Port Douglas - Part 1

The two-lane road north from Cairns to Port Douglas winds 50 km (31 mi) up the coast past sugar cane fields and beach resorts, and through small towns and tropical rainforest. We passed a large group of wallabies (known as a mob) grazing in a large pasture along the road. I parked next to a lawn bowling complex and, camera in hand, walked around the corner of the building and began taking pictures. A man came out of the building and told us to come inside, but to stay behind the fence because "wallabies can be aggressive if you get too close." Inside the open-air facility, twenty people were bowling in a tournament. One of the women bowlers said that a few weeks earlier, a man taking photographs in the pasture was attacked by a male wallaby.

Agile wallabies

These were agile, or sandy, wallabies, the most common wallaby in northern Australia, and there were over 100 foraging in the pasture. Males can weigh up to 27 kg (60 lb) and females up to 15 kg (33 lb). They are generally solitary except when feeding in open pastures (link). We were less than 6 m (20 ft) from the closest wallabies, but they ignored us. Females were carrying joeys and young males were jousting. 

Agile wallaby and her joey

Male agile wallabies jousting

In the middle of the group, a male stood on his hind legs, balanced on his tail and stretched his arms in front of him before settling back down on all fours. A larger male saw this, moved closer and walked slowly around the male that had done the stretching. The large male rose up on his hind legs, raised his head and stretched his arms. He was clearly displaying his dominance over the smaller male while nearby females and juveniles stopped foraging to watch. The smaller male returned to feeding and grooming, but the dominant male chased him out of his harem. Dominance interactions between males can include kicking with the hind feet and boxing with the front feet (link). These males were unequal in size and the interaction didn't progress that far.

Large male wallaby displaying his dominance over smaller male (on all fours) 

Dominant male (center) relaxes (and urinates) after confronting smaller male (grooming right)...

...then chases him out of his harem

For most of the drive, we had tropical rain forest on one side and rocky shores and sandy bays on the other. We stopped at a headland sandwiched between two sandy beaches. People had built dozens of rock cairns out of the weathered beach rocks. A half-dozen cars had stopped and people were taking selfies with the cairns and adding their own pile of rocks. Farther north, we stopped at Yule Point where a forest of mangroves creeps out into the Coral Sea. 

Cairns on a beach north of Cairns

Looking north to Port Douglas from Yule Point

Port Douglas sits on the end of a peninsula with a river emptying into an estuary on the west side and the Trinity Bay on the east. On the way into town, I stopped at the waterfront on the west side. Well-worn work boats and skiffs were tied to rickety floating docks along the rock-armored shore. Sailboats were tied to pilings and moorings in the channel where the estuary meets the sea. Farther up the estuary, bigger, flashier boats occupied slips in the marina – sleek 15-20 m (49-66 ft) sportfishers, smaller fishing boats for hire and large catamarans that carry sightseers and divers to the Great Barrier Reef. 

Boats tied to floating docks in Port Douglas

The marina at Port Douglas

I asked an older man wearing a Quicksilver tee-shirt (one of the dive catamarans) if there was a dive shop in Port Douglas and he directed me to ABC Scuba (link). ­We walked into town on a street lined with trees, clothing boutiques, restaurants and tourist shops passing tourists in brightly colored shirts, shorts and sandals. The dive shop on the lower level of a two-story building was small with a limited amount of diving gear for sale. The guy behind the desk was in his 50s with close-cropped hair and built like a bear. Jay, the owner, said ABC had a boat that takes divers to coral reefs northeast of Port Douglas. I asked him why ABC was the only dive shop in Port Douglas. He said the town, which has 4,000 residents, gets 1.2 million visitors per year. “Everyone’s transient and the big boats think they own the town.” The implication was that small businesses like ABC have a difficult time competing against boats like the Quicksilver. I made a reservation to go diving on ABC’s boat.

