Here is a very smart riviera style town with high-end clothes shops, lots of restaurants and ice-cream parlours. Quite a contrast to the billabong.
I’d like to say a bit about where we are staying: By the Sea, Port Douglas is run by ‘the girls’ who have thought of everything. You can borrow beach towels, deckchairs of 3 varieties, umbrellas, inflatables, dvds, board games, bikes and there’s a laundry. There are a lot of exclusive looking resorts back from the beach – but I really don’t think they can offer half as much!
First of all we caught up on our washing(!) and borrowed bikes and headed for ‘breakfast with the birds’ at the wildlife sanctuary 4 km down the road.
There was lots to see including lovely finches, black cockatoos, cassowaries,
but my highlight was scratching a very happy kangaroo or large wallaby – I still don’t know the difference: apparently it’s to do with foot size but there are some wallabies who also have big feet!
There is also a type of wallaby called a nail-tail because they have a nail just like a toe nail at the end of their tail! Very strange and they don’t know why!
We felt sorry for the tree kangaroo who seemed trapped – the koalas were all drugged or stuffed,
the crocs looked a bit small from what we are used to – but the birds were very happy with lots of room and they have successfully bred Jabiru. This is a wierd bird: a red-eyed frogmouth
They are also trying to save the gouldian finch with a breeding program.
We cycled back not needing lunch after our big breakfast! I went shopping for swimwear & then we went to the beach – properly: with borrowed umbrellas & deckchairs!
On the beach are thousands of tiny crabs industriously rolling the sand into little balls and popping them out of their holes onto the sand – can you see it?
This one is a bit easier
Later we bought an ice-cream on our way to our sunset sail on a large catamaran.
The view of the green lush mountains falling into the sea was beautiful – it felt like a really big Caribbean island.
