Up to Port Douglas

Tablelands Termite Mound
Rosie, Our Dreamtime Guide

We’d heard mixed reviews of Port Douglas. Our Adelaide hosts compared it to touristy Queenstown in the South Island of NZ, but Keila was very positive. She’s arranged for us to stay in a tourist apartment owned by her friend, Margaret. We didn’t have an exact address, only a general location and a phone number, so we headed off via the tablelands. Surprisingly one has to drive only about ½ hour to this area that is a completely different terrain and climate than the rainforest. Soon we were passing giant termite mounds and fields of sugar cane, though you see the cane in the rain forest too. There are lots of cows and Henri just had an exhibition that featured the cows of the tablelands.

We stopped at a tourist information station and asked about the Port Douglas area. The people there were very disappointed we were only passing through the tablelands and didn’t actually know much about the area where we were headed. We visited their Tablelands Heritage Museum trying to absorb as much local history as possible in a short amount of time. The displays were informative and interesting but we would have needed more time to derive the full benefit of all their hard work.

Before too long we’d arrived at the Mossman Gorge area where we planned to take a one hour hike. I was very interested in the Dreamtime Walk organized by the Kuku Yulangi tribe. We signed up for the 1 o’clock tour and donned our hiking socks and boots upon the recommendation of the person who sold us the tickets. We met Rosie who was to be our guide for 1 ½ hours. She explained that she was one woman working with four men and that we would get a tour from the woman’s point of view. We headed off into the rainforest taking shelter from the rain under the tall trees. We followed a serpentine path through the forest stopping to look at trees, fruits, nuts and sacred spots. At the “women’s place” she asked Duncan to wait up the hill while she explained to me the significance of the site. The men had their spots too so I guess I would have been sent away had our guide been male.

We didn’t learn about any of the creation stories on this tour which is what I was anticipating given the name of the walk. However we learned about the role of women within the tribe. At the end Rosie served us tea and damper (bread that would have been cooked in an oven in the ground in the “good old days” as Rosie kept saying. She answered our questions, and we headed for the Mossman Gorge. Unfortunately the whole area was under construction so we gave up our idea of a hike, but saw a few of the accessible spots and headed for Port Douglas.

The town was much nicer than I anticipated, in fact it wasn’t like Queenstown at all. It did have lots of tourist accommodation, some very chic , and holiday homes. We went to the intersection suggested by Keila and asked at one tourist apartment if the woman on reception knew Margaret. She shook her head no, but then when we showed her our map, she pointed across the way and told us we’d find her there. Sure enough Margaret was there and led us up to apartment #4, our home for the next two nights. She encouraged us to take a tour of the Daintree National Rainforest but said it might be too late to sign up for the best one. After studying the literature, we asked her to check, but she was correct, we’d have to come back another time. Duncan studied the brochure and tried to replicate the tour as best he could. We had to leave out the Bloomfield Falls section that required a 4WD. I remembered the unsealed roads with ten fords in Wanaka and decided we’d stick to the main road.

We had a great dinner at The Tin Hut, one of Margaret’s recommendations sharing a giant tub of prawns and had the fish special while sitting outside looking out over the water at the passing boats. The place was really hopping, and it was actually a club but the public was invited to dine there. Lucky us.