Ann’s travels around Australia

Hi there - one thing I forgot to put in my entry yesterday are the many different types of bird songs we listen to in Port Douglas, especially at dawn. Birds warble, tweet, chirp, whistle, bleep, screech, hum and make songs I have never heard. Sometimes they get into a discussion where the sounds go back and forth and they escalate - then stop. I could just listen to their songs forever.

The last week in Australia is being spent resting in Port Douglas. We have gone to yoga a couple of times and are back to having 6 km morning walks before it gets too hot. The great waist expansion is starting to recede a bit.....

Our lodging for the week is an apartment hotel called Garrick House. The owner/manager couple Al and Olivia are lovely, competent and extremely responsive to any kind of difficulty. Our hot water heater went on the fritz and Olivia had a plumber in the unit within an hour of our contacting her. We figure we are lucky to get a plumber to our house in Canada within a week of a call.

Garrick house is on a lovely treelined street within a few blocks of the pleasant downtown and 4 mile beach. Port Douglas is basically a tourist area that caters mostly to Australian vacationeers as well as those who wish to do activities on the Great Barrier Reef.

On our morning walks we try to energetically walk down streets like this...

In an effort to arrive at Sparrow Coffee, downtown, which is our reward to heading out early in the morning.

When walking about the town there are cool tings to see like this tropical flower:

Invitations to Cane Toad racing:

Restaurants that specialize to special diets. This place had the best vegan ice cream ever.

Vegan strawberry ice cream that actually tasted like ice cream. Unlike many of the commonly available brands in Canada that taste like chalk or coconut.

Tomorrow we are going to venture out on the Great Barrier reef again. We still need to decide between snorkelling and diving.

I'll let you know what happens! : > )

Although Steve is on antibiotics he is feeling much better and although diving is banned for another 4 or 5 days we decided to try going out on the water for some snorkelling. We would have forfeited some of our earlier booking if we hadn't done this so it was a way of using money already spent. Diver's Den kindly moved our bookings around so that we could still use their services. Here is a picture of their boat in the Cairns marina. There were about 50 guests and about 20 staff - it was a fairly spacious boat.

On our ride out there were various safety briefings. There were a number of snorkelers, some intro to diving participants and a few certified divers. This is a photo of a staff person providing a briefing for an intro to diving group.

We figured out that this intro to diving group were people who had never learned to dive, and had no class room instruction. When we were in Kona one of our friends had a intro to diving session and it was 1 on 1 - that is one participant and one diver instructor. We figured that was a reasonably safe ratio especially if they didn't go past 20 feet or so. We were appalled to learn that the Diver's Den ratio was 4 newbies to one instructor diver. Given the number of things that could go wrong underwater we could not imagine having that kind of ratio. It was interesting because although we heard of a couple of bad experiences most of the newbies enjoyed themselves.

Steve and I just snorkelled and basically enjoyed being in the water. There was lots of coral, although not as vibrant as we remembered during our visit 9 years ago. There were also lots of fish big and small. Unfortunately no turtles or sharks.

Here we are in-between snorkels.

Here is a picture of the reef. You can see turquoise and dark areas. The darker areas are where there is coral near the surface and what makes diving so easy and amazing. Far off in the distance you can see some waves and then very dark water. I believe that is the edge of that particular reef and the transition to deeper oceans.

Although we were disappointed at the way the intro to diving was managed the folks on the boat did have a reasonably good safety program. Everyone was appointed a number upon getting on the boat. The skipper of the boat had to check that you were on the boat by asking you your name and number while he crossed your name off before the boat every single location. They did make an error though. Steve was assignment #1 and me #2. Lots of joking about that!

There was also a powered dingy in the water beside the boat when we were at a stop for fast rescue if needed and every time we were moored there was a "watcher" on the very top of the boat looking for folks in distress.

After our second snorkel the boat took a fast trip back to Cairns. We decided to eat out and had time to walk along the esplanade before supper. This is just a pretty photo of the esplanade in late afternoon.

Although our dinner at the Raw Prawn seemed a little overpriced the food was delicious. The restaurant had tables inside and out and here is a view of looking out.

I also had a new dessert called coconut and pineapple sago. Likely the most similar dessert we have in America is tapioca pudding. But the sago was much more refined and interesting. The sago was on the bottom, it was topped with black sesame sauce and fresh fruit. The white blocks tasted like icing sugar. It also was delicious!

The esplanade really came alive at night. Kids were in the pool, people were barbecuing, there were beautiful lights and music. How can one not gravitate to the city centre when it is so amazing!

