Day 305: Mossman Gorge

Morning at Cape Tribulation was still wet. The rain wasn't solid, but it would start up again every 15 minutes so it was hard to do much outdoors. I did use one of the brief dry periods to explore the beach a little, but mostly we just sat around playing games until the bus picked us up around noon.

The bus took us to Mossman Gorge, home of the indigenous Kuku Yulanji tribe. We had a bit of a talk with one of the elder tribesmen about tribal traditions, way of life, and the plants and animals of the surrounding rainforest. Most of us found this the most interesting and overall best part of the trip, and it was fascinating to see all the uses they developed from plants in such a hostile environment. I think I mentioned earlier that most of the fruit in the forest is toxic, and even just to eat they needed to know all the properties of everything and how toxins could be leached out of some foods and not others. We also got a digeridoo lesson, and everybody loves digeridoos.

We did a walk into the forest to visit the river. Normally the water is calm and people go swimming there, but things are a bit different when it's been raining almost non-stop for a week.

We also stopped for a nice view down at where the Daintree River flows out into the ocean and meets the reef.

It was still raining when we got back to Cairns, and by this point I was quite happy to be preparing for another flight back down south.