The Great Barrier Reef

There are some things you really want to do when you're young, but never actually think you'll get to do it. Visiting the great barrier reef was one of those things for me. But here I am, armed with an underwater camera, a snorkel and some flippers, sitting on a yacht heading out to the unknown.

There's a certain amount of trepidation on my part as I've never snorkelled before and the part of the reef we are going to is the same place that Steve Irwin met his fate. Added to this, Mandy is still recovering from major dental surgery, so she probably won't be able to give me the benefit of her experience.

We're heading out to the Low Isles about 15km off the coast of Port Douglas, a tiny coral island on the inner part of the reef.

Despite the obvious attractions, the added benefit of this is that we can just launch ourselves off the island into shallow water, instead of anchoring in deep water and heading out to the reef. Mandy's previous experience with a whale shark confirms this as a good idea. It also means that if the snorkel isn't workable for her, she can laze about the island whilst I practice some controlled drowning.

After a short buzz about in a glass bottomed boat, we have some lunch and then don the gear.
There's just no 'cool' way of entering the water with flippers on. After a few brief panicky moments as my brain adjusts to realising that though my mouth is underwater I can still breathe, we're on our way.


After about half an hour or so Mandy is quite tired, which is a good effort since she can't use a snorkel, so she heads back to the island and I'm left on my own to explore. The photos from my camera can't do it any justice at all, so you'll have to take my word that it's everything you expect it to be and more besides. Colourful fish and coral, giant clams, but best of all is when I look up and floating only a couple of feet away from me is this fella...

A green sea turtle. There is another diver about two feet away from him but facing in totally the wrong direction. He swims alongside for a minute at most then disappears off, and I realise that I'm laughing my head off through my snorkel.

After a little bit more 'controlled' floating I head back to the island, chuffed to bits with the whole experience.
The rest of the day is chilling out and really just letting it all sink in.






Oh, but we have a different wildlife experience to look forward to tonight....

Sunset with the Crocs

It's time to take a decent look at Port Douglas, but only after brekkie and another swim in the hotel pool.


After some mojito enhanced decision making we've booked a day out at the great barrier reef tomorrow, which leaves us with some time to wander down to Four Mile Beach, then take a sunset cruise on the Lady Douglas.


The cruise is an hour or so up the Dickson Inlet through the mangrove forests and the territory of the great Australian estuarine crocodile. Despite everything you may have heard, they're not swarming everywhere just waiting to eat human flesh, they are typically solitary and secretive creatures, as their survival for 200 million years attests to.

The captain of the Lady Douglas delivers a lot of useful information about the animal and it's environment, richly laced with an ironic wit.

'Do Not Anchor'

Lazy Sunday in Queensland

After a swim in the hotel's salt-water lagoon pool, our first port of call is a cold one in the down to earth Central Hotel, a classic Aussie pub, cold beer, pokies, and plenty of room to eat and watch the footie. We take time to discuss what we want to do for the next couple of days. But for today it's time to relax and soak up the heat and a few schooners as well.

Eventually we end up in the Courthouse Hotel, sitting outside listening to a lively band and watching the antics of the recently victorious local footie team as they celebrate with a pub crawl, dressed in their mothers' finest sunday dresses. We get the impression that Port Douglas is a mix of well-heeled tourists with a solid heart of 'colourful' locals.


After some food we pop in to the Iron Bar to witness 'Cane Toad Racing', unfortunately we're too late for the full spectacle, but we do get a look at the contestants.

This is my first close-up look at the most hated creature in Australia, and it's hard to deny that they are ugly. But we'll be back in a couple of days to witness this slice of Australiana in it's full glory.

Sydney to Port Douglas

Another early start sees us leaving the house at 5.30am to get the shuttle to Sydney for the 8.15 flight to Cairns. We've scored a decent deal for 4 nights in Port Douglas and we're really looking forward to it, despite the usual drudgery involved with airports and other people in general.

Port Douglas is about 60km north of Cairns, which is in itself about 2500km north of Sydney, towards the far northern tip of the east coast. To put a bit of perspective on things that's like going from Edinburgh to Moscow without leaving the country. Although we are going from New South Wales to far north Queensland so there may be some who would disagree about that last bit. As I'm doing the whole perspective thingy (and I've just found a funky online distance calculator), our arrival in Port Douglas not only puts us firmly in the tropic of capricorn but a mere 500 miles from Papua New Guinea.


