Reflections of Port Douglas

... t have any back ups, on cards or on the computer, believe us, we have looked! C’est la vie! So you will not see any pictures of the fabulous huge lace monitor lizard that we saw at Noah’s Beach campsite this morning, or the one hundred and fifty artistic pictures of ferns, bark, creepers and palms that Jen took in the rainforest, or the pictures of the mudfish crawling around out of the water, or the crabs with the bright red pincers or the orange footed scrub fowl ...

... they had created with info on the way the continents had evolved with the movement of the plates etc - very interesting. Decided to just have some lunch and not bother with the snakes etc - the koalas don't get fed til 5pm - they sleep for 16 hours per day. So we went off to the beach and had a paddle at Ellis beach first, then onto Kawarra ...

... t catch any fish, but got to see 4 crocs up close in their 'habitat'. That's Reid's new word from the science book Mom makes him read 'to make up for all the school we missed'. The big one looked a little like Dad, cept nicer,slimmer and better looking!<br><br>We got to play cricket on 4 Mile beach. It's actually a pretty fun game as long as you get to hit the ball lots and don't get out. Me and Reid don't like getting out. Yes winning matters...no, it's ...

... beautiful pieces. The one that amazed me the most was a pair of hollowed bloodstone boots - looked so life like. I found a table i fell in love with but a mere $7000 was a bit out of my range - wouldn't of fit in the van either! We then headed though Mareeba before coming down the very steep and very windy road to Port DOuglas. It was a speed limit of 30km/h recommendation and even though I trust Jeremy's driving - was still pretty hair raising at ...

... in the ocean and the Rainforest on shore. The rainforest is much as it was millions of years ago in the Jurassic period - quite astounding. Now as for the tour itself is absolutely appaling. Firstly the air conditioning in the 4x4 failed the day before - so we'll be coaching it and not doing any off road terrain. The guide is boring and his monodrone just invokes sleepiness when added to the heat. Maybe that's why the old fella slept. As it progressed, the ...

We went to "The Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary." We started out by having "Breakfast with the Birds." It was so fun! We had all these birds walking around us, and we had Rainbow Lorakeets walk on our table. If we had any bread, then they would try to get at it, but if we didn't, they would check us out and then fly away.   After breakfast we went and walked around the "Wetlands" section. There was this black and white bird with a yellow head. It ...

... Mary returned from her run and got all showered up. We all decided to walk down to town for dinner since Sarah had not seen it yet and everything immediately around us was closed. We settled in at the Rattle and Hum bar and restaurant and enjoyed a good meal (I am always game for a wood-fire oven pizza). Thankfully, we had some drinks and one of the waitresses convinced us to be lazy and take a cab back home rather than walk ...

... replacing after someone with a passion for saving Cassowarys keeps altering (see pics). When we arrived at our resort we were only down to stay one night, not two as we had booked. Unfortuately there wasn't a standard double availabe for us the second night...so we got upgraded to a delux double. Absolute luxury compared to what we've been used to! Had a nap in the most comfortable bed in a long time before a good feed and a ...

... depends on this one bird.   For example, there is a fruit (poisonous to us of course) called the cassowary plum.  It has a layer of color for the bird to find it, a layer of insect repellent so it won't get eaten before the bird gets there, and a layer of just enough food to encourage the bird to eat lots of them.  The bird gets rid of all of those layers to reveal another layer of insect repellent and the seed itself.  the seed that we saw ...

... about the risks, but they would be staying vigilant. Notwithstanding our disdain of sticky labels, we went and identitified ourselves as tourists just the same, in the usual spazzy way: we bought Corocdile-Dundee-style leather hats. Oh dear. At this point I am less sorry that I can't post my pictures on line, even if the backdrop to our idiot-tourist photos is the canopy of the rainforest as seen from the Sky Rail. Fantastic.