Before I start this section, let me just say that I am really happy right now! I have been waiting for most of the day for a bus which leaves this evening, and the woman in Backpackers World agency noticed that I have been here all day and offered me free e-mail, since they are not busy right now. How cool is that, especially since I am broke and have been longing to finish this journal before I leave Australia tomorrow.

So, cape trib...cape trib is perhaps the most remote spot in Australia that I visited. About 2 hours north of Cairns, Cape Tribulation is a section of the Cape York peninsula, a rainforested, largely uninhabited area on Queensland's northeastern coast. During the wet season (summer) most of the Cape York peninsula cannot be traveled, since there are not proper roads, only dirt tracks that flood when it rains. Even in drier times, much of the peninsula can only be reached by 4 wheel drive vehicles. Cape Trib is not quite on that level, but it is still mostly uninhabited, save for a few hostels and a general store. I stayed at an orchard farm, where I was provided with tons of free fruit! The area is surrounded by the daintree rainforest, and much of the rainforest contains aborignal sacred places. Most natural spots in Australia, you will find, have some sort of meaning to the aboriginal people, but the aboriginals do not always publicize what the meaning is, as some rituals, stories and traditions are only for select people to be privy to.

The Cape Trib area is touted as being the only spot in the world where two world heritage listed areas meet each other --the Daintree Rainforest and the great Barrier Reef. Luckily Australian advertising is pretty meager, for I would hate to see Cape Tribulation turn into something overrun by scores of tourists. As it is, Australians are pretty good about developing land so that it complements its natural environment, rather then destroying it, but there is probably only so much that the land can withstand. Cape Trib is amazingly beautiful, mostly because it is so unspoilt. You set out walking through deep forest, in which only a small path has been cut, under scores of mangrove trees, listening to the rainforest birds. And at the end of the path, you step out onto a beach that is completely deserted, so empty that you cannot even see footprints of previous visitors. At one point, I exited the forest onto a section of beach that was isolated by the water - waves came up on both the front and the side, effectively cutting off passage from one section of beach to the next. The water was deep enough on the side that you couldn't walk through it. As I was lazy, I decided to wait for the tide to recede rather then walk back through the forest, and so I stayed on that isolated strip of beach for nearly two hours before the water fell back enough to allow me to continue walking on land. Felt a bit like a castaway, I did!

On the way back to Cairns from cape Trib, we stopped and took a river cruise on the Daintree River, which winds through a portion of the rainforest and the peninsula. the Daintree is infamous for being crocodile-infested, so that should tell you that it is not a pretty river. Rather, it is a stretch of brown, muddy water, with trees hanging over it on both sides. It is within these tree roots that you search for the crocodiles as they have an afternoon siesta in the sun. We only spotted one, and a baby at that - 2 meters - but I kept convincing myself that every floating log was really the nastiest, most dangerous croc in the river.