Cairns to Port Douglas and back

Saturday

Cairns is a beautiful coastal town near the Great Barrier Reef. It is a major tourist destination. In fact it is even a port of call for cruise ships. As a result, it is quite touristy. However, that means that there are lots of great restaurants, shopping and activities. The trade off is that there are lots of tourists.

For dinner we went to a traditional Australian restaurant called Dundee’s. There we sampled kangaroo, crocodile, buffalo, barramundi (fish) and emu sausage. They were all really good. Our favorite was the buffalo, it tastes just like beef, but was very moist and tender. Kangaroo is good; it is a bit like beef but a little bit more dry. It was served with a Thai peanut sauce, like a satay. Crocodile tastes just like chicken. The barramundi was fantastic; it is a nice white fish that was served with a light creamy lemon sauce. Finally, the emu sausage was pretty good. It had a somewhat mealy texture but the flavor was good. We felt like we really got a chance to sample some of the truly Aussie foods.

Sunday

Our first full day in town, we went to a zoo in town. It is on the top floor of one of the hotels, a la Las Vegas. The zoo itself was mediocre but we each got our picture taken holding a koala bear. It was very cool. This may be the highlight of the vacation thus far for Andy (Aaron, I finally got to meet my animal face to face, you'll love the picture). Then we went to the lagoon. The lagoon is an outdoor pool near the beach. It is unusual in that it is a normal pool except with sand around the edges. It is a very popular place for swimming and catching a few rays. There is no real beach in Cairns so this is a nice alternative. We laid out for an hour or so. We realized that this was the first time during the whole trip that we had just done nothing. It was really nice.

Then we went to the night market for a little shopping. The night market is tons of little shops packed into a small area. Most of the shops sell souvenirs, jewelry and some clothing. I bought a couple of fun pieces of jewelry.

Monday

Today we went on an all day boat cruise to the reef for snorkeling. The outer reef is about 90 minutes off the coast. It was a bit of a rough ride. We both had just a touch of motion sickness and felt a bit queasy on the boat at the beginning, but it was well worth it. The first stop was in the outer reef. At this destination we were a little disappointed. There was a lot of coral and some fish but it was not really anything we had not seen before. Then we traveled to another location a little closer in. This site was AMAZING! There were literally thousands of fish, a sea turtle and the most amazing coral we have ever seen. There were so many different kinds of coral it was truly like nothing we had seen before. We snorkeled for 2 hours straight without returning to the boat. We just didn’t want to waste a moment. The boat trip back was much better than the way out (although the free wine might have had something to do with that). We also met some great people from the UK who were on a year long trip around the world (nah, we weren’t jealous of them at all). In fact they may come see us in Seattle.

After the snorkel trip we drove up to Port Douglas. It is about 60 minutes north of Cairns. PD is located between the beach and the rainforest. We were hoping to both enjoy the beach and experience the rainforest. The town is much smaller than Cairns with a charming shopping area and restaurants. It is far less touristy. Our hotel was like a little villa, it had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and laundry!! That was a pleasant surprise!

Sorry we don’t have any pictures. We were using an underwater camera all day so our photos are all analog.

Tuesday

Today was a beach day. Ahhh! We went to Four Mile Beach and relaxed in the sun. Swimming was not an option because the lifeguards could not put the nets for the swimming area out because it was too windy. Apparently, this beach has really dangerous stinger fish (jelly fish). When we'd had our fill of sun for the day, we went and wandered around the town. There were lots of cute shops and great restaurants. Finally, after dinner we went to a sports bar and tried to watch the Cricket World Cup game between Australia and Sri Lanka. It seems like an interesting game, we still don’t totally understand it, but it was fun to watch (we are pretty sure that Australia was kicking the crap out of Sri Lanka, go Aussies).

Wednesday

After packing up we left Port Douglas to go back to Cairns. On the way we stopped at the Kuranda Skyrail. The Skyrail is a 7+ km gondola ride over the rainforest. The gondola makes 3 stops along the way. At the first, passengers get out and get to walk around an area of the forest. At the second stop passengers walk to a series of look out points to view a beautiful waterfall. The final stop is in a town called Kuranda. It is again a town chock-full of tourist traps. Here we stopped for lunch and then it was time for the return trip on the gondola, which takes about 45 minutes. It is truly amazing the number of plants, trees, animals and insects that live in the rainforest. It really makes you realize what a unique ecosystem it is and how important it is to preserve it.

So now we are back in Cairns. We will fly out to Uluru and Ayers Rock in the morning. I am not sure what our internet access will be like so you might not hear from us until we get to Melbourne.

Cheers mates.