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Me: "HOLLOOO!!!!"
Mark: "I do not know this person. I am not with this person. I do not know this person. I am not with this person."
At Doyle's in Watson's Bay, Sydney , August 23rd 2009.
[photo by Pere - http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamfellows/]
Day 5: Port Douglas
When one lives on the east coast of Australia, one cannot ever watch a sunset over the sea as one could if one lived on the west coast. One can however watch a sunrise. This was an impossibility in Sydney however as we do not live next to a beach and could not get to a beach in time for the sunrise. Cue Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas - 5 minutes walk from our apartment. Sunrise approximately 06.35am, easy. So on Sunday morning, that's what we did.
Arrived at the beach at about 5.55am, it was deserted aside from for a hippy family who were hurriedly stamping out a campfire and packing up their children, having obviously ignored the 'no camping on the beach' signs.
The Sunrise Team, at this stage consisting of Bec, Mark and me.
The sky starts to brighten shortly after 6am.
Pere joined the Sunrise Team (sounds like we are getting ready to present an early morning daytime TV show??) at around 06.15am.
Light, but not quite full sun....
Lovely sea. It was still warm, I tested it.
Here it comes....!
Woohoo!
Eerie light -everything went bright orange.
Looonnnng shadows.
People started to appear on the beach as the sun arrived. A large number of joggers, cyclists and a surprising number of people with all their beach stuff ready to start sunbathing!
We went home for a nap, then Bec went to the Sunday Markets where she drank a coconut (they stick a straw in it for you - it wasn't very tasty, apparently), Mark and I went to the ice cream shop, then we all went on the beach for the rest of the day.
Day 4: Kuranda Skyrail
After being exhausted from Green Island the day before, we all went for a good big long slumber and a big lie in. After lunch on the Saturday, we pondered a trip on the Skyrail, which is a cablecar route starting north of Cairns, going over the rainforest and ending in Kuranda, a village in the Atherton Tablelands.
We arrived at the terminal at 2pm and boarded the car, then were swept off high up the side of a rainforest-covered mountain! Pere and I were greatly excited, while Mark, Lep and Bec suffered brief panic attacks before they got used to it!
The ride gives you two stops where you can do a boardwalk in the rainforest. The first is at the top of the peak, the second at Barron Gorge.
Since it was dry season, Barron River was pretty dry! There was a photo on the information board which showed it as a HUGE river and waterfall in the height of summer (wet season).
No sign of a crocodile :(
At the other end of the skyrail is the village of Kuranda. Since the skyrail brings so many tourists, it's a very touristy place, which would probably be very pleasant if it hadn't been tackified up by the tourist industry. Still, it wasn't unpleasant having a stroll around, and we didn't have long anyway before it was time for the skyrail back to Cairns.
On the drive back up to Port Douglas, we stopped of at Rex Lookout on the coastal road (just as the sun was setting), which gives you this fantastic view:
Back in Port Douglas, we went for fish and chips at the Fresq cafe for dinner. Mmmmm fish and chips.
Day 3: Green Island
The one last thing we did in Cairns on day 1, before we drove to Port Douglas was to go to the tourist information office and book ourselves onto the Big Cat tour to Green Island for the Friday, as we wanted to be able to see the Great Barrier Reef close up and Green Island seemed like a good place to do that from.
It was a good tour for us as well since a lot of the Reef tours are for diving and snorkelling only - bad for us as my mother and I cannot engage in underwater activities because of our silly ears - whereas on the Green Island tour you get to spend time on the island itself and have the option of a glass-bottomed boat tour if you do not want to do snorkelling. The Big Cat tour cost $73 each for the full day and included in the price was either glass-bottom boat trip or snorkel equipment hire.
Since we were staying in Port Douglas (60km north of Cairns) and the we had to be in Cairns at 8am to be registered and board the boat, the day required rather an early start! We all rolled out of bed at 5am and were in the car at 6am, quite an achievement really! The road at this time was pretty clear, and we had an amazing view of the sunrise on the coastal part of the road, off Ellis Beach.
I also had my query answered over "does it EVER get cold in tropical north queensland?" the answer is NO, not really, although you do need a cardigan on at 5am in winter.
We arrived into Cairns and put the car in the carpark by about 7.15am, so decided to go for breakfast at Perotto's, the cafe at the gallery we had visited on day 1.
Toast and coffee later, we were ready to head to the boat...place. Sorry, the word for where you get on a boat has completely escaped me. But in any case we queued up and got out tickets, then boarded the catamaran. It was a nice big shiny boat! The three snorkellers (Bec, Pere and Mark) collected their snorkel stuff and we were off!
