Tag Archives: Queensland

Port Douglas, Lost Luggage and Lesson Learned

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Dawn, 4 Mile Beach, Port Douglas

As is  becoming something of a tradition, we’ve returned to Port Douglas for a couple of weeks of warmth and relaxation, and thankfully, so has our luggage. Eventually.

Getting to Port Douglas from Adelaide involved approximately 4.5 hours of flying, across 2 flights. A direct flight other than by a budget carrier wasn’t available.

From Cairns airport it’s an hour’s drive north, along the picturesque coast to Port Douglas. It’s nearly 3,000 kilometres by road, a solid 32-hour drive—long enough to remind you just how vast  Australia really is. To put it in perspective: a flight of the same duration from London would land you in Athens, Corfu, Venice or Lisbon. For us, it’s simply a journey to another state that shares a border with, our home state, South Australia—albeit at the far end of it.

That’s part of the charm of Australia. It’s huge, and every corner is different. Adelaide was a chilly 7C when we arrived at the airport for our early morning flight; Port Douglas greeted us a half a day later with a humid 28C. No wonder Far North Queensland is such a draw card during the winter months. Continue reading →

Port Douglas

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Four Mile Beach from the Coastal Path

We went to Port Douglas to escape the cold of an Adelaide winter. Our escape to North Queensland was well timed as Adelaide’s winter seemed to want to cling on.

It had also been a very hectic few months. We had been consumed by family matters. There were no major crises but just a series of bumps. We hoped Port Douglas would be the remedy and weren’t disappointed. It was hard not to immediately be aware of North Queensland’s relaxed lifestyle. All pretension is lost. It’s so refreshing compared to the angst of city life. I have a running theory that the further you are from the centre of the city the more relaxed lif is. 

I hadn’t been to Port Douglas since 1987, which was the year the infamous Christopher Skase opened The Mirage. On that occasion, I had a spare day on a work trip in Cairns and, with a work colleague, drove up. My chief recollection was having a Mocka Pie. You can still get them, but in 2023 Port Douglas is a thriving tourist town where Mocka’s  Pie Shop is a modern bakery just off Macrossan Street.

There are no dress codes, except that restaurants and bars seem to demand men wear a shirt!

We arrived in the evening and so didn’t take in the sites of the coast drive from Cairns airport to Port Douglas. It’s a drive of about 55 km and an hour’s duration.

When we planned this trip in December 2022, we were Northern Queensland novices. We had a basic understanding that the choices were Cairns, Palm Cove or Port Douglas.  We decided against basing ourselves in Cairns, and so I asked a friend about Port Douglas or Palm Cove. Continue reading →

A few days in Brisbane

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With the Adelaide winter clinging on and the desire for warmer weather too much to resist we headed to Queensland for a 10 day break.
Although we left Adelaide on a day when the temperature was in the low 20s the forecast for the remainder of the weak was at best bleak!

With all that behind us, we arrived in Brisbane to a sunny afternoon with the temperature in the mid 20s and a similar forecast for the 3 days we had in Brisbane before we head further north to Port Douglas.

We’d had a few days in Brisbane last year and were very much looking forward to coming back. Brisbane is certainly no longer a big country town, as had been its reputation in the past. It’s a thriving modern wonderful city. It’s a city with a spring in its step and why not – great weather, a vibrant lifestyle and a city set on the Brisbane River.

Our accommodation in the older part of the city overlooked the Botanic Gardens and was just a short walk to the Brisbane Mall, Southbank, and the Riverbank.

Continue reading →