overwhelming, the sun was scorching and the humidity made you feel like someone had been scribbling over your face with a Pritt Stick, but you soon forgot about that when you gaze upon the landscape. The north Queensland coast looks like a giant piece of jewellery, with colours so vivid it seemed to me that a gold lining separated the emerald mountains and sapphire sea, I guess the heat had made me delirious. Panicking, I quickly rushed back to the sanctuary of the hire car's air conditioning, like a drunk to the liquor.

Sunrise at Four Mile Beach, Port Douglas

As we drew closer to Port Douglas, luxury hotels started to pop up, lining the road in their dozens. Paul Theroux managed to capture the essence of Port Douglas perfectly when he described it as a “Nipponized resort with golf courses and spruced up shopping malls. Japanese tourists in silly hats fly here from Tokyo to buy designer merchandise and hit golf balls. It was cheaper to fly here than join a Japanese golf club”. Port Douglas however, does have a few things going for it. For one its as close to the barrier reef as you're ever going to get while still retaining your breakfast. Two, although it may have all the Tourists of Cairns and Townsville, it lacks all the nasties of city life, in fact, the locals say “its the safest town in Australia”. Plus its close to the pristine Daintree rainforest and like any good seaside resort its got a long, sandy, tree lined beach, which can never be a bad thing, especially when the sea feels like a warm salty bath.

We stayed at the Rendezvous Reef Resort. Much like any other resort in Port Douglas, it consisted of a miniature village comprised of cavernous terraced apartments, complete with lagoon style swimming pool, a “sophisticated” bar/restaurant and shoddy little tennis court. But who comes to this part of the world to play tennis? I was happy in our basic accommodation, but if you want to splash out, I recommend the Reef Club Resort. It's closer to town, a short walk through the cane toad forest to Four Mile Beach and a little more comfortable. (I added this dash of touristic commercialism to comply with some silly guidelines, do you like it?)

A twenty minute drive away from Port Douglas is Mossman Gorge, an accessible part of the Daintree rainforest. At the base of the gorge is an aboriginal settlement, with the wilderness at its fringes, lines of bungalows, with neat mown lawns, picket fences and washing lines make it resemble a very lost acre of 1950s American suburbia. While at the settlement at Mossman Gorge we encountered an Aboriginal lady by the name of Rosie. She told us all about her people, how they used to live and why Port Douglas had no Aborigines. Apparently in the 19^th century Port Douglas had been a thriving settlement of Aborigines and Chinese traders. They were massacred, their bodies piled into mass graves. The town was build on top with no mention of its bloody past in the history books. Yet another reminder of Australia's grim and bloody recent history.

The Swimming Hole at Mossman Gorge. It's Cold but you're a wuss if you don't jump in anyway 

Mossman Gorge itself is a majestic valley in between some of the towering peaks of the Daintree. At the centre of the valley is a gushing river made up of waterfalls, white water and vast clear swimming pools. Coming straight from the tops of the nearby mountains, the water felt freezing, but the fish seemed to be warm enough so I decided to dive in anyway. After realising fish survive in the Arctic, a wave of cold engulfed me, but I soon overcame it and realised the water was fine and began to laugh at the people too scared to take the plunge. The water was crystal clear, fish and eels darted about below me while snakes and water dragons scampered and slithered in the trees.

Journeying on from Mossman Gorge, still further into the northern wilderness, you come to the great Daintree River. The only way across this crocodile infested torrent is by cable ferry, there are no bridges up here. In fact, the Daintree River symbolises the end of civilised Australia, beyond it, there is no electricity grid, no gas mains, everyone who lives beyond this point is self sufficient, all that exists this far north is rainforest, the odd tea plantation and a few hundred wild cassowaries, (Australia's largest land animal and a descendant of Kevin from Up). In this wilderness is a little town called Cape Tribulation, here the reef comes right up to the coast and on a clear day is one of the best places for snorkelling, although not as spectacular as the outer reef, the coral at Cape Tribulation is easily accessible, with no time limits to ruin your day. However if your serious about diving and exploring the depths of the ocean, I suggest rather than venturing to the Great Barrier Reef on an organised day trip (dozens of oversized catamarans depart from Cairns and Port Douglas daily) go to Lady Musgrave Island off the coast of the Town of 1770, that's the real Barrier Reef.

A Cassowary, the largest land animal of Australia

The tropical coast of northern Queensland is truly one of the worlds must see places, not for the reasons you might expect, namely the reef, instead its the hinterland of this mysterious region that truly captures the imagination. Whether it be the vast rainforest, shrouded in mist and low cloud with its waterfalls, swimming holes and exotic wildlife, the rugged green mountains, the rich and bloody history or the people that call the Daintree home, the far north of Queensland is worth a trip half way around the world.