Judy & Brian Tour Oz

  Port Douglas, Qld July 26, 2024 Easy 130km down the mountain to Glengarry, which is as close to Port Douglas as you’d like for a caravan park. This year, as the Cook Highway is a bit of a mess between here and Cairns, we though we might slide down there tonight, stay in a hotel and I can do my Parkrun at 7am Saturday, rather than leaving at 6 am and hoping to make it on time. We stayed in a grandly name hotel, The Palm Royale, out at a suburb called Manunda. The hotel is conveniently situated not far from several shopping centres and a 10 minute drive to Paloma, which is where I’ll do the parkrun. Found the hotel easily enough, the traffic on a Friday arvo is manic, the shops all look half empty and to be honest, the whole area looked a bit seedy. Our room had a nice little balcony overlooking the pool and we decided to drink bubbles and get a pizza for dinner. All the pizza shops, and there are  a lot, just around our area, all seemed to be flat-out. I finally drove to o...

  Port Douglas Qld July 28th 2023 Turned out rather a nice day, no rain and lots of sunshine between cloudy bits. We went on the now rather lame Lady Douglas cruise up the Dickson Inlet. We’ve done this maybe four times before and I guess we’re just a bit over it.  They managed to find two small crocodiles, so they got a tick-in-the-box, but we probably won't bother again. Apart from anything else, the skipper kept banging on about how crocodiles only eat once or twice a year, which I'm sure is just plain wrong. Research shows that a crocodile can last for up to three years without a feed, they normally feed on ‘snacks’ every few days. Baby saltwater crocodile, maybe 60cm long. Dickson Inlet Port Douglas Qld The marina is looking tired an unloved. Today we hear that it was bought a few years back by some billionaire who wanted to pull it down and build two, yes two, huge hotels on the site. So, all the tenants closed their businesses and left and the builders started pulli...

  Port Douglas Qld July 26th 2023 Time to leave our favourite spot in one of the top three van parks by our reckoning. It’s been raining on and off but stayed relatively dry while we broke camp and moved out. By the time we hit Mareeba it was raining properly and continued to do so all the way to Glengarry. That descent from Mount Morgan down to the highway is pretty special, it even has a sign that says “All vehicles use low gear”. I couldn’t help but wonder how many drivers would know what “low gear” means or how to use it. The road also has a “Danger: High Accident area”. So enough said, take lots of care and lots of time to get down safely. Glengarry is on the Captain Cook Highway just south of Craiglie, which is just past the turn of to “Port”. Luckily it stopped raining while we set up, but it’s very damp, even muddy underfoot. We had some shopping to do so went into town to the shops, had some lunch and returned to the van. The rain started almost immediately but as I ...

 Port Douglas, Qld 4 Aug 2022 Today is the day. Pack the backpack with least minute 'must haves', close the van up and move it to the  storage area, call a cab and off we go! All the way to the Shangri La hotel in Cairns where we waited for the tour bus to turn up. Meanwhile, the last tour's passengers were just drifting out and on their way and a few other new tour people turned up and joined us. We had to either do a RAT or show an Exemption Certificate due to having had covid recently and away we went, All the way to the next hotel, and the next. Some poor sod failed the RAT and had to abandon, stuck in the Rydges Hotel room for 7 days. A couple seemed to have gone missing but turned back around at the Rydges, so we picked them up and made it across to the airport to get our last couple. Good thing for all of us is that we are now 16 instead of 22 which should make for a more comfortable bus ride. We travelled up to Port Douglas and were taken right into town where we we...