We took a trip up to Port Douglas during the school holidays (6-14 July). All organised quite last minute after I got leave approved at work just a week before the school holidays.
Our journey up there was fairly uneventful. We left home at 10.30 am and arrived at our holiday accommodation (after a taxi ride, a flight and then a drive in a hire car) at about 5.30 pm. The only 'event' of note was when
BallFiend got car-sick on the windy roads from Cairns to Port Douglas. Thankfully he waited until we stopped at
Rex lookout to throw-up.
Thumper loved the red hire car (a Suziki Swift). However
DeepSpice and I greeted the car with horror when we looked the teeny, tiny boot space and wondered how on earth we would fit our luggage in. Luckily, the car hire guy showed us that it had a (completely useless) false-bottom that could be removed to double the storage capacity. Unfortunately we then had to lug the false-bottom panel around for the rest of the trip.
The
resort we stayed at was quite good - it had the obligatory 'lagoon' pool, which the kids loved and a little playground. It also had happy hour from 4 - 6 pm every day, which
DeepSpice and I loved. It was great having cocktails by the pool whilst we did our best to supervise the paddling children. The resort also had free wifi, which meant that our attention was even less dedicated to supervision of our paddling children. Luckily there were lots of other kids and adults around to share the load.
What we did:
Day 1 (Saturday, 6th July): left home at 10.30 am and spent most of the day travelling. Arrived at resort aroung 5.30 pm, dropped our bags off in our unit, then went straight to dinner at the resort restaurant. Kids had spaghetti bolognaise and ice cream for dessert.
Day 2 (Sunday): Ate an enormous breakfast at resort restaurant (included in our accommodation deal).
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| Breakfast by the pool |
Then into town to check out the Port Douglas Sunday Market. Five minutes later,
Thumper was bored, so
DeepSpice took her off to a beach.
BallFiend stayed with me and whinged, until I finally gave up on trying to browse market stalls and took him to the beach too.
The kids had a great time at the beach and complained bitterly we when
dragged them away to get some lunch at the local bakery. Later we went back to the resort for a play in the pool (kids), cocktails by the pool (
DeepSpice and me), then dinner at the resort. Kids had spaghetti bolognaise and ice cream for dessert.
Day 3 (Monday): A windy day - too windy for the beach or a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef, so we decided to check out the rainforest at the
Daintree Discover Centre instead.
BallFiend was fascinated by the mechanics of the ferry we took over the Daintree River. He was much less interested in the mechanics of how a rainforest works, but he did enjoy examining and speculating about the construction of the steel boardwalks. On the way back we stopped at Daintree Village for an ice cream (
Thumper missed out because she fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep the whole time we stopped). Once back in Port Douglas we went for dinner at Surf Life Saving Club, which was great as we had a table near the playground, so
DeepSpice and I got some (relative) peace while we ate.
Thumper had spaghetti bolognaise then ice cream for dessert;
BallFiend had fish and chips followed by jelly.
Day 4 (Tuesday): Weather still very windy, so a boat ride out to see the Great Barrier Reef was still not an option (wind 25-30 knots). We decided on a trip to
Hartley's Crocodile Adventure Park instead. We saw
lots of crocs. Crocodiles being fed by zoo-keepers, hanging their arms over barriers within easy snapping reach. (N
o keeper-limbs were lost, but outcome not so good
for a great number of chickens.) We saw crocodiles laying about in the lagoon, sunbaking on the shore, the crocodile farm where they grow crocs ready to be turned into hand bags, shoes and lunch, and even a crocodile being antagonised, teased and tricked in order to get it to entertain us with a death roll. We also saw lots of other animals - snakes, cassowarys, jabirus, turtles, swans, reptiles and more.
Thumper liked the wallabies and pademelons the best.
BallFiend was most interested in how the fencing around the crocodile compounds worked.
Back in Port Douglas, we decided we would go somewhere other than the resort restaurant for dinner but after phoning about 6 different places and being unable to get a booking we decided to drive into town and just try our luck. Fall-back plan was a take-away pizza. However we ended up walking straight into a restaurant called
Watergate, the closest we got to 'fine dining' while we were away. Fantastic food and great service (Though I won't mention the cockroach we saw wandering under the table where we had our pre-dinner drinks!). Despite have a more classy menu, the children's menu was once again the same old uncreative fare.
Thumper had spaghetti bolognaise and
BallFiend had fish and chips, both had ice cream for dessert.
Day 5 (Wednesday): Still very windy, so we headed in-land again. This time to the
Skyrail for a scenic ride over rainforest to the mountain town of Kuranda. We were supposed to have two hours to look around Kuranda but the place we picked for lunch was so slow to bring us our food order that we wasted about half an hour there waiting before we walked out and went in search of other options. By the time we found other food, we had just over half an hour left before we needed to catch the "
scenic railway" back down the mountain. I did enjoy the train ride - it was relaxing and lots of nice views of waterfalls and chasms along the way. The Skyrail up was fun, but really just a novelty, not that good for experiencing the rainforest.
Did the long, windy drive back to Port Douglas, but thankfully no car-sick kids this time. Once back at the resort, we again had cocktails before dinner at the resort.
