Through the porthole of another world
One of the pleasures staying in this beautiful part of the world (and there are many!) is the joy of coming "home" after traveling to Mossman for our weekly needs and groceries. Returning and driving off the Daintree Ferry is like stepping through a magical door that opens up to the magnificent grandeur of this world heritage rainforest, where its awe inspiring splendor takes your breath away. We never take it for granted and to travel through its man - made tunnels of forest always makes us grateful for the work that the pioneers put into the road that allows us to enter into just a glimpse of its majesty.
The tops of the ranges are dark and wet with a landscape draped in a mist of low clouds. The straight drops over the side leave you shaking your head in how on earth they managed to get through. It drops almost vertically down to the mysterious valleys and coastline below, not to be seen for the thick and beautiful forest standing tall down its slopes, the grand trees reaching to the sky, the sentinels of the forest, the vines twisting and scrabbling through, the tall slender tree ferns greeting you as they frame the road. The iconic fan palms that go hand in hand with the Daintree stand tall and proud high up in the ranges and just as majestic in the wet lowlands where if you're lucky enough to see a cassowary with its indignant heir, of its beauty and reign of this kingdom.
The gob smacking beauty of the many creeks snaking through tunnels of the canopy, the trickling waterfalls all along the sides of the road. Ancient grand stands of trees with buttresses of its roots spreading like tripod walls to anchor themselves to the earth. After dark the fireflies are glowing all around and flying passed your windscreen. It makes you wonder if you really have ventured into a fairy land?
This is just the glorious experience of getting 'home' along the road to Cape Tribulation, traditional name Kurangee, (‘place of many cassowaries’) and Julanwarra bubu which means ‘sea people land’.
Oh how I love Australia, and this, the Great Dividing Range which stretches the whole east coast from south to north, the Otways, the Dandenongs, Black Range, the Snowy Mountains, the Blue Mountains, the Lamington, the Wooroonoonan around Atherton, just to name a few, with all their magical diversity that takes your breath away, forests that have a majesty and beauty and grandeur of their own, this part is the Daintree, I am honored and humbled to be here. Thank goodness someone in their wisdom saved you from the axe and chainsaws.
Weezanickinoff aka Wendy & Ash Frank - Grey nomads working and exploring this, our glorious country.
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/ash-wendyfrank/1/tpod.html
