It was a 3 ½ hour flight from Auckland to Brisbane early Saturday morning, then a 2 ½ hour flight up to Cairns. Amazing that you can fly for 2 ½ hours within 1 state: Queensland. We hopped in our rental car and headed up the coast to the resort town of Port Douglas. The main reason for this trip was of course to dive the Great Barrier Reef. A must do, we decided, while down in this part of the world. That was on the agenda for the next day. We had chosen to dive off the coast of Port Douglas rather than Cairns, as the dive groups were much smaller. Our first night in Port Douglas we went for a very nice (and pricey) dinner at Nautilus. www.nautilusrestaurant.com.au It’s first class dining in the forest. We ate (and drank) very well on the whole trip, trying things like Morten Bay Bugs, Tableland Red Claw, and kangaroo.
We had booked our dive trip a week before arriving at www.habadive.com.au We were really impressed with them; the dive boat was the nicest we had been on and the dive guides were great as well. The diving was just spectacular. The first 2 dives were at South Opal Reef. There were about 8 of us that did these dives, a plunge off the back of the big boat and down to about 18 meters. Since the reef was relatively shallow, most of the sights were at just 10 to 15 meters deep. It was a huge reef area full of brilliantly colored coral and tons of fish. I haven’t been diving that long, but Andrew has done over 100 dives, and he reckons this was the best diving he had ever done (even better than the Red Sea). After a lunch break 5 of us did a 3rd dive. This time we got into a dingy and boated over to Opal Reef. We did a James Bond entry (falling in backward over the edge of the dingy) into choppy water with a strong current. We went down straight away, so as not to float away from one another. Here the draw was big fish. We saw Green Humphead Parrotfish which must have been close to a meter long, long barracuda, giant clams and a white tip reef shark! The shark was probably 4 to 5 feet long. It was about 15 to 20 feet away from us, so too far away to get a photo unfortunately.
Monday we drove further north into the Daintree Rainforest. We stopped along the way at Mossman Gorge for a dip in the very cold water! We continued to the Daintree River, which we crossed on a very rudimentary car ferry; just a big metal platform that scoots across the river, pulled by a cable. After crossing the river you feel a bit more remote, on a narrow, winding road through the forest. There are fan palms everywhere, a kind of palm tree. We checked in to our accommodation for that night, a really cool place with an excellent restaurant called Daintree Wilderness Lodge. www.daintreewildernesslodge.com.au We had our own secluded bungalow set back in the forest, connected to other bungalows and the reception/dining area by elevated walkways. We were hoping to see some little wallabies hopping about, but no such luck. Lots of very interesting bird sounds though! We were due to stay there 2 nights, but feeling a little bit too secluded, we decided to check out Cairns and stay there for our last night.
Tuesday morning we drove to Cairns and were there in time for lunch. After lunch and visiting a hotel, we decided that Cairns seemed a bit anticlimactic compared to the cool, laid-back, happy, sunny resort town of Port Douglas. So, back up to Port Douglas we went. Found a great one bedroom apartment with a balcony overlooking the pool, right on the main drag. We visited our favorite pubs, the Central Hotel and the Court Hotel (excellent live music there) and ate skippy kangaroo for dinner. Yum scrum! We love Australia.
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