Fishing pier at the entrance to Port Douglas

Four-mile beach and Trinity Bay from Flagstaff Hill

Two days later I was at the dock at 6:30 AM. ABC's boat, the Independence 1, was not tied to a finger pier in the marina; it was tied stern-first to a floating jetty near the fuel dock. We left at 7:00 AM for a 1.5-hr ride to the Great Barrier Reef. There were eight divers on board – three from the U.S., a woman from England, and couples from France and Germany. The Independence 1 is 16 m (53 ft) long, 5 m (16 ft) wide, with twin screws and 575-hp Caterpillar diesels; it carries 12 divers and three crew. I asked Pete, the skipper, about the hull, a shallow-draft V-hull, not a catamaran like most of the dive boats I had been on. He said the boat’s draft was 1.2 m (4 ft), and the keel at the stern was below the screws, so if it runs over a sand bar, it will “scrap off a little fouling paint, but won’t bend the props.” A coral reef is another matter; “you don’t want to run aground on a coral reef.” The Independence 1 has bow and stern thrusters, which came in handy backing down between mooring dolphins into the dock when we returned. Jay and Michelle, his assistant, were the dive leaders with Jay doubling as the underwater photographer.

Boats moored in the channel in the estuary

After we cleared the estuary, I went into the wheelhouse to find out where we were diving. Pete zoomed out on the navigation screen to show me the reefs. We were heading northeast past Batt Reef [where Steve Irwin was stung by a cowtail ray and subsequently died (link)]. Our first dive was a bommie that Jay  found several months earlier; it didn't have a name, but was “as big as two tennis courts.” It was far enough from the main reef for Jay and his crew to have installed a mooring for their boat. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has rules for moorings – where they can be installed and what type of materials can be used. Pete said that the rules don’t always protect the corals, but they comply with them anyway. We dove in two groups of four; the Americans and English woman went with Jay. The American couple were on their honeymoon and had limited diving experience. She was more experienced than her husband, who had just four open water dives. The English woman had been diving around the world and carried a compact underwater camera; she was by herself because her husband didn’t dive.

No-name bommie

Bigeye snappers (Lutjanidae)

Once the divers were in the water, Jay gave the thumbs down sign and we descended to the bottom at 18 m (59 ft). I got to the bottom, looked around, but didn’t see anyone. The American couple was still near the surface. The woman was having trouble descending, so they pulled themselves down the mooring line. I swam around taking pictures while I waited. A large turtle cruised past on the current. There were lots of fish on the reef – large schools of rainbow runners and blue fusiliers in open water, and a compact school of bigeye snappers hugged the reef. 

Giant clam

Tomato clownfish (Pomacentridae)

Bluespotted puffer (Tetraodontidae)

The outer edge of the reef was covered with sea fans and feather stars, indications that reliable currents bring plankton to the sedentary filter feeders. I was using a strobe on my camera and the particles in the water caused a lot of backscatter in my photos. The farther I was from my subject, the more backscatter I captured. Jay took pictures of the divers among the corals and sea fans. I took a picture of him taking a picture of the American couple. Near the end of the dive, he motioned for me to get close to the wall and took my picture.

Gorgonian sea fan

Feather stars

Jay taking a picture of divers near sea whips

Our second dive was at Coral Cascades, part of a larger reef north of our first dive. Pete backed the Independence 1  through a narrow opening in the reef that sheltered us from the worst of the swell that was breaking on the reef crest. I was surprised that he parked the boat in such a small inlet; if anything went wrong, we’d end up on a coral head. Jay said that only the small boats could use the mooring, which meant that this place was rarely visited. There was no buoy on the surface, so Michelle dove down to the mooring anchor with the boat’s bow line in one hand. She couldn’t find the chain and jerry-rigged a connection. Jay went down to look at the mooring and added an extra line. After the dive, Pete dove down to the anchor block and found the chain. It had slipped to the bottom of the concrete block when the submerged float failed. The mooring was fine, but the float needed to be replaced.

Coral Cascade

Regal and bicolor angelfishes (Pomacanthidae)

On the second dive, our group of four went with Michelle. She explained that the reef stair-stepped down to about 25 m (82 ft) and was incised with large canyons and crevasses too small to get into with scuba gear. From the surface, we dropped down over the edge of the reef to a shelf near the bottom; it was a garden of meter-long whip corals and sea fans. A red whip coral about 1 m (3 ft) tall was shaped like upright piano wires; I'd never seen anything like it . We finished the dive under the boat swimming among the small bommies inside the reef where there was enough swell to move me around while I was taking pictures.

