After Cape Tribulation we headed back South to spend the last few days in the camper in Port Douglas before dropping it off in Cairns.

Port Douglas

4 Mile Beach -Port Douglas

Swimming Buddy

We used Port Douglas as a base to get out to the Great Barrier Reef as we had heard that access from here was on smaller boats rather than larger boats carrying 300+ people. We ended up going out to the reef on a sailing boat (Aquarius) and had the best snorkelling experience that we have had anywhere.

Aquarius

Sit back – relax

Snorkelling off The Low Islands – Great Barrier Reef

We are now in Cairns in an apartment in the centre of town opposite the supermarket and bottle shop  and sandwiched between a Vietnamese street food outlet and a “gentleman’s club” not exactly quiet but a good location all the same and benefiting from air conditioning which we ran at maximum for the first day.

We have taken it fairly easy here after all our travelling but did make the effort to get up to Karunda in the mountains behind Cairns originally a bit of a hippy town but now bordering on becoming a tourist trap.

Karunda train

The last week in the van was hot particularly at night, day time temps in the low to mid thirties and not dropping below 25^oC at night and humidity up at 98%, so the last few days in the apartment have been “cool”.

We fly back to Melbourne tomorrow for  a couple of days before heading off to do some exploring in Victoria for a couple of weeks – our current thinking is to spend some time in the Grampians National Park.