Port Douglas

Port Douglas is only 60km north of Cairns, but we decided there is enough to do there that we would spend some time staying there, rather than just do one or two day trips. "Port" was a tiny fishing village in the 1980's until Christopher Skase opened the Mirage resort; Skase is long gone but the resort remains, along with many, many other holiday options. We checked out the golf course attached to the resort, but it has been let run down and is not in very good condition, despite this they are still charging resort prices so we passed. We did, however, have a couple of games at Sea Temple, the other, newer resort here.

Just north of Port Douglas is the town of Mossman, which is almost a 'dormitory suburb' for the workers at the various tourism businesses at Port. Inland from Mossman is Mossman Gorge, in the Daintree rainforest, with a very pretty creek walk. The lush tropical rainforest of the Daintree is a total contrast to the dry scrubland further inland, fuelled not just by the huge rainfall in the wet season, but by 'cloud stripping' all year round - the clouds come in from the coast, hit the trees on the highlands and drip all over the ground. The rain forest is a declared world heritage area, which protects this vast area of natural beauty for future generations to enjoy.

The Daintree river drains much of the highlands of the rain forest. The only way to cross the river is by ferry, we came across in the bus a few weeks ago on our way back to Cairns from Cape York. We drove back to the river from Port Douglas to do a wildlife spotting boat cruise. Binoculars were provided on the boat to enable us to spot lots of birds, and we even saw a crocodile sunning itself on the bank. The boat operator was very knowledgeable about the area and its inhabitants, and provided a very interesting commentary. We also visited the Daintree village, which is a small hamlet which survives solely on tourism, with cafes and craft shops almost the only businesses.

Port Douglas also survives on tourism, and many activities and tours are on offer. The Great Barrier Reef is closer to land here than almost anywhere else in Queensland, so we decided to try some snorkelling. We didn't feel that we'd want to spend a full day going to the outer reef, so we chose a 2 hour tour to an area known as the Low Isles, only about 16 km offshore. The trip out there and back was an exhilarating 15 minute journey each way on a jet boat - if you really want to know about bad hair days try going swimming then zooming along on a wild boat ride! Neither of us had ever snorkelled before, so we were feeling a bit nervous about how we would go at it. The tour company provided all equipment, including optional wet suits. We were glad we took up the wet suit option, the suits provided good buoyancy as well as keeping us warm, particularly during the trip back! We struggled a little at first getting the hang of breathing with your mouth through the snorkel, but it only takes one lungful of sea water to make you remember. We were soon paddling along peering through our masks at an amazing array of corals and marine life. Corals of every size and shape imaginable, with fish big, little, flat, long, round, stripes, spots ...... we even saw a turtle! It was a wonderful experience, you felt you were actually entering the watery environment, and the fish didn't seem to mind welcoming us into their world. Our time in the water flew past almost as fast as the journey out there had, but the heaviness in our legs afterwards convinced us we'd made the right decision going for the shorter trip.

With our caravan park being only a short walk from the town centre, we took advantage of the huge number of cafes and restaurants to have several meals out. We even had the excellent buffet dinner at the Mirage resort for our wedding anniversary, made even more enjoyable by the fact that our caravan park neighbours gave us a discount voucher which brought the price down by almost half. All in all we've enjoyed our stay at this famous Far North Queensland resort town.