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Port Douglas
September 16 | Comments (0)
We arrived in Port Douglas on Monday after a fairly painless 8 hour flight from Bangkok and a 3 hour flight back up the coast from Sydney. Jen's cousin picked us up at the Cairns Airport and took us to our home for the next 9 days. We're staying at the Mediterranean in a self contained apartment. It's amazing how good it feels to be able to cook your own meals...even a bowl of cereal in the morning is a novelty.
Port Douglas is a very sleepy little town on the northern coast of Queensland. There is plenty to do here including diving, snorkeling, beaching, wandering around the oldest rainforest in the world and visiting with family. Our main reason for visiting is to see Jen's Grandmother (fastest moving 92 year old when used as a landing pad by a flying cockroach) and her Aunt. It's been a great visit so far. Meals out, lots of ice cream (Nana's fave!) and good company.
On Friday we took a day snorkeling trip aboard the Calypso out to the Great Barrier Reef. We stopped at 3 separate sites along the reef where we saw thousands of tropical fish including a very friendly grouper (groper if you're a Kiwi or Aussie) who would eat from your hands. Whilst at the first site Jen and I managed to pick up a traveling companion. A small fish about 4 inches long decided to piggy back a ride, thinking that we were a large fish. No matter what I did I couldn't shake it and even when i was sitting on the end of the boat it was hovering around my legs as I was getting out of the water. It's the type of fish that hovers under large ones hoping to catch some of its lunch.
Yesterday we've visited the Daintree rainforest with Jen's cousin and one of her daughters. We made several stops at the beaches along the coast and had a beautiful cream tea at the Silky Oaks Lodge, which would be an amazing place for a special occasion. After our tea we took a quick walk down to the river where we befriended a little turtle which was named Isabella Angel by Jen's cousin's daughter.
Today we've visited the local market and tonight we're in for a feast of Barramundi and kangaroo steaks. I can't wait!