Port Douglas - Cairns

Happy Birthday to me! 41 Today!

What a shame our time has come to an end in Port Douglas. Its funny how things always work out for the best. We were really pissed off that our relatively new car has broken down so early in the piece and its life, and the fact that Ford have been pathetic in not only diagnosing the problem, and collecting large sums of money from us for the privilege of not doing their job, and the shear inconvenience of having to remove and store and reinstall our kayaks each time they don’t do the same. But it had ended up with us meeting two great people who we hope we’ll meet again real soon. So in the end we were sad to go back to Cairns, but strangely enough, both Wayne and Sharon has wanted to extend their van hire for 4 more days, but were unable to as it was booked, so they had to return to Cairns too. We agreed to meet back that night for dinner as we had to get off to Cairns Ford to get stressed again…

So we said our “till laters” and departed to Cairns. We stopped at Palm Cove on the way home. This was apparently Christopher Skase’s development that never worked. I’m not sure how far he got with the development before his extended holiday began, but his original palm trees along the entrance still remain. We’d heard great things about the place, but were quite disappointed. Maybe its proximity to Cairns (only 30kms) is also its downfall, as its so overcrowded with everyone wanting the lovely beach lifestyle. It was impossible to get a parking spot, along with seeing a square inch of grassed foreshore free – even on a weekday. We didn’t stop, and decided we needed to get on to Ford.

Arrived and walked around for a time while waiting for them to finally do their job. It took them 5 hours to install a water pump! But it was relieving that in KEA’s generosity to go halves with us as a good faith gesture, the fact that it was put on their account, or not, but the bill was more than $200 less than we were quoted, so we were quite relieved.

We then drove round to the Cairns Yacht Club for our final and their 4th last night of trading. I had an interesting discussion with the bar tender, or what appeared to be many years. He said the new Yacht Club was totally separate to their club and they didn’t really want the membership from the old club to transfer over to the new club. Its kind of sad. Not that the old building looks like much at all, but it is 100 years old (I guess some part of it) and they do the real sailing courses for kids and the like. The new one looks like it will cost double the price for a beer and will be so elite that many wont be able to afford to join, which means they’ll loose valuable members who used to train the young kids at the old club. That’s progress I guess.

We met Wayne and Sharon at the bar for a drink. We watched the sun set and the moon rise over the untouched bay. We then moved on to a bar they found that had great food. We enjoyed a great night. After dinner we walked around the city taking in the buildings and chatting more about life and the universe and then said our good bye’s. It was sad, but I know we’re going to see them again. We spent the night in the carpark of the yacht club. Apart from a few visitors during the night, it was great to wake to the lovely view (see pic 17th).