North Queensland has the oldest rainforest on the planet, and it stands beside the Great Barrier Reef, with the two meeting in a few places where the trees come down to the sea. Edmund Kennedy National Park lies on the coast near Cardwell, between the Bruce Highway and the Coral Sea, and it protects a lowland strip of tropical rainforest, mangroves and swamps. It is named after the explorer Edmund Kennedy, who landed in the nearby Rockingham Bay in 1848 on an expedition to Cape York, and died after months of hardship, speared by Aboriginal men near the northern tip. Only three of his party of thirteen survived, thanks in part to Jackey Jackey, an Aboriginal guide who stayed with him.
The park is part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland, listed by UNESCO in 1988, which are among the oldest continuously surviving rainforests, with plants whose lineage goes back well over a hundred million years. The cassowary, a huge flightless bird with a blue neck and a casque like a helmet, lives here, and warning signs along the road ask drivers to slow down. In tidal creeks, saltwater crocodiles are present, so it is not a place to swim, and from November to May, box jellyfish, the stingers, make the sea dangerous.
The Bruce Highway runs through Cardwell and Tully, and the road is long, straight in places, and at other points, particularly the Cardwell Range, a winding climb with views over Hinchinbrook Island. Speed limits are enforced, traffic includes road trains and tourist buses, and wildlife on the road, from wallabies to cassowaries, requires care at dawn and dusk. Remember to keep to the left. The wet season, from December to March, brings heavy rain and the occasional cyclone, and Cardwell and Tully were hit hard by Cyclone Yasi in 2011.
Cardwell, a small seaside town, has fuel and a good seafront, and Tully, which claims to be the wettest town in Australia, has more shops. Murray Falls, up a side road, gives a pleasant walk through rainforest. Carry water, wear insect repellent and keep an eye on the clock, because daylight ends quickly in the tropics, and the best months for riding are May to October.