More wildness. More teetering on the brink. I stumbled back to the caravan thinking what a spectacularly steamy spot Daintree was, and how you could actually smell in the trees the knowledge that there was only one way in and one way out.

The river – That River – was just visible from our back window. In the early evening we walked down to it through the camping ground, past a man in a pure white Balinese shirt chanting a simplified mantra. We stood on the jetty, where there was a sign warning us to beware the very things we’d come to see. And where a couple of steel passenger boats, finished with business for the day, were moored. We strolled along the bank, warily, watching for sudden movements in the water, mistaking bits of floating twig or debris for snouts.

The river wound through country which reminded me, in this season and at this time of evening, of Devon. High, lush and confidently various. But it was the greeny-grey of the river itself, its still menace, that told you you were a long way from Chulmleigh and Totnes. That and the mosquitoes and the sea eagles and the thundering of lizards’ feet in the undergrowth. We stayed down there longer than we should, and strayed too close to the water, half mesmerized by the danger. Then we climbed back up the grassy bank to the caravan park.

Outside the office a couple of soft-voiced desperadoes on motorbikes were conferring about camp prices. One of them was Irish and spoke with a chilling melodious lilt. I remembered the play Night Must Fall, and the use it made of the song ‘Danny Boy’, associating murder with mellifluence. The Irish boy thought $2.50 was quite a bit to pay for a strip of grass to unfurl his sleeping roll on. ‘Do you get a shower and toilet block for that?’ he wanted to know. The woman with the wild expectant stare X-rayed his saddle bags. And seemed to like what she saw. Instead of telling them to go somewhere else, a million miles from here, she was intent on making them feel at home. ‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘How far into the bush do you think you’ve come?’

She smiled at me, as I was passing. I smiled back, quickly and faintly. I didn’t want the inadequates on the bikes to think I was smiling at them.

We stood outside our caravan and watched the sky go pink over the Dagmar Ranges. Palm leaves swayed and creaked against parked vehicles. The undergrowth began to stir. We waited until the last reflection of light had gone from the evil river, then we went inside.