By the time you hit Cairns, you know you’re in Far North Queensland. The air’s thick, you don’t know if the sun’s staying out or if it’s going to rain, and there’s sugarcane as far as you can see. We stopped in the middle of it all for a quick shoot, standing in a sea of green with the humidity doing its thing.
This trip wasn’t about ticking boxes. It was about slowing down. I had the Polestar 3 loaded up and pointed north toward Silky Oaks Lodge, a luxury eco retreat tucked deep in the Daintree. A few days in the rainforest sounded like a decent way to test both the car and my ability to unplug… That didn’t quite work out, we ended up shooting late as the sun popped and got up before sunrise again, because why not?
The drive from Cairns to Mossman is one of those routes that makes you forget about whatever playlist you put on. It’s all sugarcane, sea breeze, and that perfect line where rainforest meets reef. The Polestar 3 handled it like it had done this drive before, smooth, quiet, and completely unfazed by the winding coastal road. There’s something pretty special about driving an EV through a place like this. The silence makes you notice the scenery more, you hear the rainforest before you even reach it. The car’s power delivery is instant but calm, and the whole experience feels more like gliding than driving. I’m not a daily EV driver, but it’s always a bit of fun to have that instant crazy power on tap. For the most part, I feel driving an EV is more about forgetting you are actually driving at all, and you let the car do the work.
Arriving at Silky Oaks Lodge feels like walking into a design brief that nature helped write. The place isn’t built on the land so much as woven into it. Timber boardwalks twist through the forest, treehouse-style suites float above the Mossman River, and soft light filters through everything like someone set the dimmer switch to perfect.
You won’t find any white marble or loud luxury here, it’s all timber, stone, and texture. The kind of materials that age well, that earn their patina over time. The rooms open straight onto the canopy with hammocks, bathtubs, and all the excuses you need to cancel whatever plans you didn’t already cancel. Dinner at the Treehouse Restaurant is worth the trip alone. Everything is local, from the barramundi to the potatoes. I’m not really the design nerd here, but if you are, you’ll spend half the meal looking at the joinery and lighting details instead of your plate. I just like food.
I’ve always loved when good design gets out of the way of experience, and that’s exactly what the Polestar 3 does. It’s quiet, minimal, and balanced. The interior feels more boutique hotel than car cabin, with clean lines, natural finishes, and a panoramic roof that turns every drive into a nature documentary. It’s not pretending to be anything it’s not. The controls are where you want them. The materials feel expensive but not fragile. Even the sound system, a 25-speaker Bowers & Wilkins setup, manages to make your playlist sound better without showing off about it. Performance-wise, it’s ridiculous. Zero to a hundred in under five seconds, all while looking like it just came out of an art gallery. But what I liked most was how calm it is. No noise, no drama. Just really good design doing its job.
Most road trips are about movement. This one was about stillness. Silky Oaks and the Polestar 3 both have this quiet confidence, a kind of luxury that doesn’t need to raise its voice. Days start with rainforest light flickering through the trees. Mornings end with coffee by the river. Afternoons are for floating down the Mossman on a river sled (10/10 recommend, just keep your mouth closed during the rapids). And when the day’s done, you plug in the car, pour a drink, and listen to the forest take over again. It’s the kind of place that reminds you to slow down. Or at least take a long enough breath to realise how fast you’ve been moving.
When we headed back south, we stopped again in those same cane fields for one last round of photos. Golden light, warm air, well, more thick heavy air than I’m used to. It felt like the right full stop to a trip that was all about balance. High design meets low stress. Precision meets peace. A bit of Swedish design in a car, in the tropics, somehow made perfect sense.
If you ever want to see what happens when architecture, design, and nature call a truce, book a few nights at Silky Oaks Lodge and drive there in a Polestar 3. The car feels like a piece of industrial design built for calm, and the lodge feels like a masterclass in restraint. Together, they make the rainforest feel like the right kind of luxury, one that doesn’t try too hard.
Thanks to the team at Polestar for inviting me on this trip. Disclaimer: This Hosted Experience was a complimentary stay.
