This is a trip report cont'd from Trip Report - Part 1 Sydney covering my honeymoon in June '03.

Okay so on June 9 we left Sydney after stopping back at the BridgeClimb to pick up a souviner picture that we had seen there. They were great at the store. We had it shipped back to the US (on them) and they also shipped another souviner with it. . . this coffee table book called "Above Sydney" from a bookstore in the Rocks. Even better, the picture ended up getting damaged and they sent a new one after we returned home and emailed them.

So we also picked up this excellent breakfast from a pastry shop right along the main strip in the Rocks as well ( near the bookstore) and had the most incredible bacon egg sandwich ( my hubbys favorite ) and myself I enjoyed a spinach and ricotta puff pastry.

Since it was my wedding ( and any other bride-to-be's I highly recommend this! ) I had plenty of thank yous to write and the plane flight up to Cairns was a perfect time to do this!!! And I must admit people were impressed when they got them right after we returned - it also included personal messages about what we were doing with the $ from people that gave us $ as a present - we told them about the trip and all of our wine consumption in Sydney! haha !!

FLIGHT TO CAIRNS: Back to the flight. We sent postcards from Sydney airport and when we arrived in Port our airport transfer service was awaiting our arrival. She promptly gathered our luggage and we were off for the scenic trip up to Port Douglas. The trip is about 45 - 1 hour drive along the coast. Its pretty wind-y and so when you couple that with the obnoxiously powerful perfume our driver was wearing I felt nausea EVERYTIME we got in the car with her ( 3 times !) I have heard from others that this ride makes them feel ill but it really wasn't that bad -- just that perfume that put me over the edge. The view was actually quite nice.

BREAKFREE PORTSEA: We arrived at our hotel - The Breakfree PortSea. It was our question mark on the trip as far as accomodations. Now, mind you Port Douglas has NOTHING like the 4 Seasons or Lizard so we knew not to expect the same luxury. This hotel has some pluses and minus.

First the pluses: The staff, VERY accomodating. The room, NICE room - its a suite actually with a mini kitchenette within it that would serve a family ( the 2 bdrm ) well or someone staying for more than a couple nights.

The minuses: The hot tub (not hot?! and we still don't get why hot tubs in Australia were never hot like we are accustomed to in the US - we are used to 110 degree F temps !) so the hot tub and the pool are not as clean as I expected with leaves and what not floating around. The location was not as close to the main strip as I thought - but this is NOT to say that its far. Its about a 10 minute walk to the start of Macrossen Street. However, it must be said that this property is right on the beach ( not overlooking, but a short 1.5 minute walk down a path ) and not many places give you the two ( close to downtown/close to beach ) so that ultimately led us to the decision to stay here.

Overall, we were happy with the hotel. We attribute part of our feelings with the fact that we just came from the 4 Seasons and were heading to Lizard -- and you just can't and SHOULDN"T compare them!

So. . . having the kitchenette we decided to walk down the street about 3 - 5 minutes to a convenient store ( another plus to this hotel is its proximity to this store). Here we got water ( they recommended boiling it before drinking and I was not going to do that, although we had the equipment to ). So we picked up snacks, cereal( since most mornings we'd be leaving before the resort served breakfast or any cafes were open and this was another desirable factor about the PortSea.

DINNER in PORT -- Finally we are closing in on the day. We knew some places we wanted to eat during our stay and our first night we selected to go to an Italian place called Sardi's after hearing some good things about it from this site. Now, Sardi's is not on the main strip and actually was the opposite direction from the strip from our hotel. It was close however and we realized that there were a number of restaurants that we had heard of that were along this mini-strip NOT on Macrossen St. Another reason PortSea's location was ideal.

SARDI'S: We didn't end up eating or drinking all that much since we had sat by the pool at happy hour and had 2 Mai Tai's each along with some potatoe wedges. This made dinner a little under appreciated but what we did eat ( which unfortunately I can't remember ) was good! I would recommend going here! It was nice although I must say that I dind't realize it was attached to the Comfort Inn ( yes there is a Comfort Inn in Port down the street from PortSea).

June 11,2003 -- Our first full day in Port we had arranged to go on the famous David Armburst's all day safari. We got up and my hubby tried his "Fruit Loops" and they didn't taste the same as in the US and this was quite hysterical actually since they were either "old and expired" or made differently -- either way like I said it was funny to watch the sour faces he made since its one of his favorite cereals and it wasn't how he expected it.

