How Much?

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DAY 309

It had been a warm night, but the ceiling fan did its best to keep us cool, just before 6.30 the time my alarm was set for I woke up, I found it amazingly easy, considering we have had so many late nights and late to get up in the morning, it must have been my sub conscious making sure that I did not oversleep.

I have a Skype session set up for 7.00, and afterwards we will leave for Port Douglas, so while Andy gets the kettle on, I jump in the shower, get dressed and soon I am ready for my Skype session.

At exactly 7.00 I hit the “Video Call” button and before long I hear excited voices, I see no picture until someone at the other end hits the “start video” button. Then I see 3 happy faces at the other end of the line, 10,000 miles away it is Friday night, my girlfriends are having one of our girls nights in. Doris prepared them all a superb meal so by now it is 10.00 pm they have devoured the food and the wine has been flowing.

Excitedly we all speak and try to catch up on what is happening in our lives, mine should be easy if they are reading the blog, which I know at least Babs does every day, thank you!! But as always time goes quickly, I forget half of what I want to ask everyone, I do wish that I could join them for a hug and a glass of wine but it is not possible right now.

At 7.30 I let them get on and continue the party, they all look well and glamorous (they all always look glamorous!). I now have my fix, so I can get on with the day ahead, while I have been on Skype Andy has taken the sandwiches out of the fridge, made up the camelbak, put my maps and my camera bag in the truck and he is standing at the door as I am logging off.

I look for something to take with me but it is all done so we lock up and jump in the truck and get on the road. I grab a sandwich out of the rucksack for my breakfast and tell Andy where to go, as usual!

We drive through the Northern Beaches area of Cairns and we are soon into virgin territory, we see a car park on the right hand side for Redcliffe Beach, so we decide to pull in and step out onto the beach, a beautiful sandy beach deserted, but then it is still fairly early. We see the first aid station for jelly fish stings, a sign says it contains vinegar, we look around it and sure enough there is a bottle of vinegar inside for just such an occasion, stinger season is usually between November and April, but don’t quote me on it, they may not know the dates themselves!

The waves crash with purpose against the shore, the morning sun is getting stronger, this is a great place to be. Back on the road again we admire the views, the stunning mountains the amazing shoreline that we are following along the Captain Cook Highway, despite being early there is a fair amount of traffic but nothing too invasive.

We stop at Rex Lookout, they do hang gliding from here, but it is too early in the day for them, not a hang glider in sight, not that we had any intention of doing it ourselves but it is fun to watch.

Just at 9.00 we find ourselves pulling into Port Douglas, I cannot believe the time, it was good to be on the road early. We drove through town just to get our bearings, it is quite a small town, very touristy, we drive up to a lookout where we can see a stunning view of the suburbs of Port Douglas a fairly busy beach and the mountains in the background. This lookout is busy several cars were there when we arrived and people continuously come and go here.

We drive back into the main street, find somewhere to park up and then walk. It is a fairly modern town with some old buildings dispersed amongst the new and flashy exterior.

We stop for a coffee somewhere, Andy takes pity on the little street side café where a girl is standing outside waiting to show someone a seat, there is no one sitting in her patch yet, they are all in the café next door.

We order ourselves a skinny latte and find out that Fiona our waitress is actually from Reading, England less than an hours drive from where we live in England (well less than an hour outside rush hour anyway!) Trouble is we think she got into trouble because she spent time chatting to the clientele but that was our fault for talking to her. Fiona has been in Australia for a year, her sister is here too, their mother bought them both a ticket each to come and explore, and get over their broken hearts.

Fiona leaves her job at the coffee shop today and will head south for her last month in Australia; she has to leave here by 10th October when she will head to New Zealand for a year. Although her sister is in Australia, Fiona will travel alone and meet her sister in New Zealand.

We finish our coffee and then continue our wandering down the main street, we find a gallery that sells aboriginal art, the Bundarra Gallery, there are a lot of beautiful Didgeridoo’s just inside the door, these have to be some of the best that we have seen, there are some that are quite large, beautifully polished, very heavy and nicely finished with wax around the mouth piece.

I talk to Roberta, who works there and ask her about a particular painting, it is quite large, she tells me that it is $7,500, the artist is actually an award winning and very popular artist. We see a feather stick, I am not sure what relevance it has, but it is priced at over $2000, it just seemed to be a stick with some feathers on the top. I have to be honest some aboriginal art we have seen to date has not been inspiring but this one particular paingint entitled “Leaves” is actually quite stunning, you would need a large neutral wall with nothing else but this painting. I don’t have a wall to put any art on at the moment so we do leave empty handed.

There are a lot of tourist shops, selling clothes, bikinis, jewellery, hats etc. you name it a popular seaside town has it. We head down to the court house, next to the ultra modern police station, the Court House is in fact, I believe one of the oldest if not the oldest original building in Port Douglas.

No longer used as a Court House, but is also a museum, it is laid out as it would have been back in the 1800’s. The museum focuses on the case of Ellen Thomson, the only woman in Queensland to have been hanged.

She was hanged along with John Harrison for the murder of her husband William Thomson. We watched a short film, made by the locals that depicted the story, the truth is that we probably will never really know if she was innocent or not, you have to watch the film and make your own mind up. She lies in an unmarked grave somewhere in Brisbane.

The museum volunteer suggested that if it was a case that was being brought to trial in this current day, it would probably be thrown out for lack of evidence.

We walk up to the lighthouse, now this is not easy to find, you think that you should drive to the top of the hill (where we went up to the lookout earlier), however a short way up from the beach nestled in amongst some beautiful beachside residences is a pathway, we see a sign showing a couple of old pictures of the lighthouse, it was blown over in the 1911 cyclone, but then it is no surprise for a wooden structure mounted on wooden stumps. Back then the light was fuelled by kerosene.

The original 1878 lens for the lighthouse is actually on display in the museum. The lighthouse structure is now made of concrete but has long since not been used., amazingly the manufacturers of the lens, Chance Brothers, were the same company who manufactured the lens for the light house at Cape Otway, a company based in Smethwick near Birmingham where Andy is originally from, this blog day was 129, F@*k your Job, 16th March 2009

We look around a bit more but soon we decide to head back to Cairns, we have seen plenty of Port Douglas for the moment, but we will be passing this way again when we head up to Cape York.

I drive back while Andy takes the opportunity to relax and so closes his eyes. About 2 minutes into the journey back I see a car pull out ahead of me, he turns right onto the main road, however he heads in the same direction that we are travelling but he is on the wrong side of the road, I hold my breath as there is a corner coming up, and just in the nick of time he moves back over to the left hand side as a car comes round the corner.

In just over an hour we arrive back in Cairns, I stop at Earlville to see if the post office is still open so that I can collect my package from Mount Surprise, however it closed at 12.00 so I will have to wait until Monday.

It feels like a long day already so a welcome cup of tea is in hand when we get home, so before we worry about dinner I take up residence with the newspapers in the hammock, checking for bewildered Geckos of course.

After dinner, we sat and watched some TV and discussed plans for tomorrow, we will possibly do another hike in one of the National Parks. We watch a film on Seven with Gwyneth Paltrow, Candice Bergen and Mike Myers, View from the Top, it was quite a light hearted enjoyable film, but straight after it was bedtime, by now it had been a long day and it felt like it!

Goodnight, until tomorrow bloggers!

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Photos

Sandcastle
I wonder who built this?

Complete with Vinegar
Stinger Warning

Court House
The oldest property in Port Douglas

In the Dock
John Harrison and Ellen Thomson in the dock for Murder