Discover The Daintree Rainforest & Cape Tribulation

The Complete Daintree & Cape Tribulation Guide

The Daintree Region, which includes The Daintree National Park & Daintree River belong to the Traditional Owners of the Eastern Kuku Yalanji Aboriginal people. This is my experience exploring the incredible Port Douglas Region and your Complete Daintree & Cape Tribulation Guide.

There really is a special spiritual and cultural significance across Kuku Yalanji country that can be deeply felt. A place so abundant with nature and unique life, where the rainforest meets the sea.

It is the only place in the world where two UNESCO world heritage sites meet; Cape Tribulation is an incredible place to explore both The Daintree Rainforest & The Great Barrier Reef. 

Adventure Awaits – Destination Daintree 

I would recommend staying two nights and three days if you want to go across the Daintree River. This is plenty of time if you want to explore Daintree Rainforest & Cape Tribulation in 2WD Car.

If you have a 4X4, you can go further north to Bloomfield and Cook Town. But, you will need more time. 

In three days you can fully explore all of the boardwalk trails. Discover the idyllic beaches & find some freshwater (croc free) swimming creeks.

You may even be lucky enough to see a Cassowaries. Just try not to run one over, as they like to cross the roads! 

Price of The Daintree Ferry

The Daintree ferry costs $25 return for a car crossing. It takes about 5 minutes to cross from one side of the Daintree River to the other on the ferry.

 The ferry runs from 6AM – Midnight. These times may change slightly with wet season etc. 

As you pay for your ferry ticket you are given a map of The Daintree and all it includes. A full map of walking trails, information centres, accommodation, things to do, restaurants and more. 

It’s the perfect guide for helping you explore the oldest rainforest in the world. 

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Best time to visit Daintree & Cape Tribulation 

I visited from the 15^th – 20^th December 2020. The weather was perfect, a slight welcomed drizzle in the morning & night which helped to break up the humidity. Throughout the rest of the day it was bright blue skies and soaring temperatures.

Cape Tribulation Weather 

I can imagine anywhere between June (winter) & December (summer) being an incredible time to visit The Daintree & Cape Tribulation.

The wet season is said to run from December through to March. However, this year (2021) I have seen videos of Daintree roads being flooded well into April. Becoming non accessible for anything other than the toughest 4WD’s. 

Back to Nature – Daintree Phone Signal 

Unless you are standing on one leg on the bonnet of your car, with your phone to your head and your tongue sticking out, you can forget about signal & Wi-Fi.  

Maybe with the slight exception to one of your travel companions having a painfully slow 3G Telstra service.

Honestly, it’s so refreshing to be in a place so ancient, with no modern technology to distract you from exploring it. Exploring Daintree & Cape Tribulation as it was supposed to be explored, map in hand & sense of adventure leading the way. 

Living in Cape Tribulation 

I didn’t realize people actually live up here… but they do!

An hour and half drive and ferry crossing to the nearest supermarket, personally I think they are mad. 

But,I can also fully appreciate the remoteness & sense of community found by those that choose to live in Cape Trib & Daintree. 

Support the locals anyway you can by eating out in the local restaurants if you can afford to. Make sure to leave places as you found it or better. 

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Daintree Rainforest & Cape Tribulation Accommodation

Safari Lodge – Cape Tribulation 

Friends and I opted to stay at Safari Lodge! It is a great spot offering different types of accommodation for all budgets. 

Eco Huts Safari Lodge

There are three Safari Lodge Eco Huts that can fit up to four people, with bunk beds. A great option if you can book out the rooms to yourselves with your own friends. There are also dorm rooms and camping spots. 

There is no such thing as Aircon in the rainforest. A little tip of mine would be to put bottles of water in the fridge a few hours before heading to bed. Then you can use them as a makeshift cooling system, hugging them as you go to sleep under the stuffy fan. 

Evening Swim Cape Tribulation

Go for a swim in the lagoon style swimming pool. It’s warm and a great way to battle the humidity in the evening. 

Safari Lodge is also home to a peacock – you will see him showing off around the pool most mornings. 

$35 per person per night for the Eco Huts. Unpowered camping spots at $16 pp per night. 

Cape Tribulation Rd, Cape Tribulation, QLD, 4873

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Things to do in The Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation

Alexandra Bay Lookout 

This is one of the first spots to visit as you cross the Daintree River and drive through the ever-winding roads of the rainforest.

