Our little trip up north..

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My last Greyhound trip for now took me to Cairns, where Emma and Marc were already waiting for me with the car we rented. Cairns would have to wait till later, we were first gonna make a little trip further up north. Very convenient, by car, so much better than by bus 😊. Our destination for the first day was Port Douglas, a coastal city not that far away from Cairns. The main attraction of port Douglas was the beach, but unfortunately the weather wasn't that sunny that day. However, that didn't stop us from heading to the beach in the afternoon. As far as I was concerned, I could have been lying anywhere, I was just enjoying the Dutch magazines Marc brought with him so much, it had been a while after all.. 😊 Besides the beach Port Douglas pretty much consists of lots of hotels, restaurants, some shops, etc. A place where many people go to on holiday, but not really a happening place or anything, more like a quiet family beach destination. What is worth mentioning tough was the dinner we had that evening, at the restaurant that belonged to the hostel we were staying in. We had skewers of crocodile, emu and kangaroo, for a ridiculously low price, but hey, I'm not complaining! It was actually really tasty, although it tasted different than I'd expected it to taste.And so much fun to try once!

Next day we went into the rain forest, to the daintree national parc. The advantage of travelling by car is that you can stop anywhere you'd like, so of course we stopped at every interesting board walk or look out. Our first stop was in Mossman, which appeared to be not very interesting actually. However, our 2nd stop compensated a lot: we went on a guided tour given by an aboriginal who knows all about the plants, animals and myths of the rain forest. Incredibly interesting! I mean, I like exploring things by myself, but if you go on a guided tour every once in a while, you get so much extra information what puts everything in a whole other perspective. After the tour, we had a didgeridoo demonstration, very cool, accompanied by some tea. My gosh, I could go on like this and describe all the stops we made, but that's gonna take ages (okay, have to admit, I'm not sure if I really could actually, we have seen so many things..). But I guess I can't really explain how gorgeous everything was anyway. Try and imagine walking in the middle of a rain forest, swimming in a nice and cool gorge, or in a swimming hole attached to a creek, strolling over the most amazing beaches, ahh, guess you can't, you'll just have to watch the pics as soon as they're online. One more thing that has to be mentioned tough was the gorgeous little B&B we stayed in the 2nd night. We had a huge room, very cosy, private bathroom, in a wooden villa in the middle of the rain forest. My gosh, the view was just amazing. And you could hear nothing but sounds of nature.. Plus the hosts, an elderly couple, were so incredibly sweet, friendly would be an understatement. When I had booked the room they had already told me we would be able to sue the kitchen so we should bring some groceries, which we did. So now we could relax on our own little veranda, with some wine, baguette, salad.. Just like heaven! Quite different than staying in a YHA, that's for sure!

On our way back down we decided to stop at Palm's Cove, one of the most popular and most expensive beaches north of Cairns. We had a great lunch in one of the few not incredibly expensive places (popularity comes together with high prices 😉) and had a swim in the warm sea (within the stinger net of course). Then it was time to drive on to Kuranda..

When we got to Kuranda everything was already closed. I had kind of expected something like that already, since Kuranda is a place for day trippers, so after the last train to Cairns has departed there isn't that much going on anymore. However, in our hostel they told us about the waterfalls close to Kuranda and the connected lake where we could have a swim. It was gorgeous, and really nice to swim in. Haha, we have swum in so many different water pools lately... Then back to the hostel, a glass of sparkling rose (mmhhh), and off for dinner. Well, the last thing wasn't that easy. Kuranda is packed with places where you can have lunch, but there appeared to be only one option for us to have dinner that late (about 7.30..). So there we went, to some kind of take away pizzeria kind of place, not very cosy, but actually the food was lots better than expected, we were pleasantly surprised. It was quite funny too, we were served by a I guess 18 years old who was keeping the entire place running for his parents at that night. After a while he came and asked us if we'd mind if he'd close down the place shortly so he could run to the bottle shop before it'd close 😊.. Yep, that's the village atmosphere.. 😊 Next morning we got up early to have a look at all the markets and shops and stuff, but it turned out to be not thaaat interesting, so after walking around for a while and having a coffee we headed back to Cairns..

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