Leaving Cairns behind....it looks like such a teensy uneventful place compare to the views of Sydney from the water.
Beautiful, rainforest-coated coastline.
After around an hour, Green Island loomed in the distance!! The island is a coral cay (small, flat, sandy island formed on the surface of a coral reef) and is about 17 miles off the queensland coast.
First view of the island! Just after I'd stepped off the boat onto the long jetty.
Coral reef! The water is so clear, you can just see all this coral just beneath the surface for miles around. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, it was incredible.
It was about 10.15am when we arrived. Lep and I were to go on the glass-bottomed boat at 11.45, so we sat on the beach for a bit while the snorkellers prepared!
Very fetching!
The island has two beaches, one on each side of the jetty. The snorkelling action seemed mostly centred on this one.
You can see our boat in the distance at the end of the jetty.
At 11.30, Lep and I set off down the jetty for our glass-bottomed boat. I wasn't expecting to see too much (I was mostly grumpy at my inability to go snorkel) but it was actually amazing! The took us out to the deeper parts of the water and there were some HUGE fish, and so brightly coloured. It was also good because the guide on the boat gave you loads of information about what you were looking at, and we learnt lots of interesting things, such as that the Nemo clownfish (who is meant to be a boy child) in Finding Nemo is innacurate because only adult females are orange and white. Males are grey, and there are no young female clownfish, they are all born male and some turn into females as they mature.
Most of my photos weren't very good, but here is one to give an idea.
After the boat we ate some chips on the island, and I went for a dip in the sea.
At 3.45pm it was unfortunately time to head back to the boat for the trip back into Cairns, so we waved bye bye to Green Island.
The boat ride back was fun, the more ice-cream-orientated of our party (Mark and Bec) had ice creams on the boat and we watched out for humpback whales (some had been sighted that morning in the area, apparently), although didn't see any.
We made it back to Cairns at 5pm and then did the drive back along the coastal road, watching the sunset this time. Sunrise and sunset in one day.
Mark and Pere hired an underwater camera, and they also had a waterproof case for one of our compact cameras, so there are quite a few underwatery photos. I'll put those up somewhere when I get hold of them and will notify here. As usual there are tons more photos from the day at Flickr, click the Green Island set on the right hand side of the page.
Fishy says bye!
I shall have to blog events in sections as otherwise the overload of information and photos is likely to make you/me/the blog explode. Here is part 1. I'll also add the photos (and as usual some ADDITIONAL BONUS PHOTOS!) to FLICKR as I go along, so you can view them there also in improved size and quality (how photobucket and blogspot manage make photos look so awful and washed out I shall never understand).
Day 1: Cairns - Ellis Beach - Port Douglas
We flew to Cairns in the afternoon of Tuesday 11th August, arrived at the airport, picked up our hired car for the week and drove off to our hotel (fairly basic but clean and comfortable enough for one night), before immediately walking into the city centre for a pizza and wine and cocktails (for Mark, anyway) at Rattle and Hum bar. It was SO warm! Even late in the evening, we sat out on the restaurant terrace in our summer clothes, delightful. After enjoying the balmy evening air, we headed back to bed.
On Wednesday 12th we got to look at the city properly. It's an odd place, Cairns. It has no beach but its shoreline is all mudflats. The road along the front is called the Esplanade, so we wandered along there to see what was afoot. Saw some big pelicans, which was quite good.
Looks like sand but it's just sandy mud.
Saltwater crocodiles are a big danger of the tropical north Queensland area. Signs regularly warn you of their presence in watery areas.
We went and had a lovely breakfast in a lovely cafe, then had a look at the city. To be honest, there is not a lot to see. Cairns is tiny and unimpressive, and all the buildings look like prefabs to me. It certainly doesn't have the looks of Sydney and Melbourne, anyway. But nevermind, we were not to be there long. After a couple of hours, we hopped in the car and whizzed off up the coast towards Port Douglas, our home for the week.
The coastal road suddenly opened out with views over this amazing beach. Ellis Beach is the northernmost of Cairn's Northern Beaches, and since it has no resort and no public transport access, it is nearly deserted. So we stopped off for a bit.
The sea was amazingly warm - like a bath that's semi-cooled but still just warm enough.
Everyone was quite excited!!
Double Island, as seen from the beach.
Our transport for the week. It was well comfy! And huge. Pere had fun learning to drive an automatic too, haha.
We then continued the remainder of the journey to Port Douglas, upon which I shall write in the very near future.....
