Up to Port Douglas

On Monday we left Cairns and headed up to Port Douglas, about 100 km up the coast. Within the first 5 minutes here, we discovered we had waisted our time in Cairns and should have just come directly to Port Douglas! For the same price as our tiny room down in Cairns, we have a full 1-bedroom suite with a jacuzzi tub, full kitchen, and outdoor dining set at the Hibiscus Garden Resort. We're two blocks from the city center one way and Four Mile Beach the other.

Tuesday was our second day out on the Great Barrier Reef. This time we took a high-speed catamaran out to the outer reef about 40 km off the coast. The boat took us to three different sites along the reef for variety. At the second site, I went for an introductory scuba dive which was quite a thrill! We moved the trip up a day just so I could do this without having to worry about leaving 24 hours before flying. It took a little getting used to pressure down around 8m depth, but the scenery quickly made me forget. We spent about 30 minutes down there exploring giant clams and watching stingrays. The rest of the day was spent snorkeling with Christina around the reef.

Today we had our second truly lazy day of the trip. We "hired" (rented) a tandem bicycle and rode it down to a wildlife sanctuary about 6 km away. It was a very open zoo (no cages or fences) and we again were able to feed kangaroos and wallabies. There were also freshwater and saltwater crocks, but luckily those were in cages! We biked back right on 4 Mile Beach back to Port Douglas.

The great thing about having our own kitchen is we get to enjoy Christina's cooking again! We've stopped a a local seafood store everyday and gotten everything ranging from fresh prawns and mahi mahi to the local specialty, barramundi. We've had all sorts of great meals the last few days and saved a lot on eating out!

Tomorrow we're heading back down to Sydney for our last four days of the trip. We really don't want to leave the tropical paradise up here, but are looking forward to our urban adventures. Just wish time would slow down...