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Do expect a magnificent setting. Nestled at the edge of almost 2.2 million acres of tropical rain forest protected by a World Heritage listing, Daintree is bursting with a dizzying array of flora and fauna, including nearly half of Australia's bird species and what often sound like most of its frogs. Butterflies float among the palms like large leaves, their wings a flash of metallic blue in the shafts of sunlight.
Cathy and her husband Terry believe ardently in the restorative powers of the rain forest's pure air and water. They have both battled cancer in the past few years, and now they want to expand the lodge's range of therapies—such as naturopathy, yoga and meditation—and services to include healing retreats and corporate escapes. But their boutique-size spa has none of the hauteur you might expect at the Ritz. With room for only 30 guests, Daintree is so private that visitors are more likely to encounter a white-lipped tree frog than a fellow guest when they walk from their villa to the spa or the main dining room, the scent of quandong oil trailing behind them. Most guests—half of whom are overseas residents—head straight for the spa, where treatments range from the one-hour Walu BalBal facial, which uses wattle seeds and lillypilly berries, to the resort's signature indulgence, the decadent two-hour Walbul-Walbul, or Butterfly, treatment, which involves a full-body exfoliation with desert salts and plenty of warm mud.
All the water used on the property comes from the waterfall, which snakes over shining rocks like a silver ribbon. Before a flood of gold miners, loggers and sugarcane farmers pushed them from their traditional lands, women from the Kuku Yalanji Aboriginal tribe visited the large pool at the base of the fall to make quartz knives and pounding stones. These days Keely Naden visits the same spot her ancestors knew so well, but now she takes lodge guests with her, and her daily walk is a highlight of a stay here. The bush amble includes spotting Boyd's forest dragon lizards amid the thick foliage, pointing out the native hibiscus whose blooms signal when the eggs of the brush turkey are ready to eat and stopping at the waterfall, where Naden thanks the resident spirits for letting her visit.
Through Naden's stories, picked up while she roamed the bush with her grandmother, the impenetrable-looking forest reveals itself as both larder and refuge. "There are so many things that can be learned from Aboriginal people," says the 25-year-old, "not just about bush medicines but about our philosophies of living with nature as well."