Cairns and Port Douglas

24th-27th July

We got to Cairns silly early, even before the hostel opened! So we sat out on the Esplanade with our bags and watched the sunrise over the sea! Cairns was nice but small, no beach and full of tour operators after your money. So we planned to get away to Port Douglas about 40 miles north of Cairns to chill out on '4 mile beach'.

Port Douglas was really nice, quite an upmarket area with spas, golf courses and several famous holiday makers! The weather was pretty good for winter! 25+ degrees and sunny although apparently it wasn't great before we arrived.

We spent an eventful evening at the Yacht club where local 'skippers' take you out for free on their boats. We were lucky to go out as it was so busy and only a few boats were going out. It seemed they picked the best-looking ones ;-) ...or the one's with the most alcohol! The water was very choppy but it was nice to watch the sunset.

After 2 nights stay we went back to Cairns in time to pick up our Oz Experience bus taking us south all the way to Melbourne over 2 months. We start on Friday (tomorrow), first stop Mission beach. Think we'll take it slow to start with so that we can catch some sun!