Red whip coral

Delicate sea whip

On the ride back to Port Douglas, I went into the wheelhouse to ask Jay about shore diving. He was editing his pictures and jokingly said “Here comes trouble.” I wanted to see barramundi, which can grow to over a meter. A hook-and-line fisherman told me that he caught them from the shore at Wonga. Jay said I could see barramundi cod on the reef; I told him that I had already photographed them. Jay said it would be foolish to freedive at Wonga or anywhere else around Port Douglas because of the salties (saltwater crocodiles). Pete said I could see barras in the estuary where the boat was docked; a guy tied up near them catches barras from the dock. Pete was being facetious; he showed me pictures on his smart phone of 4-5 m (13-16 ft) salties taken in the estuary. I asked about kayaking in the estuary; same story – don’t.

Small bommie in shallow water

Small bommie in shallow water

Jay asked me about my dives on the boats out of Cairns. I said I had some good trips; sometimes the boats were too crowded, but I liked that I could go unguided. Jay said “You went unguided today. You looked like you knew what you were doing.” He meant that I didn’t exactly follow the buddy system. The three divers I was with were less experienced and stayed close to Jay. I wandered around a bit more. Jay called us into the wheelhouse as we approached Port Douglas to show us his underwater pictures on a TV screen. Some were great – vibrant colors, well composed. He uses software to process them and then uploads them to the web where his divers can download them free of charge, unlike dive boats out of Airlie Beach and Cairns that charge $30 AUS.

Blacktail grubfish (Pinguipedidae)

One morning, Rande and I left Port Douglas at sunrise and headed 80 km (50 mi) north to Daintree National Park, part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area. At 1,200 sq km (460 sq mi), the Daintree is the largest, continuous tropical rainforest in Australia (link; link) and has existed continuously for 110 million years making it perhaps the oldest tropical forest in the world (link). Daintree is classified as a seasonal tropical forest because some trees drop some or all of their leaves during the dry season. The Daintree is near the equator where trade winds from the Northern and Southern hemispheres converge; movement of the winds north in the northern summer and south in the northern winter control the dry and wet (Nov-Apr) seasons (link). Daintree National Park comprises two units: Cape Tribulation (170 sq km, 66 sq mi) and Mossman Gorge (565 sq km, 218 sq mi) (link; link). [I'll write about Mossman Gorge in the next post.] The Daintree was named for Richard Daintree, a "pioneering Australian geologist and photographer" (link). 

Ferry crossing the Daintree River

Leaving Port Douglas, we drove north past sugarcane fields and cattle farms through the village of Mossman, with a modest, well-kept main street lined with small shops. We took a ferry that carries 15-20 vehicles across the Daintree River and runs on two steel cables laid across the river and attached to concrete pilings driven into the river bank. Large steel wheels grip the cable and pull the boat across the river; there’s no propeller. I wondered how the sailboats moored upstream got in and out of the estuary without snagging their keels, but the cables sink to the bottom when there’s no stress on them. It takes about 10 minutes to cross and costs $26 AUS round trip.

Ferry landing at the beginning of the Cape Tribulation Road

The road beyond the ferry is narrow, winding and mostly shaded by dense rainforest. We stopped at the first lookout [Walu Wugirriga (Mount Alexandra lookout)] in Daintree National Park. Looking east, we could see the mouth of the Daintree River where it enters into the Coral Sea. Several small tour buses arrived while we were there; their passengers climbed out, took pictures from the lookout and the buses moved on. One of the buses advertised their tour as “An Adventure In Paradise”; it’s more like a day in a steel box with stops along the way where passengers are herded like cattle and given canned talks by sometimes indifferent presenters. This scene was repeated at lookouts and boardwalks.

Daintree River and Coral Sea from Walu Wurrigga lookout

Daintree tour bus

Our plan was to drive up to Cape Tribulation (link), find the trailhead for the trail to Mount Sorrow and go for a hike in the rainforest. The trailhead was poorly signed and difficult to find. We parked in the lot for the Kulki lookout, which, according to our tourist map, was near the trailhead and I walked back up the road to find it. Parking for Mount Sorrow was an unmarked, dirt pullout with room for five vehicles. It was mid-morning by the time we found it and the heat and humidity were building. We decided to do the hike another day and to arrive earlier (the ferry starts running at 6:00 AM). We walked the boardwalk to the Kulki lookout over the bay and mountains; it was beautiful, but the hike was too short and too easy.  

