Cape Spring Break Part 2: Camping in Cape Tribulation

Since we returned from our field trip on a Wednesday we still had a good four and a half days of break left. Alex, Kevin, and I had plans to pick up a car Wednesday afternoon and make the 7.5 hour trip up to Cape Tribulation. Cape Tribulation is where the rainforest meets the reef, and is the only place in the world that has two World Heritage areas in the same location (the Wet Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef). After getting pack from the field trip and realizing we didn’t have any food, beer, or coolers to hold them (let alone any camping equipment yet) we decided to spend Wednesday getting supplies and wake up at 3 am and make the drive up. The drive was uneventful and went quickly because everything north of Cairns was absolutely beautiful. We set up camp at our beachside campsite—me in my $12 dollar 1.5 person tent and Kevin and Alex in their borrowed mansion 4 person tent complete with fold out spa. The first day we spent most of the time hanging out on the beach (a 25 second walk from our tents) and snorkelling out on the reef. The rainforest really does go right up to the beach, its amazing to be swimming in the ocean and see mountain jungle right behind the beach. We also did a short 2 mile hike in the rainforest on a track near our site. Didn’t see anything too noteworthy but it was still pretty cool.

The beach at our campsite

Reef to Beach to Rainforest

Exploring the jungle

That night we decided to go back to the hiking track with our headlamps to try to see if we could find some cool stuff at night. Maybe not the best decision. Something about being in the middle of the jungle when its pitch black and you can hear things moving all around you but can’t see them is pretty creepy. Who would have thought? Alex’s big scare came when he was attacked by some type of killer bee swarm, although I’m convinced it could have been a moth. I definitely had the biggest fright of the night when I thought I was being stealthy and sneaking up on a lizard. I was walking and had noticed my light reflect off of the eye of something sitting against a tree so went in closer to investigate. Upon closer inspection I still couldn’t figure out what it was, but it hadn’t moved so I figured it was a lizard camouflaged in to the bark. “Ha you fool, you think I can’t figure out you’re there just because I can’t see you, I’ll show you”. I went in real close to get a good look at it so I could catch it. It was only when my face was about 2 inches from the bark that the lizard came in to focus. In the form of a spider the size of my hand jumping at my face. After that we were all a bit jumpy for the rest of the night hike, but we did see some cool stuff: bandicoots, an echidna, kangaroo rats, more behemoth spiders, stick bugs, tree frogs, and lots of cane toads.

The spider that tried to eat my face

Nasty

The next day we decided to do some exploring and check out a swimming hole in the jungle that we had heard was a short walk away. Four hours and a cranky Alex later we finally got there. It was a pretty cool spot. There were tons of fish so it was cool to snorkel, and I caught a turtle. Definitely not worth walking six miles though. Regardless, we hung out for a while swimming and ate our lunches. We walked back along the beach, rock and coral hopping. This was the coolest part of the day for me because I saw an octopus and a couple moray eels come out of their hiding spots as the evening high tide was coming in.

Our pristine jungle swimming whole that we hiked 5 miles to get to

Sweet tree

Moray going for an afternoon swim

After our long Friday, Saturday was all about being lazy on the beach and a little more snorkelling. The offshore reef was pretty good, and we found the biggest Porites coral any of us had ever seen. Easily 7 meters high and 7 meters wide. A coral like that is probably a thousand years old, pretty amazing. We also saw a few good size remoras to finish up the day. Sunday we packed up early to make our drive back home. Props to Kevin for getting us home alive, he managed to drive on the left side of the road with only a few minor slip-ups. The trip overall was awesome, the area was beautiful and we saw some really cool stuff. Not to mention that we ate like kings—sausages, eggs, baked beans, beer, canned fruit, chunky soup, and wafers for every meal. Good way to spend spring break.