DEEP in the World Heritage-listed Daintree rainforest, there’s a laidback pub where the locals don’t have to wear shoes.

...But the Cow Bay Hotel, north of the Daintree River, isn’t just a pub.

It’s the beating heart of the small community and doubles as a town hall, supermarket, cyclone shelter, bank, restaurant, disco, karaoke bar and even medical check-up clinic.

First-time publicans Peter and Lisa Magnussen took over about a year ago and have to be town banker, sheriff, psychologist, and marriage counsellor on occasion.

But they wouldn’t swap their new life for quids.

“I’m at the stage where I’ll be coming back from a trip to Cairns and I unwind on the (Daintree River) ferry … I feel like I’m home again,” Lisa says.

The freedom of living in a place with no traffic lights, no police, no dress code and no rules is also what has drawn many of their regulars to this part of the world.

“There’s more space than the concrete jungle. I could never live in the city,” Vietnam vet Barry “Shorty” Gamble says.

The retired soldier, who particularly appreciates the Anzac Day services held at the pub and the fact it never runs out of beer, has been living on his nearby block since 1985; seven years before the hotel even opened its doors.

Bob Perry, the local mechanic and “Mr RACQ” who lives 127 steps (he’s counted them) from the pub, also loves a simple life where “nobody is looking over your shoulder”.

The downside is the lack of town power. That and the shaky – at best – mobile phone reception.

Understandably, these two topics generally lead the conversation around the bar.

“It’s all, whose generator is not working today, whose got stolen and who’s buying a new one,” Lisa says.

“Also whose mobile phone is working and whose isn’t.”

Bob uses recycled cooking oil for all his power needs, another local is trying to build his own generator and another has built his own hydro-electricity plant out of washing machine parts.

A few are experimenting with solar power but with 270 rain days a year, it’s a losing battle.

The power limitations make living very hard for some of the locals, whose generators can’t even cope with running a fridge or microwave.

“For them, we are their supermarket, we are their meals,” Lisa said.

Having grown up in pubs, it was Lisa who convinced Peter, who worked for Energex for 35 years, to up sticks from the Gold Coast and move to the rainforest.

Their first year, coinciding with a global drop-off in tourists, has been tough, but while bar takings are down, meal sales have quadrupled.

Peter and Lisa are hoping tourists will gradually return, with the pub’s 12.5m-long bar … hewn from a single cedar log and claimed to be the longest continuous timber bar in Australia one of the drawcards.

In the meantime, the pair are loving the sense of community in their new home and tap into it by hosting community activities … from camp-oven cook-offs to limbo and trivia nights, charity bike shows and wine and cheese tastings.

“The community spirit here is amazing … everyone would give you their last dollar if they thought you needed it,” Peter says.

Lisa agrees: “Even if they’ve got nothing themselves – and there are people here who really do have nothing and are living under a tarp.”

NO BULL, MATE
● The Cow Bay Hotel has the longest continuous timber bar in Australia at 12.5m, hewn from a single log of pencil cedar.
●  All the bar tops, tables, stools and carvings have been made by local craftsmen from fallen (not logged) rainforest timbers.
●  There are six motel rooms priced at $77 for a single and $99 for a double.
●  The hotel does not have a pool but guests are welcome to swim at a nearby rainforest creek while the Cow Bay beach is 6km away.

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