We headed to a tourist information center around 8am but they were not yet open so we hit up a nearby boardwalk through the rainforest. This is where we saw plenty of cool terrain but nothing as spectacular as I had seen in the pictures. I knew there were a lot of other walks available in the area, called Cape Tribulation, and that all of them required under an hour to complete. I felt like I needed to get deeper into the wilderness to see what I wanted to see and there was only one hike over an hour – Mt Sorrow at Cape Tribulation. Sounds like a real walk in the park, huh?
Well, I wanted more information before I embarked on this supposedly difficult hike requiring six to seven hours to complete. I was especially worried about the weather, as it was very cloudy and I didn’t want to be hiking up steep hills in the rain. So, back at the information center, we were “helped” by the real peach of lady who I nicknamed “Buttercup,” since she was so eager to help us out. I hope you sense my sarcasm. Well, on the subject of the Mt Sorrow Trail, what I got from dear sweet Buttercup was, “It’s closed.”
Well, okay then. I guess we would not be doing the Mt Sorrow walk but would be doing the shorter walks instead.
Or would we?
The Mt Sorrow trail was just about a mile further than another short walk we had planned on visiting. I decided we should go to the trail head and see if Buttercup was right about the trail or just being her dear sweet self and leaving it at “It’s closed.” As we got out of the car, another couple came from the trail head and confirmed it was closed. But they reasoned it was posted only so that rangers would not have to patrol the trail as they did in the past. They were Aussies and since they didn’t seem concerned about trekking forward despite the sign, I decided to trek on as well!
I was not prepared for what we would face. Now it had been marked that this was a difficult hike with steep grades. Yeah, okay, we can handle some steep hills, bring it on. What I was not prepared for was how little of a path there was! Within the first ten minutes, we had to stop twice to try and figure out where to go! Everything was so wild and grown that the path was pretty unclear at parts and we found ourselves walking through branches and leaves and thorns even when we were on the right trail! Of course, on top of that, it was muddy which made trekking uphill a little dangerous, especially as Nick did not have the best of shoes. I was also failing to see the huge trees I was hoping to see! Thank goodness there was at least a breeze coming through to ease the discomfort of the heat and the humidity!
So the worst part were these thorny vines we had to pass through from time to time. They were terrible for our clothes. They would latch on to our pants or our shirts or our hats and rip up the threads! I came out alright as I walked very carefully but Nick got a few threads fluffed up on his hat, two or three de-threadings on both shoulders of his shirt, and a rip in his pants!! Sheesh! On top of that, he was slipping quite a bit with his not-so-great hiking shoes in the mud.
After a half hour, Nick said, “I would rather be at work.” That’s when I knew just how bad this experience was and that it would be ending very very soon.
So, we turned around and what was supposed to be a six hour hike ended up being just an hour. But we were both very okay with that. It wasn’t worth the trouble when I wasn’t seeing what I was looking for, though I should clarify there were plenty of cool big trees, just not as big as I had hoped. Nick and I decided that the Mt Sorrow trail at Cape Tribulation was well-named.
We ate lunch at the next little walk and completely the walk very quickly. It was much of the same we had seen on our first two walks of the day and we were starting to get bummed out. I had hoped there would be more than short walks in the area and I was hoping for more diversity too. I had even planned on spending some time at the beach there but some of the beach is inhabited by crocodiles so you can’t feel too comfortable tanning there and you can’t swim there either because of the deadly jellies in the water, which is brown instead of blue anyway! Not only were we disappointed but we were hot and feeling gross and greasy and tired. Frankly, we were wishing we were home.
Boo! I didn’t want to feel that way at all but what was there to do!
I could tell Nick was pretty tired so we went back to camp and somehow slept in our hot little tent. What a lame way to spend your afternoon in a rainforest but I think we needed a break. We both slept for a long time, despite the heat.
We woke up feeling better but still dirty and gross. I saw a swimming hole on the map we had, located just behind the information center. So we went back there and actually had a very enjoyable swim in a little creek. There was a rope swing but we didn’t try it because the water was pretty shallow so you really could just skid into the water and drop just a few feet from the shore. Everyone who did it looked clumsy.
We felt very refreshed, however, and I had to go exploring downstream. I can’t help the call of the wild! I went a little ways and then beckoned for Nick to follow, which he did, the good sport that he is. We waded through the creek and I remembered hiking the Narrows in Zion Canyon, where I first fell in love with hiking in and along rivers.
I was hoping to spot some wildlife on our walk away from the crowded waterhole but we saw nothing. I was still glad to have ended our day on a good note instead of spending it all on Mt Sorrow and in our tent!
We did have a little scare on the way back to our tent, however. When leaving the waterhole, Nick noticed the bumper on our rental car was crunched up against the curb a little. Crap! He backed out and looked at it and tried to see if he could pop it back out a little. We drove back and I could tell Nick was pretty worried. Well, we got back to our campsite and looked at it again and I realized you could hardly tell anything had happened. There was a very small dent that you would have to know was there to even see , or maybe be carefully waxing the car to see. So we decided it would be alright and doubt they would notice or bother to say anything if they did. Phew!
We got in out tent, joked about how much we love the same foods we have to eat over and over again on this trip, and I tried to come up with something to do for the evening since I was out of battery life on the laptop and our Kindle is still broken. We got our face cards out – we really need to learn more face card games, especially with just one deck – and we ended up playing Solitaire together. I thought it would be boring but it was actually hard because we lost so many times! I had to play where you go three at a time in your deck so that makes it harder. We lost again and again and I was determined to win! So, two hours later, we finally won and I was glad to have found something to fill my time. Who knew I could be entertained by Solitaire!?
Luckily, the night was not nearly as hot as the night before so we were able to sleep comfortably, though still in our bare minimum.
Pictures:
Enjoy a trip through the oldest rainforest in the world! See how it meets up with the beach? We also have pictures at the swimming hole and our walk along the creek, including more mushrooms!
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