Cape Tribulation is sold short by its name. Maybe it’s the getting there; it must be the getting there. You cross the Daintree River on a charming little ferry – it’s seriously croc infested (the river, not the ferry) – then wend along a narrow, windy road. High rainforested hills sweep up to your left, the coral sea glitters out to your right. It is, apart from perhaps that veranda at Red Mill House, the most enchanting place. This cape exemplifies the Australian specialisation of beautifully sweeping curves, and honest-to-goodness palm trees on sand so white it hurt. Then the blue, blue, blue.
We spent an unforgivably luxurious afternoon paddling (on the safe side of a sandbar, in water an inch deep), practising handstands (I don’t know why this has become a beach tradition of ours) and I read while the Gentleman built a little fort with a good coaching house on its little road. It was just extraordinary; you must ask him about it. A rhythmic knocking above our heads caught our attention and we turned to see another black butcherbird butchering a coconut. It fell down and cracked. We actually picked it up and drank the water that trickled out of it, like a pair of goddamn children-of-nature. Freakin’ idyllic. Then we strolled along the Dubuji track – a boardwalk through the mangroves which was also captivating. We had been assured by a girl at the servo next door that we might meet a cassowary. I’m not sure I want to meet a cassowary, I said. Oh, they’re ok; they’re pretty curious, she said, they can come right up to you. I’m not sure I want them to come right up to me, I said, they can bloody kill you with one knife edged foot. In fact, if I see one, I want a clear space in the other direction and nothing stopping me from keeping it in clear view. What I don’t want, is to be trapped on a narrow boardwalk surrounded by snake-infested swamps. But she assured us it was fine, and, not knowing if this was again the risk tolerance, safety reality, or actual bloody ruthlessness of northerners, we shrugged and went.
A word on mangroves. They are hauntingly lovely places. I don’t know why haunting, I’m trying to resist an inevitably gothic comparison, and in their deep, moist shade there is something gothic, something shadowed and mysterious. But not threatening. I don’t know, maybe meeting Kuku Yalanji people, reading about Aboriginal culture and meeting lots of people talking about their culture means that a person never again can approach the spaces of Australia with the attitude of Joan Lindsay in Picnic at Hanging Rock or… or bloody Lawrence. It is vast, but it is not an unknown place of terror to be conquered. It is deeply, deeply known, and deeply loved by people who have known and loved it for thousands of years; who will share that knowing and love. It’s something I can feel. Ok, chaps, fade back in, I’m finished, either way, the mangroves gave me that tingly feeling of excitement that forest river pools give me when the words of Jenny Greenteeth songs slip into my head.
Right, and THEN we shot down to another campsite that had freakin’ fresh stone-baked pizza, so we smashed two of them like a pair of hungry bastards, crushed a couple of beers and watched the moon rise over the sea. JESUS, I shouldn’t be allowed such loveliness. Then back at our tiny little cabin at Safari Lodge (this place, despite being waist deep in rainforest, does an awesome almond flat white, breakfast fritters and noodle salads), we sat outside in the dark watching little marsupials nip in and out of the bushes.
After visiting ice cream making fruit orchards and tea plantations, and getting MANGED (eaten by insects, as the Gentleman calls it), we regretfully left the rainforest. Yeah, I was pretty gutted. I could have stayed there another full week listening to the lolla-palooo calls of wompoo fruit-doves and the oli-oli-oli calls of the olive-backed orioles, the ever-present peaceful dove, and the sound of the sea. And the drive was the last chance to listen to Murder Ballads all the way through, so, heart break all round.
I have never been snorkelling before.
As a child, watching The Little Mermaid like all children do, except, apparently, the Gentleman, I thought being able to breathe underwater and chill with fishies would be just awesome. The sort of thing ya couldn’t drag me away from.
Turns out, it’s a lot harder than I thought.
At the age of 15, I discovered that getting out of a wetsuit is one of the hardest things a human can do in their life. Twenty-two years later, I bloody stand by that. On board Coral Sea Dreaming, I dragged the horrific latex thing off one shoulder, and it took me a bit too long to realise that in the struggle I’d whapped a bap out, which was, unbeknown to me, enjoying the sea breeze completely unencumbered by my bikini. Of course, I did what any dignified adult woman would do, which was exclaim loudly in horror, oh shit, look! I’ve pulled my boob out…
Christ, Chris.
But I’ve noticed that in the telling of my adventures to chums, that snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef – a lifetime ambition for any human that has ever seen Finding Nemo – consistently comes last. This is not just because it was the last thing we did. I’ve been pondering. I think because it is so otherworldly, so unlike any thing I have ever done before, that I don’t know how to explain it. I haven’ learned how to tell it. There is no point in a human’s life when you are lying flat, facing down, and watching things move ten feet below you. Floating face down and looking, seeing, is not something humans are built for. It’s completely unique.
And a bit fucken scary.
First you put your big old goggles on, and there’s a bit that goes over your nose. This, as we know, is to close off that orifice so you only breathe through the tube you put in your mouth. Of course the minute I put the goggles on, I tried and failed to breathe through my nose, which made me panic, then putting something huge in my mouth was pretty uncomfortable. Oy, stop it. Then when you’ve figured out a few breaths, you do what you are taught from birth never to do, which is put your face straight down into the water; and breathe in.
Bleaurgh. So I got the hang of that a bit, even graduated away from the pool noodle, but I managed to keep sucking in sea water, so I’d panic and surface again, and stare out over miles and miles of open, wide sea and feel lonely and scared with the waves breaking over me and my toe rubbing roughly against the flippers as I tried to stay upright. The impossibly tanned, impossibly beautiful young people on the boat were very kind about my ineptness and the lovely long-haired young man told me to pout more, as if for insta; that stops the water coming in, he said. Millennials and their adaptivity.
Eventually I calmed down a bit and got to stare at some fishes. We saw a beautiful little turtle, frowning in that wise and thoughtful way that they do. Not towards us, like in the picture above. In fact, he took one look at us and swiveled round right back where he came from. Gracefully. But disdainfully. Huge coral plants had tiny little fishes darted around out of time with the current and tides. We rounded over big bommies (like under water mountains or something) and swam right into huge shoals of fish of every colour. Some had hilarious bulbous heads, like really big foreheads or frowns. Others were gracefully tiny, all blue with yellow tails. The implausible parrotfish were shimmery purple and green. A little whitetip reef shark shimmied its way below me as I stared down.
As we got more used to it, I suggested we just sort of hang out in one place and watch. And that was wonderful. We lay spread-eagled on the surface, breathing carefully, and feeling ourselves being gently buffeted by the current, left-right-right; left-right-right; left-right-right. With all the fish that were doing it too. Left-right-right. Left-right-right. For days afterwards when I closed my eyes, there was that gentle surrender of left-right-right, with an imprinted halo of cold around my head where it peeped above the water, the weightless feeling and the fish left-right-right-ing with me.
One thing you don’t expect is how soooooore your foreheads get from the goggles pressing deeply into your brow, and your teeth ache like hell for hours afterwards from clamping down on your snorkel tube for dear life.
But the whole affair was delicious, hours of cruising across the sea and bouncing on the purple-blue with the green rainforest mountains behind us; lolling in hammocks reading books while a whole freakin’ pod of dolphins followed the boat, writing, making new friends, squealing over a minke whale that came to explore what this funny, big, whale-like thing was that ejected these funny little spiders. Oddly, the gender balance was completely the opposite from the Kimberley trip, and it created a different tone. I took my customary role as group gob-shite, and a wonderful woman, Margaret, who was #vanlife-ing her way around Australia (because she was wanted at home, not needed – isn’t that beautiful? Life goal) gently teased the only men into submission and quiet.
We all drank a lot of beer, ate tacos and watched the full moon rise over the sea. And I fell asleep trying to think of ways to describe the gentle, endless left-right-right as the waves gently tapped the boat in an eternal game of It.