September 10 - spring break trip

This morning I was the first person to get up in the room. I got a shower, packed my backpack, and then left for the hike up to the lookout of Mount Sorrow. I saw a few birds on the hike, one of the highlights being a beautiful green, tan, black, and red noisy pitta. The trail up the mountain ended up being very natural, with little or no improvements made for hikers. It pretty much resembled a turkey or deer path through the woods back home, winding around and between trees, and often with vegetation that almost made the path disappear. It ended up being an amazing hike, because I felt like I was actually hiking through a jungle/rainforest the entire time. I ended up having to crawl over/under three or four logs along the way, and much of the trail was very steep. Some parts of the trail toward the top were especially steep, and I held onto small trees to help pull myself up and save the energy in my legs. Right before the top it flattened out a bit and you were literally walking on top of large boulders with steep dropoffs on either side. Finally, after stopping only a few times to look at birds, I arrived at the lookout. The sign at the beginning of the trail said that “greater than average fitness” was required to complete the hike, and I wholeheartedly concur, as it took me almost 2.5 hours to hike the 3.5k trail (just over two miles).

The view from the lookout on Mount Sorrow was spectacular. You could see the ridgetops of several mountains to the west, covered in green rainforest, and then to the east and southeast you could see the ocean. I had my binoculars with me and through the haze I was able to spot a few buildings from Cairns (about 3 hours away, down the coast), and Port Douglas was much more readily visible (1.5 or so hours away). The view from the lookout definitely made it worth the work of hiking up. There were two Canadians and two Irish people at the lookout when I arrived. I ate my packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while I soaked in the view before setting out on the return hike down the mountain. I tried to walk fairly quickly down the mountain to determine how fast one could descend if there were no stops. I found out it was actually harder in some ways going down, because your knees and quads get really tired from controlling the steep steps that are required to get down many the steep slope. It took me almost one hour and twenty minutes to walk back down, and by that time my legs were feeling quite exhausted. This was definitely the most strenuous and difficult hike I have ever done. But one of the most beautiful as well!

This afternoon I mostly just spent time relaxing and enjoying my vacation. J At one point I walked up the beach to the next beach just beyond the cape, and laid out in the sun for an hour or so. Walking back to my hostel was a chore after this because my legs were still exhausted from the 4.5 mile hike earlier today. This afternoon there was a reggae band playing at the bar at the hostel, but unfortunately I’m not a huge fan of reggae. The entire band was a bunch of hippies, and I’ve realized that what the bus driver said about Cape Tribulation having a lot of hippies was true. Out of the locals, a fair number have dredlocks in their hair. The reggae band was especially hippie, with all of the members having dreds and long hair, and most also dressed in “hippie clothes”. The lead singer was definitely one of the most hippie of them all, with long dreds and graying hair, red pants, a yellow sweater with a purple and orange shirt visible underneath, and he was always barefoot.