Day 54 – Tuesday 9 August 2016 – Cairns

A wet start to the day but we headed off to check out Cairns.  It was very dull and overcast and maybe that was part of why we didn't exactly warm to Cairns.  It's very tourist based with dozens of restaurants and bars along the street facing the shore.  The pool on the waterfront is awesome but the waterfront resembles lake Colac on a bad day.  Maybe it was just because it didn't quite fit our type of holiday this time, as parking was next to impossible to find and the streets crowded with Japanese tourists who took their own sweet time (and all the footpath) to get from A to B.  We just weren't in awe of Cairns at all though I do recommend the Ice-Cream store.

Back in the car we headed further north towards Port Douglas.  Along the way we made a stop at Ellis Beach and took the dogs for a walk.  Miss Kitty who has always been a big beach fan, had the happy tail wagging and enjoyed that part of the trip immensely.

I pulled in to a lookout and we got a little more than we bargained for as a group of paragliding & hang gliding instructors were preparing to take some tourists for a tandem jump.  We were talking with a UK lady who had been waiting about 2 hours for her opportunity to jump off a perfectly good cliff..... errrrr.......... partake in the exciting adventure.  While we waited - we had plenty of entertainment from this young man who spent a significant amount of time trying to get the perfect selfie - and ended up having to use one of the hang gliding brochures to keep his hair in place.  Damn you wind!

We watched for over an hour before the para gliders gave up and the first hang gliding pair took to the skies.  Granted they looked like they were having an awesome time in the air, but I still couldn't get past that first step off the edge of the cliff!

Port Douglas oozed money and was touristy but in a different way to Cairns.  An unbelievable number of resorts sought to entice visitors and the shopping centre catered to some interesting tastes as well.  It seems as though all the accommodation is built vertically and everything looked cramped, although they do have impressive plantations of palms on their front lawns.  

Having left our golf clubs behind, we headed back to Cairns.  What struck us was the similarity between this road to the Great Ocean Road, with the exception of all the awesome palm trees growing along the beach.

On our return we spotted the Cable cars but opted not to visit as it looked like it would be a long return trip and we had the dogs to consider.

Once again the battery on the phone died so it was up to Shane's homing skills to find our way back to camp which we did safely.