Port Douglas, Queensland
June 2022
Peter got back from a working trip to Africa just in time for our first real visitors (your own children don’t count). We’d had other friends set out to visit, but the ‘You Know What’ got in the way.
Fran and Patto (their boys and ours went to high school together back in Hamilton Victoria) arrived in the second week of June. The weather had cooled significantly here and we were feeling the cold, but Fran was happy as they were coming from 14o daytime temperatures and our 20o was luxury (I’m still keeping my slippers on).
The weather has been windy lately, but we hoped it would settle down enough for us to spend a night at Low Isles so The Pattos could get a taste of life on the water. Fortunately, the Cairns/Port Douglas area has enough land-based activities to entertain in the mean-time.
We collected Fran and Andrew from the Cairns Airport and didn’t even stop for brekky before catching the Skyrail up to Kuranda for the day. Getting to Kuranda from Cairns is easiest on the Skyrail. We like to take the train up and the cable car down. But unfortunately, the train had hit a car on the previous day (no serious injuries) and was out of commission, so we got to gondola up in the morning and gondola back down in the afternoon. The gondola travels over the rain forest and is a delightful trip.
Kuranda is here, as shown on the footpath art.
Kuranda is very touristy but that doesn’t detract from the experience there, just be aware that the ‘market’ is full of cheapish gimmicky stuff.
Patto’s hobby is taking photos of birds, so we visited the Bird Sanctuary first and then popped next door to the Butterfly House.
A rescued Cassowary at the Bird Sanctuary. We regularly come across signs along the highways proclaiming Cassowary sightings, but despite the disco outfit appearance, these guys are shy and retiring and hard to find in the wild (I wonder if the signs are just put out to keep tourists hopeful).
The Bird Sanctuary is relatively small but houses a good selection of birds and ducks in feathery comfort. We had a little giggle watching a group of tourists who hadn’t taken the advice of the chappy behind the counter and were having trouble keeping their glasses and caps out of the clutches of some enterprising parrots. [Peter had done the same thing a few years back at Maleny Bird World on the Sunshine Coast (Dec 2019 blog). His cap had been completely eaten by the end of the tour and the bird had started on his shirt buttons!)
I would love to have a wall long enough for such a beautiful display. (A neat recycling of the occupants after their three weeks is up).
Doesn’t this guy just take your breath away! [A Cairns Birdwing (Ornithoptera priamus); the largest Australian butterfly, with a wingspan of over 16cm/6”]
We have long been intending to stop and see why there is a viewing area and car park here at the Mowbray River Bridge just south of Port Douglas. But it takes friends visiting to put you into a touring frame of mind I guess. It looks idyllic and calm, but can you spot Mo? He is a 5m croc who ‘owns’ this stretch of the river.
There was a young family on the bridge and they got a real treat when a chappy offered to show them Mo through his massive telephoto lense.
Finally, a breakfast. This is the Choo Choos Café at the Crystalbrook Marina in Port Douglas. I think I could live on their Rice and Coconut Pudding.
You can’t come to FNQ (Far North Queensland; although I have heard the F is open to interpretation), without going up to experience part of the largest tropical rainforest in Australia (1200 square kms). The Daintree was World Heritage listed in 1988. It is estimated to be 130 million years old (take that Amazon Rainforest – you youngster) and contains 30% of Australia’s frogs, 18% of the birds and 65% of the bat and butterfly species. That’s a lot of nature packed in up there. So we piled in the car (after breakky) and headed off.
On the way up we were treated to an amazing sight…
A real-life wild Cassowary and his chick crossed the road in front of us. The signs about Cassowary sightings are ridgy didge! The photo is not great as we didn’t get out the car, these guys can be quite dangerous.
Peter reliving the Butterfly experience up at the Daintree Rainforest Discovery Centre. Less a butterfly and more a Bogong Moth don’t you think?
Oops Fran, we’ve lost the boys back in the Cretaceous Period.
Found them being threatened by a dinosaur (although they don’t too terrified). I assumed it was a Velociraptor, but there are more types of dinosaurs than just those limelight-hoggers that appeared in the Jurassic Park movies. This guy was an Australovenator Wintonensis, from 99M years ago.
The Centre has an interesting range of displays, walks and experiences. We usually spend about half a day here before I start to get information overload and NEED to call into the Daintree Icecream Company for some fruity sustenance on the way home.
Back in Port Douglas the weather finally looked good for some boating action.
Happy Guests experiencing ‘Life on the Sea’.
We took the Pattos out to Low Isles for a taste of boating life. Unfortunately, there is no fishing as it is all a protected zone. But we went snorkeling and found it is impossible to not see turtles here. And OMG they don’t swim away! I got eye to eye with one happily munching along and it was completely unfazed – so cool. Patto headed off with his underwater camera and I took some time to teach Fran to snorkel comfortably – a blue noodle for support and a flat sandy bottom to stand on and we were all good.
