60. Sunday March 7 The rains broke yesterday with a remarkable silvery display of light streaming from the setting sun through black clouds over the mountains. Today was hot and steamy. Today we reached Mossman without mishap in Dates' official car. Splendid scenery along the Cook Highway, which connects Cairns with Mossman and Daintree. Curving bays with clean sand beaches. Rocky headlands jutting into the sea. Dark mountains piled up behind the coast. Sparkling rain water from the mountains rushing across the road in innumerable gullies and small creeks carried in invert crossings. And practically no traffic. Gasoline is rationed. After lunch in one of several small hotels in Mossman, we were driven out to the gorge by Harold Lane, manager of the town hydro plant. Following a narrow road which sided along the south side of the gorge through magnificent tall rain- forest littered with giant boulders of granite, we came to the powerhouse in about a mile from the edge of the sugar fields. About another quarter mile up the gorge was the intake, on Rex Creek, a large feeder of the Mossman. Climbing epiliths of several species grew in unusual quantities on the trunks of the big trees; some sending out their fleshy leaves radially, some spreading their leaves flat on the tree bark and clinging as close as a creeping moss. Shade-loving ferns covered the rocks. Clear cool water rushing white over and between rounded rocks, or swirling and eddying slowly in pools of pale emerald green in the river. Blue and black Ulysses butterflies in zigzag flight over a sandy swimming beach below the powerhouse. Sixteen years ago, when I collected here, the gorge could be penetrated only 1/2 mile or so by a cut track. The hydro plant was installed in 1938. The only disturbance to vegetation is the road, and a narrow strip cleared for the buried 6 inch pipeline which supplies Mossman with water. Mossman Gorge a perfect place for a [illegible] collecting camp in rain-forest. Room for two or three men at the caretaker's quarters at the power house. Cut tracks go 2000 feet up the sides of the gorge and to the summit of Mt. Demi (c. 3500 ft.). The one drawback is that the Gorge has been declared a national park. Lane drives out to the powerhouse twice a day and would do our transport. On way back from gorge we called in at Mango Park sugar plantation. One of the original plantations, established over 50 years ago and one of the few properties that have not been sold to Italians. Owned by Mrs. Johnston and family, who were very kind to me back in 1932. Fine plantings of ornamental trees and shrubs about the old bungalow. Met Arthur Taylor, pest control officer employed by the local sugar farmers. Were his guests at the bowling club, where we met a number of the townsmen and sugar growers. Men and women, in white, trundling bowls on a green lawn. Back- ground of sugarfields and cloud-topped dark mountains. Pleasant sight.