Port Douglas and beyond

Tuesday, November 25th

Today is the last day Natasha and Mel are in Cairns and we spent it exploring Port Douglas.  In the morning, we cleared up the kitchen.  I packed everything I might of wanted for Sydney and then made guacamole, which we ended up not eating.  We had a lot of wasted food, and being Chinese, I felt really bad.  Mel and Natasha went to pick up the car at Avis, while Connie and I finished gathering our stuff and lugging it downstairs.  At around 8:20am or so, we were all ready to pick up Bernice and Stephanie from Calypso hostel.  Connie and I were staying there that night too since we all departed for Sydney the next morning.

Off to Port Douglas we went.  There were 5 cooks in the kitchen confusing poor Mel.  After several u-turns, we got to Cook's highway towards Port Douglas.  Natasha heard that Palm Cove was supposed to be a beautiful beach town, and since it was on the way to Port Douglas we made a stop to check out the beach.  It was nice.  We made some attempts at jumping photos too.

We then went to Port Douglas town.  It was a cute quaint town.  We were amused by the public toilets.  Everything is automatic.  You press a button to enter.  Then a robotic voice says you have 10 mins max to finish your business and plays "what the world needs now is love" song.  When you are done, there is an automatic toilet tissue dispenser, soap dispenser, faucet, and hand dryer.  The only thing you "need" to touch is the button to open and close the door.  We were so amused by it we recorded several videos.  Natasha even brought it in with her, not while she was going.

We then stopped by the coffee house for a break.  I've been carrying two tim tams around in case we had our opportunity to do our tim tam slams.

We tried to do our tim tam slams at a coffee shop.  Tim tam slam is drinking coffee through a tim tam which is a chocolate wafer cookie covered with chocolate.  Because it was so hot, the chocolate was melting off, so we couldn't do it properly.  Connie and I still attempted it.  Mel and natasha were so sweet and went to the supermarket to get us Lamingtons, a pound cake dipped it slightly sweet chocolate and coconut flakes.  It was yummy!

Natasha heard Port Douglas has a really pretty marina, so she wanted to check it out.  It was a bit hard to fine as the signs only pointed to the marina mall.  We wanted the port!  Later we realized the mall was also the entrance to the port.  There were lots of boats there and it was pretty.

The next destination was Mossman Gorge where we can swim in a lake and hike through a rainforest.  At first this hike seemed questionable because we were driving thru it.  I cleverly named it the drive thru rainforest.  But after 10mins or so of driving, we found the parking and the beginning of the hiking trail.  The trail wasn't all that impressive, but it was nice.  We saw lots of tall trees, and the sky even spitted a bit on us with a scary thunder sound.  It really gave us the full effect of a rainforest...hee hee hee.  I was happy it didn't really rain.  We also found the lake, but it looked like a senior citizen party, so we gave it a miss.  We just dipped our feet in it to cool off.

We were a bit tired and sweaty by then, so we decided it was time for lunch.  Our original plan was to go back to Palm Cove for lunch and then lay out on the beach for a bit.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating, it rained a bit, but we also had limited time.  Mel and Natasha needed to get back to Cairns to catch their flight.  Lunch was very satisfying.  Mel, Natasha, Connie and I (since I shared with Connie) got fish and chips, each cooked in different ways.  I think Connie and I got the worst option, beer battered fish and chips.  Natasha got crumbled.  Mel got grilled.  Steph and Bernice shared a salad and pasta.  We were all very satisfied...at least until Mel started choking.  Mel had a piece of food stuck in her throat.  It was a bit scary as she was turning bright red and coughing a lot.  It took her 10mins to clear it.  Whew!

The drive back to Cairns was easy, maybe because I fell asleep half the way.  It was very nice of Mel and Natasha driving us to the hostel.  We were all really sad to say goodbye to them.  Connie busted out a few tears.  I still get to see Natasha in Sydney, so I am really looking forward to it.  I was sad that I didn't know when I would see Mel again.

Back at the hostel Connie and I chilled for a bit before taking showers.  We had some heart-to-heart time.  At around 7pm, we headed back to the town for dinner.  Steph was getting a pedicure, Bernice was checking the internet, Connie and I went for a drink.  At around 9pm we met up at Matsuri again for sushi.  It was yummy in our tummies.  Bernice and Steph went back to the hostel afterwards while Connie and I stayed in town looking for a toohey extra dry.  After many bars, we successful tried the toohey extra dry on tap.  Connie liked.