It started to rain about mid morning. We had seen it coming for a while with the clouds forming on the top of the mountains. It made it a lovely view what we could see though the mist and rain.  It did make it an interesting drive as the road took us over hill and dale.

It is a good thing we were taking in everything as we came round a corner to find two people on horses. I think we were more surprised than they were. We are not used to see people on horses on the road. Cows yes, goats yes, the odd sheep or bird and defiantly kangaroos, lots of kangaroos but horses with people, no.

We were going to spend the night at a van park then head off to Cape Tribulation the next day. We had placed the address for the park into our GPS but it was one of those times when the address and the GPS system didn’t agree with each other and we missed out turn. Once we had passed the van park we knew where we had gone wrong. The GPS system told us to continue on up a hill for about 5ks. Adrian decided to second-guess the system and when he saw an area he thought he could turn around in he pulled off the road. The area was lovely and green but also lovely and wet from the days rain. Things didn’t go according to plan and the car started to slide to the side of the hill in the wet grass. Adrian tried to correct the slide resulting in the car and van jack-knifing. When we came to a stop we both took that breath that everyone takes in moments like this. Adrian put the car into 4WD and we slowly pulled out of the wet area and back onto the road.

We parked up at the van park and while Adrian went to book in I stayed in the car. Good move as the people in front of us needed to back up. I jumped into the drivers seat and moved the car. I continued in the drivers seat with Adrian walking to where we would park up. When we found our spot Adrian started to give me direction on where he wanted me to park the van. I looked up to see Adrian giving a look of pain. Here I am thinking ‘what have I done wrong now?’ I jumped out of the car to tell him if he wasn’t happy with what I was doing he could take over.   He was shaking his head ‘what’s wrong’ I asked ‘I just noticed the car.’ When I turned to look I saw the damage. Behind the back bumper and an area over the tire had been dented in, as well the gas botte had been pushed over in its frame. Trying to be positive I said “Well that isn’t too bad considering we were almost killed.” Adrian raised an eyebrow at me. “Almost killed.” “Yes, did you see how close we were to the edge of the hill? If we had slid much more we would have gone over the hill and plunged to out deaths.” “Really Diane, really!” “Hey you tell the story your way and I will tell the story my way.”

Adrian’s story.

“We missed our stop and I turned a little way up the hill. The grass was wet and we slid a little resulting in the car being damaged.”

My story.

“The rain was lashing against the window making it almost imposable to see what was before us. We turned, that wrong decision taking us further and further away from our destination. Determined to correct the wrong of our journey Adrian turned the wheel. Little did he know what fate had in store for us? Little did he know what danger waited us?

As our car made the turn it took on a life of it’s own, slipped to the edge of the hill. Closer and closer it came to tumbling over the edge, stopping just a breath away from the brink.

When we realised we were safe we took a breath, taking in that sweet taste of life. We had survived.”

Adrian just looked at me with a raised eyebrow again as he dose and shook his head at me. (Like I said he can tell his story and I will tell mine. I like mine better.) I finished backing up the van and all was good except for the dents in the car.

It was a miserable day. The drizzling rain made everything worse. We took a walk round the campground. The van park had a ‘Historical Exhibition’ area that was free to enter (now that is my price range.) It didn’t take me long to look around. Probably the item to catch my eye was the old petrol pumps. Then there was the 1955 Ford. Not bad.

Everything was dusty and looked more like someone’s old shed than an exhibition but it was worth the look. No matter who you are I am sure you would find something of interest to you.

We continued our walk around the town. That didn’t take long either. The town sits on the Daintree River. Boat cruises were on offer, I guess so you could see some crocs but as we have seen crocs before we decided to enjoy the walk instead.