Port Douglas and Beyond

We arrived north of Brisbane at the Cairns Airport.  Enter Dick & Susan into the hot, steamy tropical town of Cairns.  We stayed a bit further north at Port Douglas, a sleepy little town that is the center of all the rainforest and great barrier reef activity in the area. It is a quaint area filled with palm trees, white sand beaches, azure water and the (and I mean the) biggest fruit bats you have ever seen.  These bats (for Andrea Nelson's sake) are over 16 inches long when hanging from their little feet's!  They are nocturnal, so when dawn comes, they are found by the thousands hanging from certain trees.  Night time comes and off they go to eat fruit and bugs.  When they fly, it appears as if thousands of eagles are flying off into the dusk.  They are quite harmless and only eat fruit of which there is a ready supply.  We did not experience any lack of fruit but did notice a significant lack of mosquitoes.  The Peninsula hotel was right on the beach where we were able to enjoy the walk down 4 mile beach.  The pictures with this post show the beach, the rain forest and  the view from our rear balcony.  You will notice the "stinger" net surrounding the water that is open to swimming.  The first of December is the start of the stinger jelly fish season.  The Box Jelly Fish can send you to two places if you get stung.  One is the hospital and the other is the grave!  The local officials have to cruise the stinger net at the end of the season in March.  They are required to have two consecutive weeks of daily checking that shows absolutely no sign of the jelly fish before they will open the beach for total swimming  this usually happens in March.  We did not have any problems in the net nor did I have any encounters when I took a dive boat to the reef for a day of underwater fun.  I was required to wear a "rashie"suit just in case.  For those of you who know Susan's temperature standards for getting into the water will then know how warm the water was in Port Douglas.  Kristie and Ted will know for sure!  The rain forest is so very hard to describe so I will let our pictures do the talking when we return.  Ditto for the reef and the diving adventure.  We are now on Hamilton Island at the Qualia Resort.  It is beyond description but I will try in a future blog.  Right now it is time to wrap this up.  I will give another post or two while we are on Hamilton and then wrap it all up at the end of the week when we head for Sydney and the final leg back to all our friends and loved ones in Seattle.  So much more later!