2010/10 Australia trip - Daintree River |
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We’d had rain all night but as we were leaving it really began crashing down, just a wall of water. On the road, our first indication was when we crossed a bridge or causeway that was already a foot underwater; with the creek was just washing over it. Then we met our first waterfall; it was pouring off the mountainside, a torrent of pinkish red water, crashing onto the road, flowing over it and then launching off the edge of the road and down the rest of the mountain.
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Daintree River (8.47) |
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The traffic just ploughed into the red water and kept going, so this was probably not an unusual event. We crossed 
perhaps a dozen of these, including one area where the water flow was continuous, maybe a 100 yards of new river flowing over the road. We had a lot of respect for the driver ahead of us who was in a large rented motorhome, and kept on through the waterfalls even though he must have been guessing at where the edge of the road was under all that red water. It was too dark for photos but Sandie managed to get some video shots of the last waterfall, but without the red water.
We made it to the massive Daintree River without getting washed off the road and crossed on the chain ferry with a feeling that we were leaving the wilderness behind. Back in 1995 we’d been stopped there as you had to have a 4wd vehicle to cross on the ferry to the north. That’s no longer the case as there’s blacktop now from the ferry to Cape Tribulation, but as we saw that morning, there’re probably quite a few vehicles that won’t make it back out until the rain stops and the water goes down.
The Daintree River is as big and scary as ever, but we saw no sign of the Big Croc Café where we had celebrated our 
silver wedding lunch. I stood in the flooded parking area and took this picture of the ferry returning, carrying some lucky travelers to the jungle on the north bank.
Across the river was a complete change of scenery from mountains and jungles to the flat Daintree floodplain with its fields of sugar cane. We drove to Daintree Village where back in 1995 we’d had to search out Norm and his pontoon boat to take us out on the Daintree looking for crocs. Now there are two “crocodile cruise” outfits on the river before the village and a couple more there when we arrived.
We called Jim in Hope from the village, and he said all was OK back at the house; winter was slow in coming and he was still collecting strawberries off our plants.
From now on we were planning to drive down the coast from park to park. We would probably be seeing more variety of scenery and animals, but the parks would not have the same wilderness feeling as those in Cape York. This is a good point to end part two of this journal. Part three will cover our trip back to Melbourne.