Alexandra Bay Lookout spans the whole forest across to the sea.

You can look South towards the beautiful weaving roads along the coast or span as far north as the beautiful beaches to Cape Tribulation. 

Masons Water Hole 

The humidity and heat up in Tropical North Queensland has you searching for cool water spots anywhere you go. It’s a little harder to find when the obvious relief of the sea is a no go, potentially deadly option. 

This is where the freezing cold Masons Water Hole comes to the rescue!
Found along a path behind Masons Café – leave a small donation in the box as you cross the bridge to walk into the trees.

Here you will find the steps to the clearest freshwater, crocodile free swimming hole you will find in The Daintree. In the hottest month of December, it was fresh! So be prepared for the chill.

Enjoy an afternoon escaping the Queensland humidity, swinging from rope swings and making your own balanced rock stacks in the shallow area. 

There are also loads of fish. So try not to freak out like I did if you find the nibbling on your toes. 

Cassowary Spotting

In all honesty, the conditions required to spot a Cassowary are usually down to sheer luck. But it was never going to happen for me.

My friends are so loud and completely unable to stay quiet for longer than 1 minute. All cassowaries down the entire Queensland coast would have known to stay away. 

If you do possess the ability to be stealth like, you may be lucky and spot a few whilst doing the nature trail board walks. 

Daintree Walking tracks

Marrdja, Dubuji and Kulki

The three walking tracks of Marrdja, Dubuji & Kulki are beautiful & each entirely different from each other.

The boardwalks posted above mangroves covered in water, weaving amongst the thick tropical shrubbery & high amongst some of the tallest trees. You really are fully immersed in every variety of fauna and flora in The Daintree Rainforest. 

Early risers head to the tracks first to avoid other people and enjoy the walk without soaring humidity temperatures. 

Also beware of the bloody bush chook looking birds, they like to fly at you after rustling around in the bushes for a bit first, getting you all excited thinking you were about to see a Cassowary. 

Myall Beach Lookout 

If you go in the evening– especially along the Myall Beach lookout walk – bring mosquito spray. You can’t really appreciate the beautiful beach view when you’re trying to fend of mosquitos aiming to eat you alive. 

Daintree & Cape Tribulation Beaches

A place standing 135 million years before you, I and all human kind began and a place hopefully, still standing long after we are all gone.

There’s something understatedly powerful about Daintree & Cape Tribulation. Being encapsulated in the ancientness of the oldest continually surviving tropical rainforest in this world and standing on the in-between beaches where The Great Barrier Reef begins – You feel acutely aware of being in a place where two giant forces of nature meet. 

Cow Bay  

Cow Bay is a beach rivaling any tropical paradise that comes to mind from idyllic movie scenes. Walking from the car park through the dense tropical rainforest and passing through the curtain of green ferns & fauna creates the feeling of wonder. 

You can almost believe you are one of the first in the world to have discovered Cow Bay. Especially when you are lucky enough to have nearly every beach to ourselves for exploration. 

My friends and I were all quietly stopped in our tracks when we stepped onto the majority of Cape Tribulation beaches.

It really is a place that removes you from “Australia”. Not very often do you feel like you have come to a place somewhere “else” whilst backpacking Australia. 

Cow Bay Rope Swing

With swimming off the cards and sunbathing not being entirely relaxing down to having one eye constantly open checking for crocs, you may be wondering what else this beautiful place has to offer? 

A Human contribution – two staggered heighted rope swings tied around giant leaning palm trees! 

Now, you may be looking at these pictures and thinking how fun/effortless/graceful (insert your descriptive word of choice) we all look swinging amongst tropical paradise. 

Tarzan & Jane eat your heart out! 

But let me assure you, being heaved up by three people to reach a rope swing taller than myself (5 ft 6) due to zero upper arm strength was probably the most inelegant moment of my life. 

I wish I could show you the video here (check my Instagram to see outtakes!) because you will only laugh at the contrast of being on the swing VS getting up on that bloody swing. 

Cape Tribulation Beach

It became a bit of a joke after exploring the island that all the beaches looked very similar, in terms of the curved sweeping beaches, footprinted white sand and a wall of emerald tree’s & plants.

Although similar, all where incredibly beautiful & somewhere you could sit all day without seeing another person. 

Watch out for the many coconut tree’s, you may even be able to grab a fresh one if you can open the husk. Or you can use the emptied ones as an impromptu ball like we did. 

