Good times at Cape Tribulation

In 1770 Captain Cook was sailing up the east coast of Australia making a chart of the coastline. He was sailing between the Great Barrier Reef and the coast, but as the reef got closer to the land he was having trouble navigating past it, so he sailed north, but as he did so his ship struck the reef. Luckily it didn't sink, thanks to a large bit of coral which got stuck in the hole and formed part of the sailors' temporary repairs until the ship could be fixed properly. But Captain Cook named the point of land that he had charted earlier in the day "Cape Tribulation" because he thought that this is where all his troubles began!
And that's why such a beautiful place has such a tragic sounding name! Jackie told me that Cape Tribulation is her favourite place on earth so of course I was keen to go there, especially as it's only 60 km north of Port Douglas. We thought that this would take us about an hour but by the time we drove up to the Daintree River, waited for the little cable ferry, and drove along the winding roads it was more than two hours. I had bought a "Daintree self drive audio guide" for the car, and it was great, we had a map which informed us when to listen to each section of the cd. It was very informative as we drove along the road through the rainforest to Cape Tribulation. My cold is completely better thanks to Robitussin so I felt fine. We had lunch in a cafe just before Kulki point then went to the beach. It was absolutely stunning; the rainforest fringes the white sand beach and the blue crocodile-infested sea laps on the shore. We didn't see any crocodiles but there were warning signs, and a park ranger told us that the crocs usually swim across the bay from creek to creek but are happy to pick up a "snack" on the way if they get the chance - so we paddled rather than swam! We saw a sea eagle circling around near the beach, and the mangrove trees grew right down onto the beach, some of them even in the water. We had a wonderful afternoon. We saw a wee wild boar snuffling around near the road on the way back. After we crossed the ferry we headed back towards Port Douglas and we stopped at the Daintree tea plantation to buy some tea. We also saw quite a few fields with banana plants, but the main crop of the area is sugar cane. There is even a wee sugar cane railway to transport it about. Back in Port Douglas, Macrossan Street was jumping, what a great atmosphere; we got barramundi fish suppers for tea.