After our business on Kangaroo Island and Adelaide, we spent today relaxing and exploring Port Douglas. First we walked the few minutes to Four Mile beach and looked at the crocodile and stinger signs, checked the water temperature (much warmer than Exmouth) and walked along the beach.
We then headed across the peninsula to the marina. This is a lovely area, peaceful and very tasteful. We dropped by Wavelength - the diving company we are travelling with tomorrow to the Great Barrier Reef and checked all was well - it was and then had an excellent coffee at Choo Choos cafe at the end of the pier.
We then explored the edge of the mangroves and discovered bright orange fiddler crabs and mud skippers. The fiddlers are amazing and have very good eyesight as they see every bit of movement and freeze when we walked by. The fiddlers made today's photo selection!
As our afternoon was free we decided to have our first attempt at seeing salt water crocs so booked the 4.30 trip on the 'Lady Douglas'. There were quite a few new birds for my list and quite soon on in our trip the skipper spotted a croc floating in the water. Wow - it was quite large and despite being partly submerged I could see its big teeth. Excellent - tick one off the list. On the way back on our trip the another tropical storm with lightening struck which is turning out to be the theme of the trip. Unfortunately the BBC weather app looks like it could have been right about the weather this week.
After the success of our boat trip we headed to Coles and treated ourselves to a delicious steak for dinner with an avocado, tomato, mozzarella and pesto starter and posh yoghurts to finish (with a bottle of Australian red wine on special!). We had an early night after preparing our snorkel kit for tomorrow and discovered that Telstra internet is not working this evening.
Colin thinks the cockroaches came up via either the plug holes or the drainage grill in the bathroom so now we are keeping he plugs in when not in use and he has taped a thick leaflet over the drainage hole! Fingers crossed there won't be any more visitors tonight.
