Another reason for coming to Port Douglas was because we are celebrating our 15th anniversary of meeting. Coincidentally, we had been in the same part of the world (Mission Beach) in 2005 for our 11th anniversary - you may remember, it being the second time the weather prevented us from Skydiving... This year, for obvious reasons, we had planned a much more sedate day. We started by having side-by-side massages at a local spa - relaxation for Em, deep tissue sports for Tim... Afterwards we grabbed a coffee from 'Re:Hab' which was purportedly the best coffee in town. We found out why - they served supreme coffee, a NZ roast, and therefore understandably better than any Aussie brew... We had planned to spend the afternoon on the beach (as so far we had had no beach ... read more

On Sunday morning, we went for a wander around the huge Port Douglas market, before driving south towards Cairns, and turning inland at Smithfield towards the mountain village of Kuranda. Kuranda was somewhere we had planned to visit in 2005, but then we only got as far north as Cairns before turning inland and spending 3 days crossing the outback to Alice Springs. In fact, we saw most of this trip as a continuation/completion of the east coast Australia leg of our first world tour - Port Douglas, the Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Mossman Gorge, Kuranda were all within our sights, but the chance to go overland to Alice came up and there was only one bus with a couple of seats, so fate determined our course. Don't worry, we always say, we'll come back another day... ... read more

On Friday morning, we drove north up to Cooper Creek where we had arranged to join a boat in order to meet some of the local inhabitants, the infamous saltwater crocodiles. We had been advised to drive to a certain spot on the road and then stay in the car until the boat arrived and the guy running the cruise came to get us. Standing by a creek, while waiting to go on a croc spotting trip is not a smart move. Despite this however, no-one else was staying in their vehicles, so we joined the group, staying nicely on the road and away from the mangroves. We were not disappointed on the boat, spotting first 2 large females (2-3m long) sunning themselves on different parts of the bank and then later, a couple of large ... read more

On Wednesday morning, we arose at 3am (!!) to catch the early morning flight out of Christchurch to Brisbane. While we were waiting to depart we had a quick middle-of-the-night breakfast - a diet coke for Tim and a cheese scone for Emma - it was a strange time of night to be eating! We had a great flight (2940km) and ate second breakfast (a shared triple chocolate muffin and suitably bad airline coffee and hot chocolate) on the plane... We arrived in Brisbane at the international terminal at 8am Australian time and caught the train to the domestic terminal. While waiting for the lunchtime flight up to Cairns we had third breakfast/brunch at "Hungry Jacks" (like "Burger King")... We arrived in a hot-and-cloudy tropical Cairns at 2.30pm after another good flight (1390km) and over eleven ... read more

Yesterday, still enamoured with the winter sun we drove up to Amberley and then headed inland towards Mount Grey and the Grey Forest and Grey River. We took a picnic and stopped at Lake Janet and then drove some more unsealed roads down the Grey river for an afternoon's tramp in the bush. Just an excuse to post some pictures and say a quick "G'day"! ... read more