Forest, fires, falls. And a platypus.

Amy and I seem to have developed our own distinct travel style. It involves minimal periods of intense planning (and spending) followed by days where the future is but a distant thought. Then we repeat.

We fly into Cairns at four in the morning knowing nothing at all. We have nowhere to stay and not the first clue of where to go. We find a shuttle service, not meant to start for over an hour, that will take us into town right away. The driver leaves us on the esplanade in the dark with a girl called Libby, she has a hostel but the reception doesn't open till 8am so she has to wait for three ours anyway.

We walk down to the seafront and sit on a bench by some trees. Huge bats swoop above; piercing shrieks and clicks permeate the air. As the first tendrils of light creep through the sky they all take wing. A great host bursts from the trees and heads inland, filling the air. As soon as they leave parrots fly in to take their place. They raucously herald the dawn, acting as if the tree was theirs all along.

Cairns itself seems quite uninspiring. Whether it is down to the lack of sleep, the inability to do anything at this time in the morning or the semi naked drunks stumbling through the street, we swiftly decide we don't really want to stay. By 9am we have hired a car, done our food shop for the week and are heading north. A cabin in the rainforest awaits us. Libby sits in the passenger seat, hostel booking forgotten.

We are going to Cape Tribulation in the Daintree Rainforest. This rainforest covers 0.1% of Australia's surface but contains 30% of Austrralia's reptile, amphibian and marsupial species, 34% of the mammals, 40% of the birds and 65% of the bats and butterflies. It is prime location for Cassowary spotting. These majestic birds and huge and colourful and sadly endangered, only about two thousand are left in Australia. At one point we are lucky enough to see one with a chick.

We take the ferry in our car across the river to Cape Trib, desperately, and unfruitfully, looking for crocodiles as we do. We enter a world of vines and lizards. Rainforest clad hills etch ridges against the sky before tumbling into crystal waters. Thin white ribbons of sand form a fringing in places, dividing the worlds of emerald and sapphire.

On the first night Libby gets offered a job. It sounds nice on paper, working in a rainforest abutted by a tropical beach. It is eventually decided that the reality would not quite be the same and the job is rejected. We celebrate by lying on the beach some more.

Once again we encounter the Australians propensity to exaggerate. We undertake what is claimed to be a seven hour walk complete with death warnings and signs that tell us to carry four litres of water per person. Five minutes in we see Boyd's Forest Dragon clinging to a tree. I try to take a photo but it's having none of it. We have a nice long picnic at the top, butterflies float and spin while and Pacific Swallows (I think) speed between them. We walk at a reasonable pace but I certainly wouldn't call it fast. Four hours and three litres of water later we return, invigorated.

Being in the rainforest I am struck most by the vines that hang between the trees. They form aerial walkways that connect the upper world. The vines often seem to start on the ground and corkscrew directly up, not reaching a tree till the upper reaches of their lofty world. ???

Another thing I note is the great buttress roots that many of the trees develop. Some of these can be much larger than a person. They splay out from the tree in twists and turns, separating and rejoining. These are grown in response to the sandy soil. Such large trees require a lot of moisture and there is not enough in the ground s. The result is they they grow these huge tall roots above ground to absorb moisture from the air. The same tree in a different location would not grow any. Another trick they use to the same end is that when roots encounter another tree they will grow up the outside of its trunk to absorb the moisture that gathers on the bark.  

The sounds of the rainforest..

We leave Daintree a few days later via the ice cream shop. This plantation creates ice cream from almost fifty different plants native to the area. The flavours you get are dependent on what is in season. I can't remember what we have but one tastes like coffee and another tastes like chocolate pudding. It is delicious.

Next stop is the Atherton Tablelands. A volcanic landscape where a few pockets of rainforest remain between bright green cultivated hills. Streams and waterfalls cascade down from the mountains. As we drive towards evening we notice a haze growing in the air and the sky before us looks odd. We realise it is smoke, a lot of smoke. Cars are still using the road and no one seems too concerned to we carry on into the smog.

The sides of the road crawl with men in boiler suits and their backdrop is fire. The scrub is being burned away. It is done now in a controlled environment to stop unexpected fires in the future. The trees are left, blackened but alive. The ground smokes and the air is thick, the sun looks pale and weak.