Thumper wanted spaghetti bolognaise again, but since she'd had tinned spaghetti for breakfast, I insisted that she have something else. She settled on chicken tenderloins and chips instead;
BallFiend had fish and chips; both kids had ice cream for dessert.
Day 6 (Thursday): Yet another very windy day, but the kids were asking to go to the beach again, so we packed a picnic and walked from the resort down to Four Mile beach.
To get there we walked
along a dangerous mozzie-infested path, lined with coconut palms that threatened to conk us
on the head with falling coconuts. BallFiend selected a large coconut to lug down to the beach to play with. Once at beach, we were almost blown
away by gale force wind, but the kids didn't care - they paddled and made sandcastles
anyway, with construction advice from DeepSpice. I laid around and finished reading my book-group book (Jo Nesbo's Head Hunters).
Bt 12.30 pm, I'd had enough of the wind, so we carried our picnic back to our resort unit and ate lunch there. Kids were annoyed at being removed from the beach but all was forgotten when we got them into the resort's swimming pool.
From 4 pm our evening ritual commenced - happy hour cocktails then dinner at resort. Kids had spag bol and fish and chips plus ice cream, again.
Day 7 (Friday): Spent most of the day at
Mossman Gorge. What a beautiful, magical place (apart from the squillions
of tourists). We all walked the 2.4 km circuit and more (although DeepSpice
carried Thumper a lot!). Then back to the resort for some more pool time (with happy hour drinks of
course!) before dinner. Will leave it to your imagination to work out what the kids ate.
Day 8 (Saturday): Our last day in Port Douglas. We started with a long breakfast, then lots of time
at the beach (windy again!). I went off to find some lunch and an ATM (and fitted in a sneaky spot of shopping too). Kids were bribed with gelati to convince them to leave the beach. Then back to the resort for a play
in the pool (during happy hour - yep more cocktails for DeepSpice and me!), before
walking to the neighbouring resort (QT) for dinner at the Bazaar restaurant. This was a buffet-style affair, but also had made-to-order
options. The food was amazing! I wished we had discovered it earlier in the week! And yet all the kids would have was
spag bol and some lollies for dessert. Sigh. However when we got the bill we discovered that the kids ate free, so that made up for their lack of adventurousness.
Day 9 (Sunday):
Left the resort at 10.15 am (planned departure time of 10.00 am delayed due to
Thumper having a poo-accident). Drove the windy road to Cairns.
Thumper complains of feeling sick, but doesn't act like she's sick, so we just open the windows to give her some air. Delayed by road works outside of Palm Cove. As we approach Cairns, I start to keep an eye out for petrol stations (as we have to refuel the hire car before we return it) but every time I spot one and point it out, it is too late and
DeepSpice has already driven past.
Just before Cairns,
Thumper lets loose with the vomit she promised us way back on those windy roads. It is like the scene from
The Exorcist, except the vomit is brown, not green. I can't believe there is so much. All the stuff needed to clean her up is packed into the luggage. So while
DeepSpice attempts to wipe her up with the one cloth nappy we have on hand, I pull the luggage out and start rummaging through for supplies - a towel to throw over Thumper's car restraint, some more cloth nappies and spare clothes. We now have 15 mins left to be at the airport on time.
Back on route, we quickly reach the airport turn-off but still haven't refueled the car. So we U-turn and head back into town to find a petrol station. Then back to the airport. We arrive to find a massive queue, all waiting to check in for the same flight as us. Thankfully, Virgin airlines conveniently have
two check-in counters open, so the queue moves at tortise, rather than snail's, pace. I'm instructed to take
Thumper's car restraint down to 'oversize' luggage (even though the person before me has just been allowed to put a similarly-sized seat through standard luggage). So
DeepSpice takes the kids to go through security screening while I drop the
Thumper's car seat off. I catch them up before they even get through security, and then we all make our way to the gate together. The flight is already boarding, but there's a long queue at the gate so it's all good. Once on the plane we finally get a chance to catch our breath... until it arrives in Brisbane, where we are meant to make a connecting flight. We realise that we have 5 minutes to make the connecting flight that leaves at 3.55 pm, but airline staff say it's OK - they know the Cairns flight has run late and they will wait for us.
We hurry to the next gate and get there only to discover our connecting flight to Melbourne has been cancelled due to "crewing requirements". We are told to sit and wait while they re-book us on to a new flight.
Thumper still had vomit in her hair and on her clothes. We have enough
iPad and iPod batteries to provide the kids with games for about another
hour.
BallFiend
has school in the morning and
DeepSpice is due back at work. Virgin
airline staff don't care. They tell us they will re-book business class
passengers first, then loyalty-club members, then passengers who have
paid the highest fares, and then finally us.
Over an hour later we are told our new flight will leave at 8.55 pm. And so began our long and tedious nightmare: five hours at Brisbane airport. We were compensated with four $16.00 food vouchers, good for your choice of deep-fried, greasy, salty airport-food delights. Didn't change the fact that we were not going to be home until after midnight.
The journey home put a very nasty end to what was an enjoyable holiday. I will never, ever fly with Virgin airlines again.
On Monday, we were all exhausted so
BallFiend ended up staying home from school and
DeepSpice stayed home from work.
I think for our next holiday we will be sticking with a road trip to somewhere local!
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