Places We Won't be Visiting Again. Part I

This is our third visit to this great continent. There are many places I'd love to show you, but as we've been there before, we won't be visiting again. I've been thinking what a great shame it is that some of these won't be appearing on the blog, so I'm going to share them with you anyway. They might explain my love-affair with Australia.

This is Cape Tribulation on the coast of Far North Queensland. It's where the Australian rainforest meets the sea and is probably top of my list of favorite memories. We approached Cape Tribulation from Port Douglas in a 4WD minibus with our luggage in a trailer, crossing the crocodile-infested river Daintree on a chain-ferry(which is a car ferry snaking along a chain from one side of the river to the other). It was banana season, so you could have anything to eat or drink provided it was banana-flavoured.

We stayed in a log cabin here for three nights and used it as a base to visit the Low Isles, where we went diving on the great barrier reef and saw birds amusingly named "Brown Boobies". The local wildlife included pigmy possums, saltwater crocodiles and enormous tropical spiders.

There was only one shop in the area. It was called "Mason's Stores" and was a grocery shop where you basically pointed at what you wanted, in the manner of Arkwright's shop. Mr Mason owned a croc-free water hole out the back, where you could go swimming in the knowledge that nothing would bite you on the bum. The beach had a backdrop of coconut palms. We spent ages throwing rocks up at the trees without dislodging a single coconut for our trouble. There's probably a knack to it.

I've dreamt about it for years; it's not somewhere you'd take a toddler.