We pass the worst of it and drive past Lake Mitchell. The sun is now setting, the smoke in the sky turning it purple. We stop and get out, insects fill the air with sound. We stand and watch in perfect silence, taking in the beauty before us. Green moorland stretching to a distant fuchsia sheen, dark hills then the endless sky. A woman drives up in her car she tells us we can take a track through a wooden gate that leads right out to the middle of the lake, we just need to avoid the bay horse.

We take the track through a gate held shut with a thick metal chain. A thin spit of land, just wide enough for a single car and some trees, has been built connecting the mainland to an island in the lake. We drive out, almost to the island, a man is fishing but apart from that we are alone. A line of swans creates a procession through the marshland on one side. They cut a path through reeds thick enough to be walked on by smaller birds. The red sun sets through the haze.

We sit or stand and watch. On the other side the Lake seems eternal. Lilly pads line it and a fish jumps periodically. There is no noise but the birds and the frogs and the insects. I feel like I could stay here forever. It is beautiful in a way that is both familiar and mystical, it is probably my favourite view so far. The sun grown brighter and redder as it escapes below the smoke and it burns a pathway across the water. Where to I do not know.

Eventually we must leave. I gaze longingly out the window. White birds perch in distant trees standing in the still waters.

 

Incessantly trying to capture the scene.

The next day is a day of trees and waterfalls. Fig trees, to those of you who have not seen them, can be almost unbelievable. They start their lives as a seed blown on the wind. They land high in the branches of other trees and from the moment of their germination their host is all but doomed. Roots burst outward and branches extend up like a crown. The roots start as tendrils hanging in the air, gently waving in the breeze. Once they reach the ground they quickly take hold and thicken until they are almost trunks. More and more are produced until they envelop and strangle the host tree altogether. The tree rots and dies within and they are left, great cathedrals in the forest. Natural pillars supporting the majesty above.

Sometimes the host tree will die before they are established enough to stand on their own. When this happens the tree will topple, if it lands against another then that too will also fall prey and the area between the two will become a curtain of roots that can extend up to fifty feet into the air (that we saw).

We visit one such tree that is over five hundred years old, imaginatively named the Curtain Fig Tree, and once again I am awed. It trails to the ground and towers to the sky. It has carved out its own domain in the forest and stands alone, an ancient sentinel keeping a forgotten vigil. Again photo's cannot do it justice. It will not fit in any of them for a start.

We turn up at a platypus viewing platform at nine am, far too late as they should be in bed. Almost instantly it appears, drifting on the surface of the stream. It is completely still, head down and intent on what is below it. Suddenly it dives and descends into murk. A trail of bubbles tracks its progress before it returns. I am reminded of the way some birds of prey hover in the one spot before swooping to the ground. It is smaller then I'd have thought and ridiculously cute. I could not be more excited.

Finally we have lakes, lagoons and waterfalls. And a volcanic crater too bold, dramatic and large to capture. We swim in turquoise waters beneath an azure sky. For once I find a warning sign I wholeheartedly agree with. I also find a large group of British travelers wantonly ignoring it. They do not seem like my sort of people, I am reminded slightly of the film The Beach. They are messing around by a small waterfall. Small but fast flowing, with rocks at the bottom.

One girl crosses the river right by the edge of the falls and, not unsurprisingly, slips. She is swept downwards and thrown against a rock then passes out of sight. Everyone stands and stares apart from one boy who was already at the bottom. He, admittedly very bravely, jumps in and for a long time we cannot see anything but her friends staring in horror. We are watching from a viewpoint above and to the side. Eventually they appear from around a boulder, alive. It seems she is okay, though she could easily not have been. I feel that we were left more concerned than they were.

The crater.

We return to Cairns and drop the car off. We never gave her an official name though to me she was Molly, Mols when I was feeling affectionate. It is dark and once again we have nowhere to stay, no idea what we are going to do next or how we are going to get there. All we know is we want to leave. We research trains, buses, cars and camper vans. An hour later we are in our hostel sorting through photos, the next leg of our journey planned. We leave Cairns at half past seven the next morning. It wasn't for us.