For our stay in the rainforest, I had taken a good look on the internet and come to the conclusion that the Cape Tribulation Resort and Spa at Coconut Beach (which I'm going to refer to as Coconut Beach from this point on so as not to wear my fingers out) would fit the bill nicely. It seemed to be a perfect romantic retreat with just enough of a back-to-nature feel without requiring us to lose some of the home comforts we were used to. Besides which, there's something about paying an arm and a leg to stay somewhere really nice and then being told that you have to fetch your own water from a well fifteen minutes walk away which doesn't appeal to me - I'm funny like that. On my previous visit to the area in 1998, I had stayed at a rainforest youth hostel and slept in a large permanent tent structure with nothing between me and all the things that wanted to eat me than a thin sheet of canvas and a prayer. This time, I was with Eloise and I wanted to take her somewhere where we could enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by nature without necessarily having a generator which was switched off at midnight, plunging us into darkness and forcing us to go to bed whether we liked it or not - this had been one of the things which had made me want to gnaw my own arm off with frustration back at the youth hostel. The resort at Coconut Beach certainly wasn't the only romantic retreat hidden away in the rainforest, but I was particularly attracted to the photos of wooden cabins poking out from between the trees and of Coconut Beach itself, and it was one of those occasions when I didn't really need to get much beyond the first page of the website to know I wanted to take Eloise there. After looking briefly at another resort which boasted about having treetop cabins until I was really interested and then added in passing that I'd need to sell my house to afford to stay there, I settled on Coconut Beach.

Guided rainforest walks were available from reception, but to be honest it seemed just a little on the daft side to spend money on getting somebody to walk us through the forest, something we were obviously more than capable of doing ourselves. We did opt to take the nocturnal walk, however, and I'll be getting on to that in a moment, but during the day it was easy enough to stroll casually among the trees around our retreat - especially as somebody had thought to lay down wooden boardwalks to guide us. The first reaction to this was one of indignation, the idea of getting back to nature not really being consistent with following preset pathways through the trees, but when you think about how much rain the Daintree gets it soon becomes obvious that not sticking to the boardwalks would probably result in the average visitor sinking up to their knees in mud at every step. Upon arrival at the resort, our driver pointed out a particularly strange knobbly tree by reception which looked like something from an alien planet (we referred to it affectionately as the lumpy bumpy tree) and also reminded me of something I had been warned about back at the Crocodylus - there were innocent looking trees out there which could put you in hospital for six months in the worst agony imaginable just because you brushed up against them. Perhaps having a boardwalk to guide us wasn't such a bad idea after all.

When booking our visit to the Coconut Beach resort, my choice of accommodation had consisted of either something which looked like a pretty standard hotel room with ordinary drab looking walls, or a free standing rainforest retreat with wooden walls and designed to feel like a cabin in the woods. Well, obviously it was a no-brainer which I was going to choose - but just in case I wasn't certain, the website went on to point out that the rainforest retreats were true eco-havens with lots of privacy and only the absolute best rainforest views. "Well, I'm sold" I remember thinking at the time, "where do I sign?"

Our stay was everything I could've hoped it would be. From reception, a narrow winding path sloped gently upward and disappeared into the forest, branching off in one direction towards the pool and in the other towards the well-hidden rainforest retreats. Nestled among the trees and with a small pathway leading up to a wooden porch, our cabin already looked perfect before we'd even gone inside. Once through the door, however, things only got better and I immediately wished I'd booked a longer stay. Everything seemed to be made of either wood or wicker, from the walls to the bed to the floor - even the compulsory ceiling fan, without which the average human being staying in the Daintree would soon melt into a small puddle of water even when it's pouring with rain, had wooden blades and looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. The wooden slats making up the walls were solid enough, but somehow still managed to rattle slightly at night when the wind was strong,adding to the feel that we really were sleeping in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Night-time was by far the best time to be in our cabin, when the sounds of the forest could clearly be heard all around and we could lay in bed, close our eyes and just listen to unknown things yelling at each other for no apparent reason in the darkness outside. If that happened back home, even the bravest of souls would soon be cowering under the bed or pulling the sheets over them in panic, teeth chattering loudly - but here it was all just part of the experience. Unfortunately, the hot tap in our cabin waited until we were ready for bed on the first night before deciding that now would be a good time to rattle a lot and make loud screeching noises rather than actually producing any water, but this was the only complaint. Reception was only supposed to be open until 11pm but, to their eternal merit, they had provided us with a comprehensive welcome pack which listed the number of a twenty-four hour on-site odd-job man who put on a very convincing act of not being at all put out to be woken up at midnight and dragged out of his comfy bed to come and fix our tap.

Over the road from reception, past the lumpy bumpy tree and through an arched walkway which seemed to be strangely attractive to frogs, meals were served at an on-site restaurant called The Cape. The brochure in our room promised that this would be our number one destination for mealtimes, but unfortunately it was misinformed. A large wooden structure, apparently built to resemble an Indonesian long house (whatever one of those is), the building was carefully hidden from the road in keeping with the whole eco-friendly theme. One wall was entirely filled with windows looking out onto the rainforest and it even had its very own swimming pool, just in case you really felt like ignoring a lifetime of medical advice and going swimming immediately after your meal. It probably would've been a lovely place to eat. Unfortunately, one look at the menu was enough to tell us that The Cape had fallen into the irritatingly common trap of assuming that everyone going on holiday wants to be lavished with exotic dishes they've never heard of and will probably never see again anyway. Eloise is a vegetarian, and out of the six hundred million dishes on the menu she had a choice of about two. Myself, I've always been more of an egg and chips sort of bloke, so offering me a choice of exotic fruits and a range of dishes inspired by South East Asia is pretty much the same thing as asking if I would like to be taken out into the middle of the rainforest and quietly shot through the head. Luckily for both of us, although The Cape was the only restaurant on site, the "town" of Cape Trib wasn't too far away.

About Simon and Burford's Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.