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Published: March 19th 2007
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Sydney's famous landmarks
The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge We arrived at Port Douglas about 6.30pm on Christmas Eve, which didn't give us much time to make our arrangements for Christmas Day. All we were certain of was that we had an apartment, a bottle of champagne and the presents we'd bought for each other in Melbourne. We soon discovered that the town's only supermarket had closed till Boxing Day, which wasn't a promising start. Visions of sitting hungry and drunk in an empty apartment abounded, but fortunately a frantic dash round the town's restaurants secured us a reservation for Christmas dinner. Later on we found a service station open, so we were even able to get some provisions for breakfast. Result!
And so it was that Christmas Day dawned hot and sunny over Port Douglas. We had a champagne breakfast on our balcony, opened our presents and cards, went for a swim, basked in the sun and headed off to a restaurant for a fat dinner late in the afternoon. Just like any other Christmas really...
Port Douglas is a lovely small town, with a profusion of accommodation, a thriving bar and restaurant scene and quick access to the Great Barrier Reef, which is what everyone is
here for. We were up early on Boxing Day morning for our snorkelling trip out to the Reef. It was another hot, sunny, humid day, perfect for being in the water. We're not experienced snorkellers but that didn't matter, as the instruction was good and all levels were catered for. To see the Reef up close was incredible. As soon as we put our masks in the water it was like tuning into another world. Schools of brightly coloured fish of all sizes darted past in all directions, the reef itself swayed this way and that and we felt privileged to get an up-close look at what is literally another world. We overcame our initial anxiety and had an amazing day. The most interesting creature we spotted was a reef shark, which fortunately was gone so quickly that we didn't have time to be scared!
Port Douglas was a great place to spend a relaxing few days. After spending so much time dashing around in our first 60 days we were really loving some lazy days in tropical Queensland, so we opted to do more of the same over New Year, further down the coast in Mission Beach.
On arrival in Mission Beach, first impressions were not promising. The place seemed very small and devoid of anything to do. Really, anything. How were we going to fill 5 nights in a place where nothing happens? By doing nothing, of course! As it turned out, Mission Beach was just just what we needed and we ended up having a fantastic time. Our B&B was lovely - a lush, tropical Indonesian-style paradise, run by a very friendly young South African couple. We went for walks on the beach, ate well, swam in the pool at the B&B (though not in the sea unfortunately, as it was stinger season) and Stephen even learned how to cycle!
New Year's Eve in Mission Beach was a fairly low-key affair - we walked down the road to a beach shack restaurant for dinner, then realised after we'd eaten that we didn't have the energy or inclination to stay out till midnight, so went for a moonlight walk on the beach instead. It was a lovely way to end a momentous year.
2007 dawned hot, sunny and sober, so three unusual things for 1st January there. We made the most of the day
and took a water taxi over to Dunk Island, a rainforest-covered island opposite our beach that we'd been staring at for the previous four days across the water. In blistering heat we made the foolish decision to climb to the top of the island's biggest hill, Mount Tookaloo, for a vantage point over the islands below. The view was good, the climb and humidity weren't. In our defence, we probably only did it because there wasn't that much to do on the rest of the island. Back at ground level, we were happy to get back to the B&B for a cooling swim and a chance to kick back and enjoy our last night in Mission Beach.
The next day we went back up to Cairns, for a night in the city we'd been studiously avoiding but had to fly out of the next day. As it turned out Cairns wasn't as bad as we'd been expecting, though nowhere near as nice as Port Douglas or Mission Beach. And we did get to spend some time in the casino, which Stephen had been wanting to do for weeks, where he had a good win playing blackjack and bought us
a fat dinner with the proceeds!
The following day we flew to Sydney, our final stop in Australia. As we'd been bemoaning the insufficient time we'd had everywhere else we decided to put that right by having eight nights in the city we'd been looking forward to the most. And we weren't disappointed. We had a fantastic time.
It was so exciting to see iconic landmarks like the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, sights that told us we really were in Sydney! We had a great time walking all over the city, eating, drinking, shopping and enjoying city life again. We took the ferry out to Manly, to see that cool (but touristy) beach suburb, and the train out to Cronulla, a more down-to-earth beach suburb, where we met up with some friends for lunch and a tour of one of the less-visited of Sydney's beaches. We went out to the Blue Mountains for the day, which was a lovely day out with some stunning scenery. And...yes, we went to the cricket. Courtesy of Rachel & Roger, the couple we met at Uluru, and their outrageous kindness, we spent the third day of the final Ashes test
sitting in front row seats, getting sunburnt and watching Australia whup the English for the fifth successive Test. It was a great day, the ultimate for a cricket fan like Stephen, a chance to see Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath bowl in their last test match and the chance for Joanna to have a much-needed induction into the rules of cricket.
Though we could have easily spent longer there, eight nights in Sydney was a good amount of time and a great way to round off a month in Australia - a fascinating, exhilarating, diverse, engaging and captivating country. Could New Zealand be as good as this? We flew to Wellington to find out...
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