DAVID ARMBURST ( www.anhs.com.au) This was a tour that I only found out about due to this website. If you've been surfing here for any amount of time, or do searches, you are sure to have heard of him and his tour.
The day was fabulous. Only four people, and David comes and picks you up himself for the tour. We were picked up and then stopped at Silky Oaks ( a bonus since I was curious and we didn't end up booking there ) to pick up the others on our tour. Afterwards, we headed to David's place, did paperwork, met his wife and immediately began our safari since we were greeted immediately by his "family" I say family because the animals that live on his acres ( a natural perserve) are like family to him. It began to rain when we started our tour and David provided us with ponchos. . . but there was nothing he could do to put the animals anxiety to rest from the rain. You see the rain causes excess noise and that puts them at higher alert since there are all the drops hitting the leaves etc. The paddimelons ( a small version of a kangaroo) were out and about but not nearly like they would have been if it had been a rain-free day. It rained on my wedding day so we were both comfortable with the rain and didn't let us spoil the adventure although David was very appologetic about the animals reluctance to greet us and be as friendly. David was just as we had imagined, long, grey hair, a scragly beard and the most knowledgable environmentalist that we had ever met. He was amazing!!! Just watching him interact with these animals and seeing his concern and care for them was very endearing. he was feeding the birds and paddimelons by hand, banana, and other foods. He gave us RID roll-on a bug repellant ( thats the one I couldn't remember in the last post!!! ). Anyway, we used it and walked through the property. We stopped in the rainforest to enjoy tea/coffee and homemade ANZAC biscuits and other treats his wife prepares for guests. I say guests cause that is how he treats you -- not as a tourist. . . and it was quite nice. The next part of the tour has you up in the rainforest to a nice lunch location -- well the rain put a damper on this most of all since our desires to walk around in the rain were not there and usually you explore/hike around while David prepares lunch -- Which as described -- is one of the best lunches you'll get on your visit to Australia if you go on this trip!

Finally, we headed out to the outback region ( not red centre like ) but definite departure from the rainforest with termite holes and eucalypsis (spelling? ) trees everywhere. This was nice but by this point in the day we were a bit tired of rain and wanted the day to end. I know that sounds terrible. It had stopped raining for the last stop but the day is longer and very slow paced and since it was even slower with less interaction with the animals and rain during the whole second stop we were tired of the tour. Agai, NO discredit to David or the tour and I HIGHLY recommend it -- thats just how it worked out for us.

Upon returning home we had to get ready rather quickly for our 7:30 dinner reservations for On the Inlet. We arrived in just the nick of time since it downpoured as soon as we were seated. The day kinda had that theme -- rain, rain and more rain. We chalked it up to being by the rainforest - haha : )

ON THE INLET: This restaurant is famous for its sunsets and specials around that time. We didn't get there in time for it but nonetheless enjoyed the place and can see how it would be "at its best" for the sunsets as its right on the water. This restaurant was also in walking distance although more like 12 - 15 minute walk ( which was fine for us ). You can also take the public bus that runs around the town all the time with many stops. Anyway, we began our meal here with a ceasar salad to split and it was the strangest ceasar salad we'd ever had. It was not good -- and we know ceasar and it wasn't even because it wasn't prepared in front of us or using fresh ingridients it just all over was TERRIBLE. We moved onto our main course and my hubby got the beef which was fine but a bit overcooked and I got barrimundi that was in an asian broth and I ended up not enjoying it as much. The fish was good it was the broth I didn't care for with asian vegetables. What made our meal incredible was the wine! We polished off two bottles one before the meal even came out! Thsi made thee evening thoroughly enjoyable despite the meals being mediocre. We concluded with a great dessert - a brownie sundae with ice cream or something simple like that - nothing gourmet but it was just perfect to us! The walk home was quite fun too in fact since we were still quite buzzed and laughed the whole way!

Well -- I will finish this later but our next day we went to Kuranda and it was one of the highlights - surprisingly - to our whole trip!

If you have questions. . . ask away! : )

Thanks you, Dawn, for Part 2. I'm thoroughly enjoying all of your posts, which are VERY INFORMATIVE. Keep them coming in your downtime--but before October (when my trip is planned)!

Okay so my next installment -- the next day of our trip we went to Kuranda.

Expectations of Kuranda: NOTHING - I almost wasn't sure if we should include it as people describe it as this tourist trap kinda place but I still included it on my itinerary for one reason - as a result of a woman's post about 9 mos ago! She had the goal to hold a Koala and Kuranda is one of a very few places that let you do that. So off we went to have another dream fulfilled!

KURANDA: After the night we had, it was quite hard to get up at like 6:30 for our 7am pickup at the PortSea(Port Douglas) to take us down to Cairns. The bus arrived to bring us to the Kuranda Rail station. Once we arrived, we checked in - got our tix and a sticker- and grabbed a bite to eat since they have a nice cafe in the small rail station there with tables and chairs. This is a good idea since you can't get food anywhere that early in the morning anywhere else.

RAIL TO KURANDA: We boarded and took our seats on the train ( luckily not the front cars as I had learned they were full of the smell of diesel and you can't hear the conductor giving descriptions of the sites). We had not way to know where our seats were going to be but the other thing to note is that you can move seats as soon as you get going -- they aren't strict about where you sit once the journey begins.

