Reef, Rainforest & White Water

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December 20th 2006

Published: December 21st 2006

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Stillers

The hotel

So nice!!

After the 12 hour over night coach journey from Airlie beach, in which a little shit kept waking me up by playing his ipod at full volume even when he was asleep I arrived in Cairns. Had a few hours to kill and you guessed it McDonalds breakfast was in order. I then went to the airport to meet my family who had arrived from Hong Kong. Our place of stay was Port Douglas in the Sheraton Mirage hotel. An oasis of pure luxury and a welcome break from the hostels of the east coast. 4 massive swimming pools, restaurants, buffet breakfast and right on 4 mile beach, lovely!!

The first couple of days, the group were still getting over their jet lag and I was trying to catch up on my sleep from the Whitsundays and also the bus journey so it was very lazy, sitting round the pool, drinking nice beer and eating great food. Once the jet lag wore off, the exploring took place.

Approx 50km north of Port Douglas is Daintree and the Daintree river. It is right along side the oldest rainforest in the world and is home to so many animals it is

Rainforest to the shore

Very nice Cape Trib beaches

untrue. We went on a guided boat trip along the river and saw what the forest had to offer. Within minutes of leaving, we had found our first crocodile. Not as big as the ones in Australia zoo but these were wild and therefore felt a lot more scary and real. He was probably 5 foot long but great to see moving around as they normally just sit sun bathing. As we continued on we saw some amazing green tree frogs and even saw my first wild Aussie snake, a green tree snake. He was stalking the frogs and looking for an easy meal. It was very hard to see him in between the trees and mangroves but glad my first snake wasn't venemous. We then continued north to Cape Tribulation and into the rainforest. The rainforest comes right to the sea and the beaches are just spectacular, shame about the bloody stingers i wanted a dip! On the way back we stopped at a rainforest lookout with a tower which takes you right to the top of the trees to see the view of the forest from above, very impressive.

In between lazy days spent around one of

Thomas Snorkelling

the 5 swimming pools, the next big thing we did was snorkeling in the outer great barrier reef. The company we went with had a huge pontoon on the reef and was a great location to swim on the corals and see some great fish. We saw a rass which was as big as any fish I'd ever swam with, must have been over a metre long and fat as anything. Was nice of him to hang about where everyone gets into the water, just as people start to get the confidence to jump in, they look under the surface at a real man-eater and then it's out and back to the bar. Was amazing snorkelling in the great barrier reef, so many fish, colour and coral which was simply spectacular. After snorkelling, we went out the dinner in the rainforest around Port Douglas. You are met by candels everywhere and let by a flame lit path to a nice waiting glass or 3 of champagne and canapes. After a little break another flame lit path took us to a beautiful area where dinner had been set up, right next to a creek which had been lit with over 300

White water rafting

Grade 4 rapids

candles and spot lights pointing up into the trees, very pretty. After dinner the highlights were a presentation by a couple of Abbos and some digireedoo and they also turned off all the electrical lights just leaving the candles and the evening sounds of the rainforest which was very memorable.

Next stop, me and my old man went white water rafting on the Tully river, 3 hours from Port Douglas. White water rapids are ranked from 1-5, 1 being moving water and 5 being likely to cause serious injury. Well we were rafting through 3's and 4's which for a first timer seemed pretty scary at times. It was an amazing day, something I had always wanted to do and would do again in a second. That was the end of a very busy but amazing week in Port Douglas, a couple of days rest in Melbourne before Christmas and then the test match, shame about the result.

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