Because the Low Isles are so close to Port Douglas they get a lot of tourist action. There are public moorings and anchoring areas available.
My ‘Arty photo’; Peter walking on a beach on the way to Cairns, that grows little cairns (hehehe). This is a classic touristy photo for this stretch of coast (I believe the term is insta-famous). They first appeared in 2016 at a little beach between Wangetti and Ellis Beaches. The site has been the cause of some controversy (mostly to do with car parking). But The Gatz Balancing Rocks are rebuilt by locals after storms and high tides wash them away.
It was really lovely having friends aboard to share time together. Peter and I enjoyed having someone different to talk with and the Pattos later let us know that they were so inspired by their watery adventure that they booked onto a cruise of the Kimberley in WA (Go Pattos).
The Pattos sent us a beautiful photo book of their time on Opal Lady.
BOAT NOTES: FOR GUESTS
Consider climate comfort. Guests from southern Australia will have a lower tolerance for heat and humidity, so leave a fan setup in their room.
It can be useful to leave Ear plugs and Eye masks with the guest towels. It is too easy for the regular sounds and lights of the boat and marina to disturb a guest’s sleep and spoil what should be a relaxing holiday.
Always conduct a safety briefing on arrival (even if your guests are old crusty salts) –
Fit and label life jackets (we use coloured ribbons with names written on them), and show where the jackets are stowed.
Emergency procedure (what you want guests to do in a ‘hit something/sinking’ emergency. Many of our friends are not boating people, so we are very honest and ask them to sit in the pilot house quietly out of the way, unless they are asked to do something specific- its just safer.
How to walk safely around the boat – the three points of contact thing, include a demonstration of hand holds.
Provide or check that each guest has a water bottle and knows where to refill it.
Discuss how to cope with seasickness; ginger chews/biccies, drug options (they should really bring their own), where its best to throw up (provide hand towels and a bottle of water in this location).
Discuss how to deal with laundry and water management when showering. [I read where one Captain requested that long hair was brushed vigorously before showering, to reduce the amount of hair that could go down the drain. I tried it and am now in the habit of doing this. I am the Plumber on this boat and hair is incredibly pesky and strong when it is wrapped around or clogging a pump fitting].
Reassure guests that you will wake to any unusual sound/smell/movement so they do not need to panic about everything they hear or smell. If you will be moored up in calm conditions, do mention that the boat may bump the mooring ball at some point and that, although it can sound loud on the hull, doesn’t mean that the boat is about to sink.
How to close and dog the windows and hatches in the guest room
What to do or who to let know that the toilet is having second thoughts about doing it’s job efficiently.
Some boats have a printed file of information and procedures for guests to read (similar to the folder that you find in motel rooms the world over). That way you can just discuss the safety items and leave the guests to read the other information for themselves.
It is nice to give guests a specific job to do on the boat – none of our friends would want to feel they were burdensome. I’m very happy for someone else to be doing the dishes or helping with meal preparation; suggestions for those guests that are totally boat-illiterate. But we had Fran calling distances to berths/mooring buoys etc. when we were maneuvering (and she had the perfect calm clear voice for it too). After showing Patto how to correctly loop line for throwing, he was very useful during berthing. Be very clear about when guests really NEED to just stand back and let you do your thing eg. dropping the tender can be quite dangerous if someone is standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Boat Works:
Oil change on the watermaker high pressure pump. Thank goodness we don’t need to do that too often as we needed to pull the entire unit out to access the oil drain plug. We have a work-around sorted for draining it in-situ in the future. But it is not an easy job.
Grease the bow rollers. Peter came up with a nifty idea for getting and keeping the washers between the roller and the bracket while pushing through the axles. He sandwiched the washer at the end of a length of making tape so it could be lowered down and jiggled around until it lined up with the shaft. [2023 update: we have modified the masking tape method and now tape the washer to the inside of the bracket and pop a hole through the masking tape to pass the axle through. We still have to be careful that it doesn’t fall in the water if the tape gets pushed off (We hang an umbrella under the anchor when working on the bow to catch lost washers – it looks odd but works a treat).
While we had the anchor down on the pontoon for working on the bow rollers (and apparently for the tourists to ooh and aah over as they walked past), we dropped all the chain and cleaned out the chain locker. While cleaning out all the shell and debris at the bottom of the locker (trying to block the drain hole), I discovered that the grounding wire for the bowsprit had worked its way free. It took yet another trip to Cairns to find a supplier of that large gauge wire, and to then buy crimpers big enough to do the job (another toy for Peter’s collection).
Navigation Notes:
Moored Low Isles off Cairns: 16/06/2022 at 16 22.877S, 145 33.582E, in 11.4m water with 2.3m tide. Green mooring buoy (up to 20m monohull). There are 2 public moorings on the northern side of the isle. Anchoring is permitted outside the white Reef Protection Markers. There are many private moorings around the isle, and these are in regular use by the tourist operators (so do not use these).