The best part of the journey up the mountainous trail was seeing a beautiful waterfall called Baron Falls. They let you out at one point on the journey out but once at the top if you want to go back to that spot you can easily take the trail down again.

Once at the top, at Kuranda, we made our way to the zoo... there were lots of souviner stores with what I found to be higher prices than in downtown Cairns so we were glad we didn't purchase much there.

KOALA GARDENS: There is not much to do in Kuranda if you are an adventure seeker like my husband and I are. . . there is a butterfly sanctuary, koala gardens, and bird area. Each of these places have thier own price for admission. When we got to the zoo, we got a tix and also paid to hold the koalas. We slowly made our way down to the koala section spendign time to hand feed the kangaroos and wallabys since they were awake and being quite friendly. They were quite selfish things too since they are used to it and knew they would get food so they just try and grab it out of your hands. . . We also saw some crocs that were just laying around. The highligh as I said was the koalas. There were three. We held the one and then got a photo with her individually then they allow you to take as many as you want with your own camara too so we snapped a "group" shot of the three of us as well as some additional single shots of us each. Since we came to see them (and not much else) we hung out for a bit and watched them for awhile - they were wide awake which for koalas was rare that we were with them at this great oppty. Usually they are asleep or at least groggy and only "up" for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. We must of spent a solid 35 minutes with them at this point. The greatest part was that one of them had a 10 mo old joey and we kept watching hoping that he'd come out but all we ever saw was an arm reaching out of the pouch and a small part of his ear. It was an incredible experience and made the trip worthwhile. After the koalas, we rounded out the last few exhibits at the zoo and then went for a walk on some of the trails that they have. We did this until we jumped on the Skyrail to head back down.

SKYRAIL DOWN FROM KURANDA: The skyrail was really cool. It was a really unique vantage point to look at the rainforest -- from ABOVE it! There are two stops along the trek down but it doesnt' take too long at either one so you get out and walk around for 10-15 minutes, see the views, snap some shots and then its back on the skyrail. You can choose not to stop though if you are pressed for time.

When we returned home we decided to cancel our trip out to Daintree and Cape Trib as we had felt we experienced enough of the rainforest and just needed a day to relax instead. This was a smart decision for us as we needed to do some laundry - another perk of staying at the Portsea was free use of washers/dryers.

This night we ate at Mango Jams and it was quite good -- excellent drinks and good pizzas.

The next day we rested . . . and walked along Four Mile Beach and walked leisurely up and down Macrossen street and ended up grabbing lunch at Mango Jams again.

That night we had our long awaited dinner at Nautilis a small little place tucked away up off the street with the most unique atmosphere. . . under a canopy of trees. It was beautiful. We had a good bottle of Semillion and had some bread. Our appetizers were delicious - I had the risotto and my husband had a Ceasar salad - much better than the previous night.

For our main course, we had the Red Emporer and Salmon. We enjoyed the meal but it wouldn't top Level 41 which ended up being the bar that all of the nice dining experiences were being compared to!

The next day we were set to leave for Lizard Island and we were looking forward to head out to the reef and be in luxury again! : )

I'll use another post to concentrate on just our experience at Lizard Island.

Look out for it -- Trip Report - Part 3 Lizard Island.

Thanks - hope this is helping others plan as much as the other reports helped me!

Dawn

Hi Dawn! Great report!

Happy to hear you enjoyed David's tour. He is such a passionate man about animals and nature, and I found that very admirable. I hope to go back and visit him and his animals again someday.

Hi Dawn....I'm so grateful for your trip report. I'll be in Port Douglas in October and have a question about the train to Kuranda. I was thinking of taking Skyway both ways, in order to have a later start to the day and more flexibility in times up and down from Kuranda. Is the train ride a very special experience and would I be making a mistake to skip it? Is the scenery really magnificent, or just pleasant? Thanks for any insights you can give me as to the relative value of taking the train to Kuranda. I also plan to go to Jabukai, after I return from Kuranda. Did you go there?

marthag--

We did not go to the Tjabukai Aboriginal Show so I can't offer any insight about it although many mentioned you do not need more than two hours there if that helps with your planning.

As far as the train vs skyrail -- I would say that you will be fine taking the skyrail both ways. The train is a different scenic view but I see your point about being able to get a later start in the day if you don't. You might consider taking the train down? Not sure of the timetables but that would still afford you both vantage points. Check out the kuranda website - it might be on there: www.kuranda.com.au?
If you do take the scenic rail I would definitely venture down the trail to the lookout of Barron Falls which is the only stop along the train route up. The only thing I think you'd miss is this one small waterfall you see on the way up. Overall, I don't think I would have been disappointed if I didn't get to do the train - but I think overall doing both was good.

Great detail, Dawn, as usual. Can't wait for Lizard report!