Dan or Justy

The adjacency of the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef (approximately 150 meters) is unique in the world. Only here do 2 World Heritage sites sit side-by-side. In fact, the mangrove forests on the beach are the only things anywhere that are listed/protected in 2 world heritage sites.

Australians are justly proud of this. The sea may be full of box jellyfish, irukandji (tiny killing jellyfish) and man-eating sharks, the forest full of venomous snakes, ground-dwelling birds big enough to eat babies, and multi-meter-long crocodiles that hunt where they please, not to mention the insect life anxious to break you down into your constituent amino acids, but the place is a must see.

So we went. It lives up to its billing. In every respect.

The guidebooks make much of the "big wet" season in summer. According to locals, this has been very unreliable in the last 10 years. Nobody I talked to knew if it was El Nino related, but they all believed it was climate change. I've read elsewhere that Australia entered a period of relative drought in the 1890s and has not recovered since.

On our long approach to Cape Trib, I felt like I should be studying the classified files. There is dense jungle and a short river crossing. The patience of the jungle is unnerving. It is a confidence you cannot doubt. And you are not in the magic circle. You can never see from behind its eyes. You will ever be an invader.

The road winds fantastically, up and down through jungle so thick it must need trimming daily, else cars get tangled up and swallowed. Light is the currency here and the headspace above the roads is not wasted. The enclosure is tunnel-like. You are a virus coursing through an alien circulatory system.

Our intended goal was a well-reviewed beach house just past Cape Tribulation, and just past where the sealed road ends. I am very nervous taking the van even onto unsealed driveways for businesses we visit. Aside from the contractual obligation to stay on sealed roads, I would be a wreck navigating a true 4x4 track. It was a well-maintained gravel road, however, and we went about 150 meters to the trailhead for the Mt Sorrow track. In the twilight I was bit aggressive on my 3 point turn to reverse course. I lost one rear wheel in a ditch. I had the brake jammed and knew my only hope was a smooth transition to the accelerator to pull us out.

Ages ago, Scott put me on an icey inclined driveway somewhere in southern Vermont. He had me practice this very maneouver. It worked, and I (once again) swore never to get near an unsealed road in my 2-wheel drive van.