When I think of Australia, I picture the Outback: dry, desert like landscapes and a general lack of water. So, imagine my mind being blown when I found myself in the Daintree Rainforest to learn it’s the oldest continuous tropical rainforest. I was marveling at its beauty and, by my definition, defying what I thought Australia was. Also, like, how come I never learned this in school? Who knows, I could have forgotten it.
Originally, I wasn’t going to spend the night in the Daintree. We were just going to drive up for the day and head back to Cairns. After talking to a friend of a friend, she convinced me to change our plans and stay overnight in the Daintree. In hindsight, I’m so glad we did. A day trip with that much driving, from Cairns to Cape Tribulation and back, would have been too much for me. We enjoyed our time there and didn’t have that long drive looming over our heads, knowing we had to get back to a bed.
Since we changed our plans extremely late, accommodations were slim pickings. We ended up staying at PK’s Hostel, and we enjoyed our stay. At the time, new owners were taking over, and hopefully they’re able to bring some new life back into the hostel.
Knowing we weren’t going to have Wi-Fi and probably wouldn’t have much service in this area, we made sure to download offline Google Maps. Service actually wasn’t terrible, and I was able to get some, but having the offline maps was clutch.
📍 Google Map Bookmark: Cape Tribulation, Daintree Rainforest, Mossman Gorge. Includes the rest of Queensland.
🗓️ Itinerary: 3 Days
Day 1: Drive from Cairns to Cape Tribulation. Rex’s Lookout. Dubuji Boardwalk, Myall Beach, Kulki Boardwalk and Lookout.
Day 2: Jindalba Boardwalk, Daintree Ice Cream, Madja Boardwalk, Cape Tribulation Farm Fruit Tasting.
Day 3: Drive Back to Cairns. Mount Alexandra Lookout and Mossman Gorge. The Australian Chocolate Farm.
🚗 Transportation: Car
You do need to rent a car if you wish to make it here. If you want to go even farther than Cape Tribulation to York Town, “The Point” of Australia, you need a 4WD. Cape Tribulation is the furthest you can go with a regular car.
In order to get to Cape Tribulation, you need to take a ferry.
The ferry was $57 round trip. The ferry operates from 5 a.m. to midnight, 7 days a week. You pay at a toll booth by cash or card, and they give you a receipt that you’ll need for your return trip.
We arrived around 12 p.m. and had to wait about an hour to get on the ferry. I think if you get there earlier, around 10 a.m., you’ll be fine and won’t have to wait as long. When we left to head back to Cairns around that time, there was no queue for the ferry. I’m guessing lunchtime is more of a peak period.
If you don’t want to rent a car, there are companies that offer day trip excursions to the Daintree Rainforest. We wanted the flexibility of creating our own schedule and spending more or less time at the places we wanted to see.
I was worried about driving because they drive on the opposite side of the road from what we’re used to. It was helpful spending time with my friend in Melbourne and having her drive us around so we could get accustomed to it. However, it wasn’t necessary. If you’re a competent driver and pay attention to the road, you’ll be fine. There are plenty of “stay to the left side of the road” signs everywhere.
📋 Things to Do: Boardwalks
Each boardwalk takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how fast you walk and how long you stop to gawk and take photos. Every boardwalk had an easy-to-access parking lot and was very easy to walk.
Dubuji Boardwalk: The short loop is about 20 minutes, while the longer loop is around 45 minutes, with access to Myall Beach. Dubuji was our first boardwalk, and we admired its beauty. It’s also where we saw the biggest spider of my life. He said he saw more and did a great job neglecting to tell or show me where they were. One was enough for me.
Myall Beach: There are a few points to access the beach. Please keep in mind that you cannot swim in these waters because of crocodiles. There’s just something about walking out from a rainforest onto a beautiful beach that you can’t express in words or capture with a photo.
Kulki Boardwalk: This is a super quick trek, about 10 minutes, to either the lookout on the right or access to the beach by taking the left path.
Madja Boardwalk: The boardwalk loop is about 45 minutes. This boardwalk takes you through dense lowland rainforest as it merges into mangrove habitats.
Jindalba Boardwalk: The boardwalk loop is about 45 minutes, while the circuit track takes around 1.5 hours. We didn’t know about the longer circuit beforehand. Our motto when we travel is, well, we’re only here once. So we pretty much do whatever it is, like the longer circuit.
There are water creek crossings, but since it was the “dry season,” they were manageable enough to avoid the water. It was extremely muddy, though, so we just took our time. We enjoyed the boardwalk after the circuit, but we were really glad we did the track. We even got a glimpse of a cassowary along the way and loved listening to the sounds of the rainforest.
Jindalba can be paired with the Discovery Centre, which has a canopy tower and walkway. The Discovery Centre does have an entrance fee of $19 for children and $41 for adults.
📸 Things to Do: Lookouts
Rex Lookout: There is a parking spot on either side of the highway to access the lookout.
Mount Alexandra Lookout: There is a parking lot where you can pull in.
🍈 Things to Do: Fruit Tasting
Cape Trib Farm’s exotic fruit tasting is a must! I was hesitant to mention it to him because he doesn’t love fruit as much as I do. However, the 5 star reviews sold me, and I told him we were doing this instead of asking him. I’m so glad we did because even he loved the fruit tasting.
