Tag Archives: Port Douglas

Crocodiles – a day in the Daintree

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Our week in Port Douglas was very much about relaxing and taking it easy, So rather than hiring a car, we selected a couple of tours. One of those was a small group tour to the Daintree Rainforest. Initially I’d planned to hire a car and do a self dive tour, I’m glad we abandoned that idea as this way I got to see everything and our tour guide was in charge of deciding where we should go – I’d have had no real idea!

The downside was that it was an early start, with a 7.20am pick up. As we have found with this type of tour, the other tour guests are usually pleasant, and across the day there is a chance to strike up conversations, usually about where people are from and what experiences they have had while they’ve been travelling. We picked up a couple,of restaurant recommendations and a some tour hints that we can store away for subsequent visits. Continue reading →

Cooktown, Far North Queensland

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  I have  wanted to visit Cooktown for as long as I can remember. I’m not a Captain Cook oficionado, but I have read a lot about him and his travels. His journey to Australia was epic and his ships stranding on the reef off Cooktown is a central part of his and the Australian story.

As well as my interest in Captain Cook, a trip to Cooktown provides a reason to travel through  the Daintree which is a stunning part of Australia’s landscape. To get to Cooktown from Port Douglas also took as over the Bloomfield Track which in a our previous visit to the Daintree we hadn’t taken.

Cooktown in a day makes for a long day, but we found a small tour that fitted the bill. Run by Dale Forsyth, his Air s to Cooktown 4WD Tours is his personally curated way to see the region. Our pick up at 7.45am, seemed early to us, but for those on the tour from Cairns, their trip had started an hour or so earlier.

The Daintree is north of Port Douglas and covers the area from the Daintree River to Cooktown. Bounded in one side by the sea and the other the Great Dividing Range. It is dense rainforest said to be amongst the oldest in the world.

We’d seen the Daintree on a previous visit  and had taken the opportunity on that occasion to visit the Mossman Gorge, so we were not disappointed that our first stop was the vehicle ferry across the Daintree River. To do the journey in a day a visit to the stunning Mosman Gorge is really a step too far. The ferry is the only connection to the small population that lives in the region. Without it there is a very long and difficult drive that was effectively the route of the remainder of our tour.

Thornton Beach

Thornton Peak

Our first stop was the delightful Thornton Beach. Continue reading →

Port Douglas

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Four Mile Beach from the Coastal Path

We went to Port Douglas to escape the cold of an Adelaide winter. Our escape to North Queensland was well timed as Adelaide’s winter seemed to want to cling on.

It had also been a very hectic few months. We had been consumed by family matters. There were no major crises but just a series of bumps. We hoped Port Douglas would be the remedy and weren’t disappointed. It was hard not to immediately be aware of North Queensland’s relaxed lifestyle. All pretension is lost. It’s so refreshing compared to the angst of city life. I have a running theory that the further you are from the centre of the city the more relaxed lif is. 

I hadn’t been to Port Douglas since 1987, which was the year the infamous Christopher Skase opened The Mirage. On that occasion, I had a spare day on a work trip in Cairns and, with a work colleague, drove up. My chief recollection was having a Mocka Pie. You can still get them, but in 2023 Port Douglas is a thriving tourist town where Mocka’s  Pie Shop is a modern bakery just off Macrossan Street.

There are no dress codes, except that restaurants and bars seem to demand men wear a shirt!

We arrived in the evening and so didn’t take in the sites of the coast drive from Cairns airport to Port Douglas. It’s a drive of about 55 km and an hour’s duration.

When we planned this trip in December 2022, we were Northern Queensland novices. We had a basic understanding that the choices were Cairns, Palm Cove or Port Douglas.  We decided against basing ourselves in Cairns, and so I asked a friend about Port Douglas or Palm Cove. Continue reading →