Crocodiles

It’s a little ironic that some of the most beautiful beaches in Tropical North Queensland are the ones most likely to result in serious harm. 

The entirety of Cape Tribulation & the Daintree beaches are completely restricted no swimming zones year round. The waters are crocodile infested 365 days of the year and also are home to deadly box fish jellyfish between September and April. 

The odds for coming out of the sea with all limbs, bite free & avoiding a cardio vascular system attack from a jelly fish sting are not in anyone’s favor – Nature 1 – Humans 0. 

As beautiful as Cape Tribulation is, the saying that everything in Australia is trying to kill you does kind of ring true in the world’s oldest rainforest. 

My other advice would be to avoid & don’t even think about camping on the beach. The crocs are known to come onto the sand and chill throughout the night. 

Brits Abroad

I have a confession, I can hardly preach caution when my friends and I had a dip in the inlet Daintree river creek found on Cow Bay. Mistakenly trusting the locals advise it was croc free… 

Only to discover on our Daintree Croc tour we were swimming in the hang out zone of three crocs known to frequent that particular mangrove creek.   

I wouldn’t recommend unknowingly swimming in croc-infested waters but in my defence, –why would anyone put an inviting rope swing into water that isn’t safe! 

General Australian Advice – Never Trust an Australian with a mullet that uses the phrase “ah she’ll be right”. 

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Outside of The Daintree River Crossing

Daintree Croc Tour

You are not short for choices when it comes to Daintree Crocodile tours. After consulting google we opted to go for Solar Whisperer Crocodile & Wildlife Cruise.

This Daintree crocodile tour is just before the Daintree ferry crossing. Either visit before you cross or, have it as a final tour to conclude your Daintree adventure like we did. 

We had the boat to ourselves with our captain John and his dog Sandy. John was extremely knowledgeable of the named crocs, their usual sleeping spots, egg nests & which croc was the top dog.

I think I may need to reign my imagination in slightly. Dramatically, I had ideas of this giant crocodile emerging out of the water to trying to bite half our boat away. I think this imagination might have come from going on the Jaws ride in Florida Universal too many times…

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Daintree Village 

The Daintree River crossing has you turn right off the main road to cross and explore The Daintree Rainforest & Cape Tribulation.

 To visit the Daintree Village (which is located outside, before the crossing) you need to keep driving straight past the welcome to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji sign. 

Honestly, there’s really not much in the Daintree Village but it does completely embody rural farming Queensland. It had a little museum you could visit, but sadly it was closed for us. You can enjoy the old tractors, Daintree vintage cars & pump mills still located outside though! 

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Things to know about staying in The Daintree

Budget Road Trip preparations 

Food

 As The Daintree Rainforest & Cape tribulation is accessed by ferry only, it is essentially cut off from the rest of Tropical North Queensland. Ferry tickets allow for one entry and exit.

So once you are in, you are there until you decide to leave. As a result, this allows for the prices of food & amenities in The Daintree & Cape Tribulation to be inflated due to access & demand.

Thinking about including the Daintree & Cape Tribulation in your Queensland road trip? If you are being budget-conscious, make sure to bring enough food for a couple of days.

Thankfully, having been told this prior to our crossing, we stocked up in Coles before with the pasta & tinned food necessities!

 A 6 pack of super noodles in Cape Tribulation convenience store was $9 (retail price of $2.60 usually) if that puts the expensive price into context for you…  

Daintree & Cape Tribulation Sustainability

Cape Tribulation being so cut off from the rest of Tropical North Queensland means that usual wastage and disposal facilities and collections are lot less ecologically friendly! 

As with anywhere you go, make sure to take all rubbish with you, use reusable sustainable bottles, straws etc. & be conscious of the effort it takes to keep The Daintree Rainforest ecologically safe. 

Petrol Stations in Daintree Rainforest 

There is one petrol station as you cross the ferry to Daintree & Cape Tribulation. As you can imagine, it is very expensive.

Make sure to fill up before you cross on the river ferry. You should be fine for a full tank over three days driving around and exploring.

A spare Jerry can of petrol is also a good idea in case you go further North or if you want to save some fuel money.

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Queensland Road Trip Destinations

Daintree & Cape Tribulation has to be on your Australia road trip bucket list. It’s a magical place that needs to be seen to be believed. Make sure to check out my Camper van Road Trip Essential Packing List before you head off on your adventures.