It was great hearing firsthand from the grandson of the man who started the business and learning about the farm and its process. I loved being walked through the different fruits, where they came from, and how to cut and serve them. Sustainability and regenerative farming are at the heart of the business, which made us happy to hear their priorities.
I took so many notes! We tried 10 different fruits. We enjoyed breadfruit, pamelo, yellow mangosteen, mamey sapote, custard apple, longan, soursop, rollinia, and jam tea.
I could legit give you a breakdown of everything we tried, but in case you don’t want the details, don’t click the arrow.
Fruit Tasting in Depth Details
🍈 Breadfruit: It came out of the oven warm. Potatoes on a tree. Can be made into a flour. When they get overripe, they can literally splatter.
🍊 Pomelo: The largest citrus fruit in the world. Fruit bats love them, so the farm uses nets to help protect the fruit. It was sweet and tasted like a cross between a grapefruit and a melon.
💛 Yellow Mangosteen: This one was sour. Like, super sour, almost like candy. You can eat the whole thing, including the skin. It takes about 15 years before the trees produce fruit, and because they don’t pollinate themselves, they’re a difficult crop to grow.
🧡 Mamey Sapote: Means “soft fruit.” You pick it when it’s hard and then let it soften for about a week. It’s one of the most expensive fruits in Mexico. The flavor was described as a blend of sweet potato, pumpkin pie, honey, and papaya.
🍏 Custard Apple: Has a bumpy, scaly green exterior with a soft, creamy, custard-like white inside.
👁️ Longan: Nickname is “dragon’s eye.” It has a light brown, leathery shell that’s easy to crack open. Inside is translucent white flesh surrounding a single dark seed, giving it the appearance of an eyeball.
🍫 Cocoa: Is hard to cut. It needs about seven days to break down, but you can eat the cocoa seeds raw.
💛 Yellow Sapote: The “happy fruit.” It’s high in tryptophan and has a thick, powdery, dense texture.
💚 Soursop: Don’t eat the seeds. Soursop has a couple of interesting nicknames, including “fruit salad” and “cotton ball.” It’s creamy with a sweet and sour flavor that’s a combination of pineapple, strawberry, mango, and banana.
💛 Rollinia: Is extremely fragile, which makes it difficult to ship, so you’ll mostly find it in local markets. It tasted like a mix of mango and soursop and had a super creamy texture. Its nickname is “lemon meringue pie.”
🍵 Jamu Tea: Is made with ginger, lemongrass, turmeric, and black pepper. The farm uses regenerative farming practices, moving away from herbicides and chemicals. They use cover crops, legumes for nitrogen, composting, and worm farms to help build healthier soil.
Cape Trib Farm is a family run business with more than 80 rare and exotic fruits. Tours are generally run from Easter through the end of October and are held on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Check the online calendar for availability.
Fruit tasting tours start at 2 p.m. and finish around 3:30 p.m. Bookings are essential, and advance bookings are preferred so they can pick plenty of fruit for you.
Adult: $60 Child: $42 Family (2 adults + 2 children): $175
🍽️ Restaurants:
Tides Bar and Restaurant: We enjoyed great scenery with delicious food. We saw kangaroo on the menu and just had to try it. It was delicious, but I’m still waiting for some kangaroo chicken fingers. Like, I just don’t understand how this isn’t a thing? I’m putting it out there, with good intentions, that it becomes a thing.
The Sandbar: Great wood fired pizza! We enjoyed it with a great atmosphere. We walked from our hostel down Myall Beach to get there, and it was awesome.
Masons Café: So, we didn’t eat here, but because the menu looked great, it’s an honorable mention. I wish we had scheduled things a little differently because the café is only open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
I would have tried any, and if not all, of the burgers: crocodile, kangaroo, emu, and jackfruit. Mason’s Café tries to source as much as possible locally. They make as much as they can in house, and most items are made to order.
Near the café is a freshwater swimming hole. Entry is $2, and here you can cool off in a croc free and stinger free waterhole filled with native fish.
🍨 Daintree Ice Cream:
Daintree Ice Cream is the place to go. My only complaint, which I never complain about when it comes to actual ice cream, is the packaging. It’s prepackaged, so you can’t ask to taste anything, and it’s served in a single cup.
Normally, I prefer to get two scoops so I can have two different flavors, but this was like getting two scoops of the same flavor. They did have a four flavor mixed cup, but that was prepackaged too, so I couldn’t choose the four flavors I wanted. It was a preset combination.
But hey, we ended up buying more ice cream because of it, so should I really complain? Everything was delicious, and the fruit is really meant to be served as ice cream.
We went before our fruit tasting, and then, because the fruit tasting experience was so good, we felt the need to go back and try more ice cream after learning about the fruit it was made from. I definitely enjoyed it more after trying the fruit and having a little more knowledge about the different flavors.
I would definitely stop here on the way into Cape Tribulation and again on the way out.
💭 Final Thoughts:
Cape Tribulation is famous because it is the only place on Earth where two UNESCO World Heritage listed sites meet side by side: the ancient Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.
We absolutely fell in love with Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest. I can’t picture a trip to Cairns without making this excursion.
One note I wrote down that will stick with me is that we were hearing the real life rainforest with our own ears, not the white noise people listen to when they go to sleep. It was kinda neat when I put that thought together.
To keep this post from becoming extremely long, check out the post below for more information on Mossman Gorge.