I'm sure that all of this is fascinating enough in itself but the real reason we are here is that Port Douglas is wedged between two world heritage sites, namely the Daintree Rainforest and that other natural wonder the Great Barrier Reef. Which promises a whole host of opportunities for new experiences and winter temperatures of 30 degrees, backed up with sea temperatures of about 24 degrees. Not too shabby.

We rock up to the hotel in the early afternoon, sort ourselves out and then head out to orientate ourselves via the many lively hostelries in the town.

Thanks ABBEY!! and thanks Royal Mail.

Once again the Abbey has done me proud and rewarded my 15 years of loyalty as a customer by completely screwing up my finances whilst I'm 10000 miles from home.

My tax bill is due at the end of this month, so I log on to send them a payment as a dutiful tax paying UK citizen, but the Abbey has stopped access to my online account. It's too early to call them so I try to withdraw some rent money from my account and the ATM swallows my card, first time, no usual 3 strikes then you're out.

This cheeses me off a bit. So I phone them expecting that they have yet again put a stop on my account because of suspected fraudulent activity, despite the fact that we have been through this on 3 previous occassions in the past 5 months. But no there is no problem with my account, must have been a faulty ATM. This is not much solace as this means the card has been destroyed and they will have to issue a new one.

This in itself would be a big enough pain in the arse but I've already had problems with the Royal Mail forwarding me stuff here. So, in desperation I call the ATM company and they say that there is a miniscule chance of getting my card back, for miniscule read non-existent.

I call Abbey again and ask for options for transfering money here and paying my tax bill over the phone. They will do it but I will have to offer up my first born child beforehand. I ask again why I can't just have access to my account online and suddenly the bank/mail conspiracy reaches new heights. You see, I rather stupidly called the bank last week and asked them not to send anything by mail until I got that problem sorted, by which they took me to mean that I had lost my debit card and wished them to send me out a new one!!!???!!

So they cancelled my card without telling me, are sending my new one to Australia despite (actually because of) my instructions not to send anything here because of the shoddy service by the Royal Mail. And my online banking is linked to the new card which may or may not arrive.

The mail re-direction is another story but as I'm on a bit of a rant I might as well give some details on that too. Initially I was having mail redirected to Ian in Perth, this worked fine initally but Ian could only send mail every 6 weeks or so once enough had built up to justify the costs and hassle. So, to remove both these hassles from him I asked the Royal Mail just to forward stuff here instead. Easier, quicker and cheaper for both of us.

No mail for 5 weeks and I called them. They initiated an investigation and, guess what, 5 days later I received a letter saying that there was no problem and all was fine, I'm just not very popular. A few days later and still no mail so I called again. I was then told that there had been a problem and mail would now start coming, but I should phone everyone who'd sent me mail out meantime (probably a mere two dozen phone calls to the UK, not counting the people who might have sent mail that I didn't know about, so a possible visit to a psychic to help there), and get them to complain to the Royal Mail. Thus, the phone call to my bank and the subsequent cock-ups from there.

Miraculously enough some mail from 5 weeks previous suddenly appeared, two letters. I still have no idea where it had been. But nothing has arrived since.

So thanks for that both of you, thanks a lot, now I'm on the other side of the world with no access to money unless I cough up for charges which were caused by both of your incompetencies. Oh yes, I may well receive moeny back for these charges, but only after you've got the money and I spend the next 6 months on chasing your complaints department.

Sometimes I'm looking for reasons to go home and then I remember why I left.

I could go on (even more), but listening isn't their strong points.

Kangaroo Valley and Jervis Bay

We've been down to Kangaroo Valley before and its' the ideal spot to get away from Sydney at only a couple of hours drive. Normally we'd go into the city on Mandy's days off but the happy clappers have overtaken the place for World Youth Day which is just not a pleasant prospect for a day out.

We camped last time but it's just a bit too cold now. The wombats are still there in droves though we only heard them before, at least we got to see them this time.

Kangaroo Valley village itself is a pretty laid back type of place. Nice to retire to.

The next day we headed off down to Jervis Bay, reputed to have the whitest beaches and some of the clearest seas in the world.

Hyam's Beach

Murray's Beach

Booderee National Park contains a whole host of these beaches and little inlets and has great provision for camping.

Ruined Lighthouse - Looks like a spaghetti western set

Stick or Twist

It's that time in the adventure when it comes to making big decisions.

Should we go or should we stay?

So maybe it's time to look back first of all and review things.

It's a big file so apologies in advance.



Of course there is the other option -