We are in Port Douglas for a few days, then heading to the Atherton Tablelands. We hope to spend another month or two in this part of Australia. You can see a map of our journey so far. Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more news. Feel free to post us a comment too. Rob, Clare and Olive.

Our snorkeling trip to the Low Isles started at 10am under blue skies. It took us just over an hour of sailing to get to the small coral island, part of the inner reef. Rob headed straight to shore on a guided snorkeling tour, while Clare and Olive had a view of the coral and marine life from a glass bottom boat. After a cold seafood buffet lunch on board the boat, the roles were reversed, and Clare went for a snorkel while Rob was on the boat. There was exceptional soft coral to see, and we both saw some turtles, and plenty of amazing and colourful fish. It clouded over and started to rain, just in time for us to get together for a guided tour of the tiny island and lighthouse. On the way back we spotted a humpback whale and it followed us for a while as we returned to port. What a great day, well worth the expense.

We drove up to the lookout and lighthouse on Mt Cook to look for a way out of here, just as Captain Cook did over 200 years ago. Cooky found a route through the reef, but for us the best way was back the way we came along the inland road. Again it was super windy and raining up on the hill, but the view was magnificent! We headed back down to the coast, to Port Douglas, which we had skipped on the way up. On the way we passed a fish farm selling cheap barramundi which we could not resist. We cooked it up on the BBQ for dinner. The caravan park is located amongst the luxury resorts, a short walk from the main street and beach. We had a walk down past the trendy shops and down to the marina, what a lovely town this is. We booked ourselves on a trip to the reef for tomorrow. The weather is expected to be as good as it is going to be for the next few days, and we are hoping for the best.

The wind last night was horrendous, we thought there was a cyclone coming. Fortunately the van survived and amazingly Olive slept through it. We took a walk to the cemetery and through some mangroves, then along the main strip of town, which includes some monuments to Captain Cook who beached his ship the Endeavour here for repairs in 1770. If it was as windy then as it is today, it is no wonder he did not set up a permanent settlement here. In the afternoon we went to the excellent Captain Cook Museum where we learned more about CC’s visit here.

As we packed up our campsite in the early morning it started to rain. We have to backtrack a little to take the sealed inland road to Cooktown (about 250 km). The more direct route following the coast (about 100km) would be more spectacular, but it is a serious 4WD only track. We passed a lookout but we were up in the clouds and could not see a thing! We took a detour to the lovely Daintree Village, which seems like a quaint little town. After some hours of driving we arrived in Cooktown about mid afternoon. It is seriously windy here - we thought we had experienced some windy days - look out! We just had time for a walk to the Botanic Gardens, which have been established for a long time but where unfortunately not that impressive.

There is not much to do here, just a beach! So we went for another bike ride along beach in the hard sand, which was much easier on the way back with the wind behind us. It has been windy for the last week or two, which is never that pleasant for a beach holiday. We discovered that we can get phone reception if we go onto the beach - under the rainforest canopy the signal must be filtered out, just like the sun is. So we spoke with some family today, and caught up with some news, including the footy tipping. Rob looks like winning the family comp, even though we have not seen many of the games this year. Maybe there is something in that.

We are moving around the corner today, from one beach to the next one down the Cape. On the way we took a short hike in the rainforest near Emmagen Creek, where we had been assured we would see the endangered and elusive cassowary bird. We were enjoying walking the picturesque track, but there was no sign of the bird … until just before the end of the track, it was spotted in the bushes ahead of us, the absolutely massive bird looking resplendent with it’s bright blue plumage. We were quite chuffed with ourselves, as we had been searching for a cassowary since Mission Beach. After this excitement, we drove to some markets at a resort, but there was not much there - in fact the drive was more interesting than the destination. We went on an interesting boardwalk through the mangroves, where the midges were hungry for our flesh, and we enjoyed a coffee on the beach at a cafe of the same name (Cafe on the Beach). Tonight we are staying at Noah Beach campground, which is only a few isolated campsites scattered amongst the rainforest within the National Park, just back from the beach. As the slogan goes - “Where the rainforest meets the sea” that’s where we were. We got a good site, except for a bad smell maybe from a dead animal nearby. We carried our chairs and a bottle of wine down to the beach for happy hour - but we were not the only ones with this idea. Olive has been having fun at the beach collecting more things - shells, seed pods, rocks and almost anything. We will have to cull her collection as we wont be able to fit it all in our van.