Camping in the Daintree Rainforest
Summary
For most people, the Australian East Coast trip ends at Cairns as it’s the last town to fly back from. But, if you continue just another couple of hours north you hit the UNESCO World Heritage listed Daintree Rainforest which is the oldest continually surviving tropical rainforest in the world. The whole north trip from Cairns feels like you’re escaping the well trodden tourist path as you need to cross flooded roads, say goodbye to electricity from anything other than generators and leave yourself open to nature. You have jellyfish stopping you swimming in some places, the constant sound of birdsong and insects of the jungle, and frogs getting just about everywhere. A real getting back to nature experience – but prepare to get very very wet!
highlights
#1 The wonderful rainforest all around you with Curtained Strangler Fig Trees and all the other unusual sites
#2 The adventure of it all as you try to cross flooded roads and generally leave a bit of civilisation behind you
#3 Exploring, but definitely not swimming, by the white sand beaches
#4 The cute frogs that get just about everywhere!
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Jungle Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone