After rather a slow start to the day, we piled into the car and headed north for a day trip to Port Douglas. What beautiful scenery as we drive round the hills, with the road running beside the beach.

Getting back into tourist country again, seeing caravans and vans with plates from NSW and Victoria and even Tasmania. Suddenly the road takes a climb up through 20 kms or so of winding narrow road, and the views down the coastline are superb.

In Port Douglas we wandered around the shopping area, which has a similar layout to Noosa. We walked along the very wide beach, along with a number of other
people. I think it’s called 4 Mile Beach. At least at low tide it was wide. Judging by the high tide line, it didn’t look like there would be much left of the beach. Coconut palms lined the edge of the sand, and many people were riding hired bikes along the beach. Then we walked over to the other side of the town, to the marina area, to find a restaurant for lunch. We found a suitable one looking across to the boats, and had another very enjoyable 2 hour lunch with wine.
At 4pm, we went up to the park overlooking the marina and sat on the grassy bank under the palms. A woman in a shop we had gone into earlier in the day had told us that at about that time, all the boats come back in after a day out on the reef. She said that the large Quicksilver boats look like the Star Wars fleet when they come in. She wasn’t wrong. They are large multi-decked catamarans with narrow dark tinted windows.