Cairns, Port Douglas & the Daintree 2022

We arrived in Cairns just before 6 pm and got a rental car to be able to drive around and visit places. We stayed at an interesting hotel called the Abbott Boutique. It’s in a fairly old building that has been renovated well and has lots of first page covers of London Herald in the corridors. It is in the middle of a very busy area and the entrance would be very easy to miss. The reception area is very small but the rooms were spacious, nice and quiet.

The hotel is very close to both the Night Markets and Rusty Markets. So we went for a stroll aiming to have dinner at the Night Markets but didn’t really find anything that we liked. So we had dinner at Japanese restaurant called Ganbaranba, then desert back at the markets (mango in various forms – dried, smoothies, icecream) and finished the first evening in Cairns by walking along the Esplanade where there were lots of bush stone-curlews.

We got up quite early to go to Rusty Markets for breakfast – not the best idea as most things were still closed. We got lots of things from Frenchy’s, a French pastry joint, which didn’t prove to be the best choice as they were not fresh / probably made the day before. At least we found (and bought) lots of yummy bananas of all sizes, and also found some nice hippie dresses and some pieces of jewellery.

We did a a scenic flight over the Great Barrier Reef with Daintree Air Services. The owner was quite a talkative colourful character called Greg Letondeur. The 40 min flight was really nice and we even saw manta rays, sharks and a turtle from up high as well as a few boats and ships going between the reef and shore, as well as a helicopter that had landed on one of the small islands.

After the flight we started driving towards Port Douglas. We stopped at Balancing Rocks and Rex’s lookout on the way. There were a few couples having wedding photos taken and at the lookout there was a hand-glider (and leaflets left behind advertising tandem hand-gliding).

We arrived in Port Douglas around 2 pm. We stayed at Port Douglas apartments – a small, adult-only place, nice and clean. Location was quite handy as it was really close to the beach and the main street (Macrossan St).
After a short rest we went for a stroll to the shops and ended up near the sugar wharf where we watched the sunset, more wedding photos being taken, and saw the small church St Mary by the sea. Finding dinner that evening proved problematic as most places were fully booked. We managed to find a spot at a Thai place called Menu (where the food was actually quite nice), managed by an American dude with his Thai partner.

Next day we had breakfast at a very nice place called The Little Larder then went for a walk along Four Mile Beach. It started raining so we tried to cut through Sheraton resort to get back to the path under the tree canopy, but ended up back on the main road, and by that time the rain had stopped as well.

We walked passed many accommodation places, the small park where a Circus had been and they were packing the last trucks, and also saw some posters on trees about “the pervert of Port Douglas” who apparently rides a bike then puts on his hood and starts peering through windows.
We spent the rest of the morning shopping in Port Douglas. For lunch we went to Osprey restaurant at Thala Beach resort. We drank water from fresh coconuts which was very nice and the ambience and setting at tree canopy level was spectacular. The food unfortunately wasn’t.
After admiring their coconut farm again and disappointed by the food, we went for a walk opposite Four Mile Beach. We went up some stairs and then Flagstaff Hill with beautiful views along the way back towards the coast. We only a couple more people on the walk, and when we reached the other end (close to the sugar jetty) they had set up for an outdoor wedding with chandeliers hanging from a tree, quite spectacular. We saw a couple of orange-footed scrubfowls that were busying themselves poking and pecking for earthy treats.

From Port Douglas we drove to the Daintree. We stopped at Mossman Gorge Discovery Centre and caught the shuttle bus to get to the gorge itself. The 2.5 km walk around the rainforest was quite amazing, with all the really big old trees, the smells of dead horse trees every here and there, the vines of different shapes and sizes, and various colours of leaves and occasional blossoms. The town of Mossman is apparently the centre of the sugar cane industry in the region. There were quite a few cows on the pastures – brown, black, white, some humped, some not. And lots of white egrets around them.

We had lunch at Daintree Village with some interesting and tasty things on offer like barramundi and croc burgers.

We stayed at the Daintree Eco-Lodge which was quite spectacular – the rooms were nice, spacious, the sounds of the rainforest around us amazing, and so was the sound of the rain falling (as we did get a bit of that during our stay here).