Cape Tribulation from Kulki lookout

We collected a tourist map of the Daintree when we checked into our condo in Port Douglas; the map showed mostly businesses (lodges, restaurants and guided tours) on private lands with only a few short hikes into the park itself.The paved road from the ferry to Cape Tribulation crosses the Daintree National Park in three areas; most of the drive is through private agricultural lands and settlements plastered with “Authorised Persons Only” signs on gates and “Private Keep Out” signs on fences. The trail to Mount Sorrow is the only public access we found into the mountains of the national park on the west side of Cape Tribulation Road. That’s probably a good thing (to protect what little is left of the rainforest in north Queensland), but frustrating for us based on decades of experience in U.S. national parks, which provide more interpretative opportunities (visitor centers, trail guides, interpretive talks, etc.) and much less commercialization. Daintree is advertised as one of the jewels of Australia’s national park system, and it is, but the emphasis along the only access road is on commercialization and not visitor experience, which is left in the hands of tour operators who sometimes look and sound like they’re just going through the motions.

Bridge over the Oliver River

Oliver River above the bridge

We crossed a bridge over the Oliver River and stopped at the pullout for the Majarra Botanical Walk. I set off with my camera and tripod, first upstream and then downstream from the bridge. There was no trail so my choice was to climb over slippery river rocks or slog through muddy rainforest. We ate lunch in the car during a downpour and then hiked the boardwalk that winds through a low-lying mangrove forest with at least four types of mangroves. The interpretive signs along the boardwalk were the best we’d seen, however, they were few in number. 

Majarra mangrove forest

Stream in the mangrove forest

Roots of the mangrove trees

There were saltwater crocodiles in the estuary and piles of cassowary poop on the boardwalk. I took a picture of the seed-filled piles – cassowaries are the “gardeners” of the rainforest, eating fruits and spreading seeds. I had pictures of warning signs along the road and now, cassowary poop, so we knew the birds were here. 

Majarra estuary

Cassowary warning sign on the road through Daintree rainforest

Cassowary poop on the Majarra Botanical Walk

We left Majarra and within a minute, Rande spotted two cassowaries walking along the road. I pulled over, turned on the flashers and got out with my camera. A brightly colored adult and a drab-brown juvenile walked slowly along the edge of the forest foraging in the leaf litter. They ducked in and out of the trees a couple of times. I followed on the other side of the road for a 100 m (330 ft). We knew that cassowaries can be aggressive and dangerous (link), but the adult mostly ignored me. 

 Adult and juvenile cassowaries

Cassowaries are flightless birds (ratites) native to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and northeastern Australia. There are three extant species and the southern cassowary, which occurs in tropical forests of Australia, is the most common and the third largest bird after ostriches and emus. Males and females are similarly colored, but the females are larger and dominant with a larger casque (crest), longer bill and more brightly-colored bare skin. Juveniles are drab brown (link).

Cassowaries foraging along the road

When the adult stopped to preen at the edge of the forest, I moved closer; it turned its head and looked directly at me. At 2 m (6 ft) tall, it was like looking into the eyes of a blue-faced, crested dinosaur. Unperturbed, they continued their slow, steady walk eventually melting into the forest. I crossed the road and peered through the trees; I could hear them, but I couldn’t see them. Seeing the cassowaries made our week.

Adult cassowary watching me

Continuing south, we stopped at Jindalba Boardwalk. It was late afternoon and we were tired. There were two hikes: a short, circular boardwalk and a 3 km (1.9 mi) dirt trail. We did the shorter hike through the rainforest. The highlight was 5-m (16-ft) king ferns (link), which haven’t changed for 300 million years. Unbelievable. 

King Ferns along the Jindalba Boardwalk

At the ferry landing, cars were lined up the road. I got out for a walk and took a picture of the crocodile warning sign at the river. We were back in Port Douglas by dark.

Saltwater crocodile warning sign at the Daintree River

Two days after we returned from the Daintree, I came down with a cold. I may have caught it among the hordes of tourists at the pullouts and boardwalks. I wasn’t going diving for a while. Bummer.