Drifting quietly through the Mossman River on a river sled beneath the lush green canopy of the Daintree Rainforest you’ll find Will Hancock - calm and completely in his element.
Will is one of the “original” guides at Back Country Bliss, an eco-adventure company known for its signature River Drift Experience. The tour takes guests on a gentle journey through clear freshwater streams, lush rainforest trails, and ancient tropical landscapes. Part float, part walk, part immersive meditation, it's a unique way to explore one of the oldest rainforests on Earth.
But Will doesn’t just guide you through the rainforest, he invites you to feel it. His tours are about slowing down, tuning in, and reconnecting with the natural world. “I tell people to lie back, watch the canopy drift by, and just breathe,” he says. “Let the river carry you. Let go. No dogma, no chanting, just presence.”
It’s that moment, right at the start of the tour, that Will loves most. When you step into the forest, the light changes, the sounds wrap around you, and suddenly you’re not just in nature, you’re part of it. “We’re here,” he tells his guests. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re already here.” And in that quiet shift, something changes. People begin to soften, to open, to reconnect.
Will has spent his entire life surrounded by wild, natural places. Born in Papua New Guinea, he later lived in Darwin and Alice Springs, where his father’s work in government infrastructure took the family. Growing up in these remote, rugged landscapes shaped Will’s deep connection to nature. His father, an adventurer at heart, passed down a spirit of exploration that clearly lives on in Will today.
It’s what eventually brought him to Port Douglas. Nearly 30 years ago, he and his wife Sarah set off in a camper van looking for a place to call home. They landed in Far North Queensland and never left. “This is actually the furthest south I’ve ever lived,” he laughs. “About as cold as I can handle. I need to swim, go barefoot, that’s how I live. Even in the wet season, I’m walking, swimming, and dancing in the rain. Every year I find a new waterfall that tops the last.”
It was Sarah who first started working with Back Country Bliss in marketing and quickly realised Will’s connection to nature made him a natural fit. After a spontaneous street encounter with the owners - where Will, in his words, was “unshaven, barefoot, messy hair, the works” - he was invited to come aboard. Nearly a decade later, he’s still guiding River Drift Experiences through Mossman’s clear waters and lush rainforest trails.
Before guiding, Will spent years teaching English, art, and upper primary. But the wild always called louder.
“Nature’s always been a passion,” he says. “But not just nature for nature’s sake, I’m drawn to wildness, beauty.”
He approaches guiding not as a job, but a form of service. “We’re not just walking through a rainforest,” he says. “We’re helping people feel something. That’s what makes it meaningful.” It helps that Will has a remarkable gift for noticing the unnoticed. His knowledge of the local ecosystem is astonishing, every birdcall, insect, plant, and creature has a name and a story.
But for him, the deeper purpose lies in helping people reconnect with something ancient. “We’re all capable of connecting with the wild,” he says. “But first, we have to stop seeing ourselves as separate from it.”
That belief has been deeply shaped by what he’s learned from the local Kuku Yalanji people. Their way of seeing, through quiet observation and deep respect, resonates with him. “Don’t just look at the world,” he says. “Look into it.”
He recalls learning the Yalanji word bana, living water, for the freshwater pools along the river. “This place is alive,” he says. “It pulses, like Costa Rica’s Pura Vida, pure life. These rainforests are full of energy. It’s the best kind of meditation.”
And when guests slow down enough to notice it, something shifts. Even blind guests, he says, connect deeply. “They touch the trees, they hear the forest… they feel it.”
And people do thank him. Not always in words, but in looks, in silence, in the way they breathe more deeply, move more slowly, and carry something new with them. “Enthusiasm is contagious,” he says. “So is presence. You pass it on, through stories, through quiet, through simply saying, ‘Look where we are.’”
Back Country Bliss tours aren’t just about seeing the rainforest, they’re about feeling it, experiencing it on a deeper level, and becoming part of it. And with Will, or any of the passionate guides on the team, you’re in for something truly special.
To learn more or to book a tour, click here.