We went for a crocodile watching tour on Daintree River with Solar Whisperer, an electric boat. We got to meet Peppa, the resident schnauzer, and saw quite a few birds (an azure kingfisher, a striated heron and a Papuan frogmouth) and some crocs. The whole thing lasted one hour, and it rained quite heavily towards the end but it was still a really good experience.

After we came back to the car, we crossed the Daintree River by ferry. The sun came out just before we got on the boat but wasn’t out for long. After we crossed, we stopped at Daintree Discovery Centre but didn’t do any of the walks so we would have to come back, and we three cassowary chicks – unfortunately (or fortunately) no adult guardian.

We tried the icecream at Floravilla which wasn’t too nice. From there we drove to have lunch at Whet cafe which was a very nice surprise – they’re off grid, have very nice outdoor settings (plants etc) and had very nice poke bowls and interesting looking vegan raw cakes. Saw another massive golden weaver spider and its amazing golden silk.

We then drove to the end of the bitumen road at Cape Tribulation where we got out and walked between the houses from Cape Trib Beach House to the beach and back. The beach was quite wide as it was low tide so we could admire the mangroves growing into the sand. We looked at some fallen coconuts, but they had all been “holed”.

On the way back we stopped at PK’s Jungle Village shop where we found some nice tea and chocolate. We did the Kulki Boardwalk to Cape Tribulation (and looked back towards the Beach House) where we saw more orange-footed scrubfowls.

We sampled the icecream at the Daintree Icecream Company (which was really nice / much nicer than Floravilla) where they had quite a few different flavours (wattleseed, coconut, black sapote, mango and jackfruit).

We stopped briefly at Mt Alexandra lookout (and were pretty lucky to have a bit of a break in the rain) where a quirky green spider posed for us, then crossed back on the ferry.

On the last morning of our stay we to the waterfall near the lodge (but didn’t stay long at all as it was full of mosquitoes trying to get us).

We stopped at Wonga Beach trying to find some coconuts on the beach but didn’t have much luck, however the views of the coast and rainforest were quite amazing.

We really wanted to drink fresh coconut water so we bought some coconuts from Scomazzon’s farm stall as well as pawpaws and mandarins. We stopped at Cooya Beach thinking we would be able to enjoy them there on the beach but it didn’t look that inviting and there were some boats beached in low tide.

We continued our journey back towards Cairns but stopped on the way at Mowbray River Bridge to see some crocodiles (as well as a python and lots of crabs of different colours, the prettiest ones parading single big orange claws).

We arrived in Palm Cove just after 2 pm. The Paradise on the Beach Resort where we stayed was quite far from the promised bliss. The old lady at reception was very grumpy because we had booked through Expedia and because we asked about parking. The rooms were quite old and not very clean. Luckily, we didn’t spend a lot of time inside.
We went to Cairns around 4 pm and did some shopping first, then walked along the Esplanade (saw a jabiru feeding nonchalantly in the tide water). Dinner was amazing at a nice Greek place called Yaya’s (we had the degustation menu which was quite filling). Before sleep we had a nice walk along the jetty in Palm Cove.

Kuranda is a quaint tourist village up the hill from Cairns. We caught the skyrail to get there and, despite a bit of drizzle, the ride was really nice with beautiful views towards Cairns and also of the rainforest but from above. We stopped to see Barron Falls and then Red Peak.

The 4.5 hours we had in Kuranda went very quickly on shopping, admiring the views and lunch at Rainforest View restaurant. We didn’t even get in all the shops and didn’t have time to do any of the other attractions (butterflies, koalas, walks etc.). We did have one more coconut before leaving in one of the cafes in the village centre.

The return trip was via train and was also very nice – old style carriages, noise very similar to childhood train noise in Romania. It stopped once to see the Barron waterfalls from the other side but passed several other falls on the way.

For the last day of our holiday we went to see Paronella Park. The route was spectacular, winding around sugar cane, banana and paw paw plantations. We stopped to visit Josephine falls and had nice views of Mt Bartle Frere that we’ll have to come back and hike one day.

Paronella Park was better than expected. We got there around 12 pm, joined the 12:30 tour, then walked around by ourselves before late lunch. Apart from the interesting history of the place, the hydropower station and the old buildings & ruins, we fed fish (black bream and some sort of perch), turtles & eels and saw some interesting plants (including electric ferns and bamboo forest).

And that was it – we had a safe and smooth drive back to the airport and a good flight back home (except some turbulences east of Kalgoorlie).