Australia - Captain Cook Highway

To start with, stop the car and get out. Allow yourself to be fully absorbed by the sight of the Pacific at Yarrabah Beach on Aboriginal lands. And then slowly turn towards the land, as if setting foot on Australian soil for the first time. Welcome to Queensland: The route along the East Coast follows an important part of Captain Cook's first South Seas voyage, when he was the first European to explore this part of the world. But now at the wheel of an open-top Sports Car, which really only comes into its own with a headwind. The route snakes through the territory of the Aborigines on a coastal road around the mangroves of Trinity Bay. In Cairns, it then meets up with the Captain Cook Highway, which it follows right to the end, past increasingly deserted beaches, accompanied by an impenetrable rainforest, which pushes closer to the coast with every mile. The tropical rainforest dominates everything here, and that also applies to the well-built coastal roads. The most spectacular time to travel is the start of the monsoon period when the waterfalls overflow and the rainforest gleams, but the dips in the road are not yet flooded. Of course only if you have the confidence to travel at this time, or better if you can trust the road grip of your vehicle. The start of the Captain Cook Highway gives the driver the opportunity to get used to these road conditions. But from Wangetti onwards at the latest, the bends get serious and test the limits of the car's PSM. The half-way point is reached not much further on in Port Douglas, with everything that promises relaxation. In Mossman, the Captain Cook Highway ends abruptly and practically in the middle of nowhere. Only a ferry over the Daintree River links civilisation with the route's final destination: Cape Tribulation at the centre of Daintree National Park. It is no surprise that the road named after the explorer ends here. After all, this is the place where he was shipwrecked and stranded with the »Endeavour«. A less symbolic reason is the fact that the rainforest swallows up the land here and finally extends to the sea. The route through the park becomes a trail for explorers here. With a little luck, it may be possible to catch a glimpse of a shy cassowary along the way. Or as an alternative to these large flightless birds, it is possible to explore an untouched lagoon. Naturally only if it is not already occupied by crocodiles. At the end, it is time to get back into the car again and step out of Cook's footsteps. It is hard to imagine that, once, it was a great ordeal to be stranded here for a while.