The rest of Port Douglas

I do recommend Port Douglas as a place to go. Looking around it reminded me of Hawaii, with lush tropical rainforests going up to sandy beaches. It is also a key location for many attractions, like the Daintree and the Barrier Reef. Some things that we were near but did not get to see were the Daintree Discovery Center (with an aerial walkway), the Bat House (where they nurse injured fruit bats), and of course we did not try the jungle surfing. We thought it sounded expensive and a bit too wild, but the seventy-year old couple in our car did it, and they were fine. We would have missed the nature walk and beach, but it's something to think about.

We also missed Kuranda Village and Sky rail. We heard great things about it after we had set our itinerary, and there was just no room to add it in, so that would definitely be something to consider. You have access to Kuranda from Cairns as well, but I will not be writing much about Cairns because we were only there the one day, which was spent entirely on the reef.

For things we already did, I don't know that it would make sense to repeat the Rainforest Habitat, because we explored it pretty thoroughly, but there is defintely more to see in Daintree, and on another cruise you might see more crocodiles, and if you go at a different time of year to the fruit farm, there might be different fruits in season. We don't need to do those things again, but we could. (Also, despite being just blocks away from Four Mile Beach, we never actually went out there.)

Port Douglas is basically a holiday town. It was initially a fishing village, but now there are a lot of holiday homes and resorts where even native Australians come. There is one main street which is pretty much all restaurants, souvenir shops, and tour booking centers.

This street was the home of Wicked Internet, where we ended up almost every day. It makes perfect sense to combine an internet cafe, video rental, and an ice cream shop in a vacation town, but I just think the buying and selling of used books is a stroke of genius. We were able to sell all of the books we had read on the plane and get some internet time, and then if we had needed new books we could have bought them there. Perfect.

We stayed in the Port Douglas Motel, which had a stop for the Rainforest Habitat bus right across the street, and then the main street with all of the shops and restaurants was right around the corner. That was an excellent location.

The Motel was not great, but it is more that it is not really a motel. There is no daily service, you have to pay for extra towels, or for using more beds than you said you would, and there are no outbound phone calls for ordering food or confirming tours. You can call room to room, and the rooms are relatively cheap and comfortable. I think it would work really well for Australian families who are driving there and have cell phones, but it was not ideal for us.

Away from the main town there are several large resorts that seem very nice, though transportation could be an issue. We stayed at the Rendezvous Hotel in Auckland, and while there saw that they had one in Port Douglas that sounds great, but it would probably cost more. If you are looking at any of the resorts, check transportation options. For tours you can generally get picked up, but you will need to get into town. Actually, the motel right next to ours looked nicer, but I never caught the name.

For transportation between the Cairns Airport and Port Douglas, we used Sun Palm transport. I did not like the online booking process, because I was not sure what stops to select, but setting it up at the airport was fine. On the way there we were with several people, and so we did notice the scenery but were not really focused on it. On the way back we were the only three, so we were more focused, and also it was sunset and it was amazingly beautiful. The road goes along the ocean the entire way, and as we watched the sky turn red, and the sunset and the moonrise, it was just gorgeous. It was the first time that I really noticed that the horizon looks bigger there. Somehow it seems wider. I asked our captain about that later, if it was just me or it really did look bigger. He said he didn't know, but to him the sky seems higher there. We were about thirty degrees closer to the equator there than I usually am, so maybe that's what does it.

Downsides to Port Douglas are just part of being tropical. There are bugs everywhere. You have to empty your trash daily, and not allow standing water to collect. There will still be bugs if you do this, but less chance of being overrun with them or catching a horrible disease from them. Also, people are kind of on island time. You will go to a restaurant, and they just didn't open that day, or they are coming in late. It's okay though, because there are lots of other restaurants, and it's unlikely that everyone will take the same day off. You just need to be relaxed, because North Queensland also stands for Nothing Quickly.

http://www.kuranda.org/
http://www.portdouglasmotel.com.au/
http://www.rendezvoushotels.com/port_douglas/
http://www.sunpalmtransport.com/