We stopped by Port Douglas in the morning before heading up to Cape Tribulation. Port Douglas is a very cute town with a nice beach and a busy street for shopping. Definitely recommend spending time in Port Douglas rather than Cairns if you’re heading that way and not going SCUBA diving.

Then I had to try driving again since Hendrik was getting scared he’d have to drive the whole way. This time the road was wide and flat and it was a new day so I was less nervous and managed to drive the bus well on the road all the way to the ferry for the crossing to Cape Tribulation. We swapped seats on the ferry since the roads were going to be narrow and windy in Cape Tribulation. It was another scary drive through the northern jungle as we wound our way upwards. As we soon found out there wasn’t too much to do in Cape Tribulation if you don’t feel the need to do lots of hiking and don’t have money to spend on tourist traps such as the 80 dollar zip line through the canopy. Yeah it would be fun but worth it? Probably not.

We went on a few different boardwalks through the rainforest and along the beach. What makes Cape Tribulation such a natural wonder is that the rainforest comes right up to the beach like in movies set on tropical islands. As we walked along the beach heading back to our campsite after doing the mangrove boardwalk (I’ve seen enough mangroves on this trip to last me a lifetime) we saw a man dressed in only what looked like a red diaper. His hair was so wild I couldn’t see his face. We were some distance away because we didn’t want to get too close but this man was throwing sticks at the palm tree in hopes of knocking down a coconut as if he was recreating a scene from “Cast Away.” This was probably the highlight of Cape Tribulation.

Our Britz van compared with others.