CAIRNS, AUSTRALIA

CROCS & PORT DOUGLAS

Tuesday, February 18, 2025, Temperature 75 Degrees, 80% Humidity

Cairns is one of Australia’s busiest cruise destinations, with major international cruise ships scheduled regularly and domestic reef vessels operating daily. It has a prime location between two amazing natural features, the Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics World Heritage Rainforest. It’s a modern city with many shopping and eating opportunities (including several ubiquitous McDonalds). The city has a population of 130,000, and tourism is the primary industry.

It’s always a good day when we can tie up at the pier and not use a tender. Cairns is one of those ports. Bright and early, we were down the gangplank and boarded our bus. Our tour guide was an Italian transplant who is working to become an Australian citizen. She said Italians are known to be talkers, and she was! Unfortunately, we did not understand all of her quick, accented monologues, but she was fun and personable.

Our first stop was Hartley’s Crocodile Adventure. From the Excursion brochure, we were expecting a river cruise down a natural rainforest river; this was a man-made circular lagoon, but we did see crocodiles and birds. The green water is due to Duck Weed. Two weeks ago, the guide said the water was clear, and it will be again when the weather gets cooler. We have Duck Weed on our ponds in America. Then it was on to a Koala talk and feeding – who could resist that face! The handler said that koalas sleep 18 -20 hours a day; the rest of the time, they munch on a variety of eucalyptus leaves that are always available to them. We had a chance it pat the Koalas (see my hand!) so soft. We walked around the rest of the animal enclosures before returning to our bus and off to Port Douglas.

Port Douglas is a high-end, dense resort area located on the Coral Sea. We passed many condos, apartments, resorts, and a golf course or two on our way into the city. The main street is lined with boutiques and restaurants. We had two hours to spend in Port Douglas. As mentioned before, we aren’t “shoppers,” so instead, we found a cool spot for lunch. We don’t usually eat lunch; we’re trying to do only two meals a day, so hopefully, we can be the rare people who cruise without gaining weight, so far, so good! Our lunch was delicious but not low-calorie – Fish & Chips. We discussed sharing one order but didn’t. We should have – the portions were huge (but we didn’t eat all the fries – trying to convince ourselves that helped).

After lunch, we sat in the shade of some beautiful Bayan Trees while waiting to board the bus and return to our Zuiderdam home.