Mossman to Cape Tribulation

7^th – 8^th August 2007

The ancient rain trees full of moss, is that why it’s called Mossman?

Its a lovely colonial town, on the edge of the rainforest, surrounded by sugar cane fields

In full harvest mode whilst we were there.  It’s also the location for Steven Spielbergs next film telling the story of the war in the Pacific Ocean during the 2^nd world war.

We crossed over the Daintree River by the chain ferry, deep into the Daintree rainforest.

Here’s the Cassowary again, a man beside the model gives more idea of how big it is, not just a small chicken!

The Ulysees butterfly and green frog are just some of the exotic creatures were able to see in the forest

The beautiful coastline has the rainforest dropping straight into the ocean, whilst the rocks throw up these wonderful colours and shapes

The rainforest is full of fan palms, ferns and bromeliads growing up host tree trunks and birds singing in the canopy, eating the pollen and fruit from the trees

We’re shown these leaf and stick insects at the entomological museum, which displayed the largest collection of insects in Australia

We actually saw these two fluttering around, the big green birdwing, and the tailed emperor

Driving on the unsealed road to Cooktown was a delight, and quite a good road despite the odd creek crossing

We were driving a hired Nissan X-trail from Budget for this trip, very good value at $45 per day!

The forest is so thick that we only got glimpses of this coastline, with good sunrises on the beach

The sun filtering through the tall rainforest canopy hardly showed all the birds that were singing at dawn, but we did spot this sunbird a few times, flitting amongst the blossom

This is a huge barramundi, the staple fish being caught in this Northern Australian waters.  This arial view of COOKTOWN gives a good idea of the harbour entrance Lt. Cook chose to careen ENDEAVOUR in 1868

After the ship was holed off Cape Tribulation