Port Douglas & Daintree National Park

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Port Douglas is a picturesque little town with a beautiful "four-mile" beach. I was going to stay here 5 days to chill out a little bit and do some diving.

The first day was all about doing nothing. Wonderful! The second day was good as well: I booked a 3-dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I went out with a boat called "Poseidon" and luckily, the weather was good this time. We went to the outer Great Barrier Reef and the coral was just amazing there! I also saw a green turtle and a grey reef shark. Pretty cool. Great Barrier Reef, another place off my "places to visit" checklist! :-)

I also booked a one day tour with a four-wheel drive around Daintree National Park. The park is mostly covered by rain forest that has continuously existing for over 110 million years! This makes it possibly the oldest rain forest in the world. It was a great day out and we also did a short river cruise and spotted two crocodiles. No swimming of course!
We got to go all the way up to the Bloomfield Falls cruising through rivers with our 4WD. There were some Aboriginal rock paintings near the waterfall as well, cool! On the way back we passed a river and I spotted a shadow moving through the shallow water. Turned out it was a bull shark, one of the most dangerous kinds of sharks in the world. Again, no swimming! :-)

After that, we drove up to a beautiful deserted beach where a lonely mangrove tree was sticking out the perfectly white sand that contrasted the beautiful blue sky, amazing!
Late lunch at Cape Tribulation and a homemade ice cream from one of the park restaurants made a great closure to this day trip.

Back in Port Douglas I enjoyed the sunset twice, taking in beautiful views of the bay there. The next day, it was time to drive my rental car to Cairns to drop it off at the airport and take my flight back to Sydney. My Australian adventure was ALMOST over...

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