Next we are travelling and transitioning to our last stop on our travels - Port Douglas. Talk soon!

We decided to spend a day in the tropical rainforest west of Cairns. Cairns is quite tropical but developed. It isn't too far west of the city when the tropical rainforest starts to become apparent.

Most of the morning was spent at Kuranda Koala Gardens. This is really a small zoo but they allow you to interact with some of the animals. Something that is rarely seen in America. The Gardens is a small family owned operation and although it is small if you spend time and read the information that is with each animal you can easily spend a couple of hours there. So there are lots of photos, but not too much commentary.

Kurana is a small village that hosts a few attractions. The Koala Gardens as well as a bird sanctuary and butterfly gardens. The town is set up quite well for tourism with lots of retail outlets, good food and clean toilets. They also spent some time making the town look quite nice. Along the main street there are boulevard trees and bushes that look like this....

The first attraction you see upon entering are the freshwater crocodiles. Apparently the saltwater ones are even bigger. I dunno.... this one looked plenty big to me.

As you meander along you come across the koala bear enclosures. You can get quite close to the koalas as shown by these photos.

Koalas are slow moving marsupials (not really bears) that move slowly, sleep about 20 hours a day and primarily eat eucalyptus leaves. The Kuranda gardens had photo ops with Koalas which I could not resist. The koalas do not have photos for more than 30 minutes per day and have the 4th day off. Although you would never see this in America and it's not environmentally (or politically) correct I decided I wanted to have my photo with "Milky". Here we are, and it made my day.

After this we went along to the Kangaroo, Wallabie and Pademelon enclosure. We were able to walk about all of these lovely animals and hand feed them if we want. It was so nice to get close to these animals and enjoy being with them. They also have a place of refuge they can escape to if they really do not want to interact with the tourists. Here is a picture of a photo that shows some of the differences between these animals that look so similar.

Now here are just some cool photos of kangaroos, wallabies and pademelons.

I couldn't resist this picture of Steve and a Wallabie. I'm not sure who is studying who more.....

At the Koala Gardens there were some displays of venomous snakes.... some were quite large judging by the size of the snake and the number of coils. I only took a picture of one, a black python. He wasn't too happy with me. I double checked to ensure that he was completely enclosed with no avenue of escape before I hung around too much.

As we finished up we came across some beautiful flowers. Here are a couple of large tropical flowers for your enjoyment.

Tomorrow we are heading out on a dive boat for a snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef.

We arrived in Cairns last night and were very pleased Wyndham came through again. I was able to use our Wyndham timeshare points and book a unit at the Cairns Worldmark. It was nice to walk into the unit and find everything we expect.

We also found something we didn't expect. Ants in the kitchen. Those of you who know me know that I have a long history with ants. Anyway to Worldmark's credit upon their knowledge of the issue (next morning) they sent a pesticide person to look after it. Believe it or not they were even carpenter ants! LOL! From complaint to spraying was no more than 3 hours. Pretty fast in my opinion.

By the time we arrived in Cairns it was pretty clear that Steve did not have a usual cold. We had managed to change our booking at the Divers Den to a day later, but now we were not sure that Steve could go into the water to dive at all. In order to get at least the dive portion of our refund Steve needed a doctor's certificate. While he was at the clinic waiting to see a doctor I walked along the Cairns esplanade.

Saltwater crocodiles are clearly a concern. Although I kept my eyes out for them.... no show.

The esplanade is quite well developed and seems to have something for everyone.

You can imagine my surprise and pleasure at stumbling upon a large flock of pelicans.

Here's a nice view of the walk.

I got a coffee and went to find Steve at the clinic. As it turned out he has a throat infection and no diving for 7 days. A little disappointing but health comes first. Tropical waters are teeming with bacteria and I want to ensure that Steve comes home safely.

We visited the Diver's Den with medical certificates in hand. They were quite accommodating and took all of our deposit and applied it to a snorkel trip on Sunday and a dive trip out of Port Douglas for a week Sunday. We were quite pleased and happy. If Steve is not well enough to snorkel Sunday he may just go on the boat ride. A week from now he should be able to get a dive in.

The cost of the doctor's visit was $80. And, the antibiotic was $10. Even though we were visitors I am fairly sure that the AU government subsidized our medical visit in some way. Steve also only needed to wait for an hour to see the doctor. I know that is not the case in Sidney even with people who are residents in the province. Perhaps our Canadian health care system has something to learn from the Aussies?

Tomorrow we are planning to head to a nature park and see if we can get close to some koalas and other native animals.

Bye for now

Ann