Day 6 Four Mile Beach, Hartleys Wildlife Park

Four Mile Beach was tauted to be one of the top things to do in Port Douglas so we went to visit bright and early on the last day of our Qld holiday. We drove to Flagstaff Hill lookout point onto Four Mile Beach because we didn't have enough time to walk the length of the beach. It was beautiful. 

Port Douglas is a lovely place and much more liveable (as a holiday maker) than say Cairns or Palm Cove. It has a major supermarket, shops, plenty of resorts and lots of restaurants crammed mostly in one street called Macrossan St. The lady at the reception of Port Douglas Motel took out a map, pointed to where the motel was and highlighted the street and said that's basically Port Douglas! For anyone who wants a lot of r and r but don't mind the price, it is the place to be.

We went to Hartleys for some crocodile action. The entry fees was $52 per person but Gaz knew about a 10% discount voucher which is usually affixed to the brochures so we got one from the motel and saved! I love how savvy he is.

We saw lots and lots of crocodiles! There was a show on almost every hour showing croc feeding, croc attack, croc farming. The park has its own waterway so we even got to experience a boat ride and a croc feeding on the boat! 

There are also other animals in the park such as wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, skunks, snakes, parrot, monkeys, koalas and finally, the elusive cassowary.

Look at how colourful it's head is.. Cassowaries are most dangerous birds because they can kick and hurt people with their sharp claws. Luckily, almost everyone knows this and deaths from cassowary attacks is only about 1 per year.
 Gaz got to feed the cassowaries but wasn't happy because I didn't get a good photo of him feeding them.

Day 5 Palm Cove, Mossman Gorge, Daintree Rainforest

The weather turned sunny on the second last day we were in Queensland. But there were no complains so far! We drove to Palm Cove, about an hour away from Cairns. It was a little place, there is a caravan park right next to the beach, great for nomads and holiday makers. There is a pier and a nice stretch of beach. There are many holiday villas and houses near the beach.

We stopped for less than an hour to stretch our legs then drove to Mossman for lunch at a pie shop that had a most delicious French accented waiter serving Aussie pies! 

It was then about half an hour to Mossman Cultural Centre. We paid $15 per person to get the bus into the park. There were some beautiful spots like these where the volume of water over such large, prehistoric looking rocks are just crazy. Such beautiful sights. 

There is a great board walk, a very long circuit track, a suspension bridge which is all doable for the average person. Going into the water, on the other hand is not for me.

We arrived at Port Douglas Motel and was enchanted by the colourful and cheerful decor. $200 a night, it was one of the cheaper options in the resort town but it had a pool, a well equipped BBQ area, great spacious rooms and even a couch in a nook which I adored. I love nooks. ❤️ 
 

Day 4 Crystal Cascades and Cairns Botanical Garden

We hired a car on the last day in Cairns and visited Crystal Cascades in the morning.

Bush turkey. 

I have never seen so many waterfalls in one place! It was a 1 hour walk or so and we saw over half a dozen waterfalls on the walk. The Barron River flows down and created some big, some small falls. It was very relaxing to hear the sound of the falls as we walked.

Many people go there to swim or just splash around in the watering holes but they were closed for swimming that day, perhaps due to the heavy rain yesterday.

We stopped by a seafood shop on the way back to get some fresh fish. They have a selection of reef fish for $15.90 per kg which was cheap by my standard. They are the catch of the day!

Cairns Botanical garden is on the list of things to do and I really did not expect much. Although the uber driver had mentioned we should check it out and it was better value than Kuranda (he is probably right). I was so wrong to underestimate the enjoyment we got from the botanical garden! Look at the variety of different and exotic plants we saw! The above is jade vine plant, i picked the flowers from the ground where they had dropped, to admire the unique colour.

The plants in this state grow to be huge! We even saw a few 'rotting meat' plant but they were not flowering at the time.

 For dinner, we went to Imm Thai but the meal was disappointing compared to two nights before.

Day 3 Green Island

Finally, I can say we have visited the Great Barrier Reef! We took a boat to Green Island in the morning. We got a headstart by being totally drenched in the torrential downpour in the morning! Didn't even need to dip our toes in the water before donning snorkelling gear! 

