Port Douglas - sun, sea and.....toads!

Out in Airlie Beach (Sarah, Fi, Philip, Clemont and John)
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The YHA courtesy bus picked us up at 10.30am for the the hour bus ride up to Port Douglas.  The hostel appeared clean and friendly, so despite passing all the 5 star boutique hotels on the way, we weren't too disappointed.  We had our own room again (still avoiding dorm rooms) and Fiona kindly agreed to take the top bunk.

After dumping the bags and applying suntan lotion (but I've started calling it sunscreen.....and I said thongs the other day not flip flops!), we went for a walk along 4 mile beach.  It was lovely.  The beach was pretty deserted and it was only the top end nearest the town that had sunloungers.  There were also a few kite surfers out which looked pretty cool.  I would have drown.  We then went for a wander round around Port Douglas.  The town only has a population of 3500 so it is only small.  Despite being fairly upmarket, it still had a friendly feel about it.  Good first impression.

One of the world's deadliest snakes
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In the evening we had a drink in the hostel.  We ended up talking to Sarah, Phillip and CJ.  Nice crowd and this hostel had better communual areas so meet people.

The following morning I made a bit of a cock up and got the wrong day for our trip up to Cape Tribulation.  Luckily we were able to re-book it for Saturday so we spent a strenuous day laid out of the beach topping up our tans.  In the evening we went out for some drinks with Sarah, Phillip, CJ, Anna, John and Clemont.  Nothing too outrageous but nice to go out.

Mossman Gorge
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The 'reef and rainforest trip' on Saturday was worth the wait.  We were met by our friendly guide - Ben (who looked like Bill Bailey from 'Never mind the buzzcocks') and got onto a comfy 4WD bus with another 7 passengers.  Our first stop was Mossman Gorge.  Ben took us for a walk along the boardwalk.  We saw a deadly snake (red bellied something or other).  We then drove up to Daintree River where Neville took us out on a riverboat.  We saw 3 crocs, iguana, tree snakes, kingfishers and other birds.  After that we had another ramble through the rainforest where Ben pointed out all the interesting stuff.

Croc
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We had a lovely lunch of steak, swordfish and sausage on a private farm - nice setting.  We then set off on the 4wd section of the trip along Bloomfield track.  We headed north to a beach called 'Stingray Beach' (not sure of the official name).  We were the only ones there.  We went through the clearing and the whole group gasped.  It was stunning and everyone went click-crazy with their cameras.  We then headed back to the more popular beach at Cape Tribulation, but as this had a lot more people on it, it didn't have the same effect as the previous location.  To get back to the sealed road, we had to cross a number of creeks.  It was clearly signposted that this was 4wd territory, but some idiot (I was betting he was English) had tried to cross in an estate car.  They had been towed out as we passed them, but we still had a giggle at them trying to dry the car out.

The Daintree rainforest
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There is a creature called a Cassowary which lives in this part of Australia.  It is slightly smaller than an emu and sightings are rare.  Ben had been mentioning them throughout the day but said it was unlikely we'd see one.  On the way to get icecream (it was all fruit flavours though, no chocolate!), there was a cry from the front of the bus and we did an emergency stop.  No, we hadn't hit one, but someone had seen a Cassowary in the bush near the road.  As they are quite aggressive creatures, we weren't allowed out of the bus.  I saw its legs, but Fi got a better look.

The isolated beach of Stingray beach and a mad yorkshire woman
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We had a quick stop at a lookout point and then headed back to Cairns.  We all agreed it was a great day.  Ben's enthusiasm was infectious not irratating and I felt like we should watch a David Attenborough programme when we got back.  We didn't.

We had a top night though.  One of those unplanned evening that left us in stitches.  The iron bar in Port Douglas did cane toad racing every evening so me, Fi and Sarah went along.  There were 6 toads and the aim of the race was to get the toad off the table by blowing party streamer near it.  The first to put their toad off the table and into the bucket was the winner.  Fate would have it that Fi had the lucky ticket and got to 'race' a toad.  She had to kiss it good luck before the race but unfortunately it didn't turn into a prince.  There were 3 races in total and luckily I didn't have to go near one.  We were in good spirits (and drinking spirits) after that, so we stayed in the iron bar.  We were going to join the others from the hostel for a BBQ on the beach, but that didn't work out.  We just giggled about everything and nothing.  Sarah had NKOTB on her IPOD so we were dancing to 'Hang Tough' on the way home.  In the cold light of day (well any time of day really) very embarrassing, but we weren't arrested for violating the peace, out of tune singing or dodgy dance moves!

Stingray Bay
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I wanted to get back to the hostel to watch qualifying at midnight.  It turned out that the hostel didn't have channel 10 so I swore at the tv a bit and went to bed.

(19th  - 21st July 2007)