It was a 1 hour boat ride during which time i was so cold it was difficult to think about anything else. But when we got to the island, the rain had cleared up and Mr Sun was out the rest of the day. We booked the glass bottom boat on the boat for $33 per person. Look at the fishies and coral we managed to see!

We also saw a turtle swimming around from the boat. From the pier, the scenery is equally beautiful where we saw colourful fishes swimming around the 3 or 4 turtles swimming around. It was very similar to our Kota Kinabalu trip where we also saw fishes from the pier. The fishes were more tame in KK because they would swim so close to shore almost as though wanting to nip our feet as we stood still watching them.

The boat left Green Island at 3.45pm so it was almost a full day trip.

 We had dinner at a Pinoy restaurant at Orchid Plaza in the CBD. The pancit which I asked for it to be cooked with bean thread noodles, was so delicious!

Queensland Holiday

We went to Queensland for a short holiday last week! I was so excited leading up to the holiday because we were going to be visiting the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest but as the departure date approached, the weather gods decided to give us a week of rainy weather...

Still, it was a blessing in disguise because it meant we did not have to worry too much about getting heat strokes and spf protection. When it was raining, the skies cleared up quite quickly afterwards so we needn't have to worry about the rain ruining our plans after all!

Our first stop upon reaching Cairns was the Esplanade. Look at the cute fish sculptures, they even spurt water out from their fins! The public pool is just fantastic fun for the family! It's free, and there are bbq, seats, changing rooms nearby. If only there is something like that near our place..

Because it was low tide, all we saw was mud flats during the day.

The next day, we went to Kuranda where we took the historic scenic railway up the mountain and cable car down. There is a train station in the cbd and close to where we were staying so we could walk there for the 2 hour train ride. The train carriages looked like they were from a bygone era, with long cushioned benches for the passengers. We saw lots of interesting landmarks along the way, including Stoney Creek Falls (above)

The train stopped midway and the passengers get to stretch their legs outside the train to take pictures of Barron Falls for about 10 minutes.

We took a walk on the Circuit Track at Kuranda Village. The village itself was very interesting and far bigger than I had expected. I thought it'll be like a strip of shops and one or two restaurants but it was a lot bigger. It even had its own IGA supermarket! 

We had plenty of restaurants, a couple of pubs, and cafes to choose from. There were also a place selling pies, another selling local coconut juice. We settled for a restaurant that served crocodile nuggets or kaarage. I chose a vege bowl which came with deep fried kale. I loved the crunchiness and Gaz liked eating what would be a vege he would not ordinarily not eat.

This is one of the view from the cable car on the way down. The cable car and train station is located next to each other and its possible to buy tickets when you get up there but for peace of mind, we bought a package online which consists of the tickets for the train, the cable car and a shuttle transfer from the Smithfield cable car station back to the CBD. It cost $140 per person.

 It is difficult to say which mode of transport train or cable car was better but if I really had to choose, I have a slight inclination towards the cable car because we got the whole gondola to ourselves and there were 3 stops we could get off and walk around exploring the board walk and take pictures.

I also enjoyed looking down onto the rainforest below and imagine how they look so much like little brocolli clustered together. There is an option to pay more for a glass bottomed gondola called Diamond View but I don't think it was necessary because we could peer outside the gondola anyway. The recommended trip is to take the train up and cable car down so it was a good tip for us.

Las Vegas

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, so the saying goes. But here I am, revealing everything on my blog! There was no secret wedding, drunken episodes or gambling stories. No, our trip was pretty tame by an introvert's standard. 

We spent 2 nights in Vegas, staying at Harrah's. The rooms are pretty standard, but what's annoying is the resort fee is an add on charge which is separate to the room price. The resort fee almost doubled the total accommodation cost. 

Some activities we got up to while in Vegas: 

1. Buffet at a Chinese AYCE restaurant. We took the bus to the restaurant, then shopped at Albertson's for some fresh fruit and food

2. Watched the Tournament of Kings show. It is a show and dinner, the latter which includes a whole (small) chicken, potatoes, bread roll and corn cob and unlimited soft drinks

3. Went to Sphere to watch Postcard from Earth. Sphere is a new attraction in Sphere, opened in Oct 23 and has 270deg cinema screens. 

4. Went outlet shopping - such bargains! Unfortunately ran out of time and nearly missed our show at Sphere

5. Day trip to Grand Canyon