Thursday July 30
Up early and off to Port Douglas - first we had to drive to the airport and pickup our new hire car then back into Cairns to drop off the old one at “rent-a-wreck’. The weather was about the same as every other day - 14C-28C however it looked like some cooler / cloudy weather was on it’s way.
After swapping to our new hire car we drove to Port Douglas stopping at Smithfield to do some shopping. We arrived at our holiday house around 1pm and “checked in” - i.e. let ourselves in via the open garage. The house is amazing (henceforth referred to as the Mansion on Murphy St) - we dropped our luggage and went to Hemingway's Pub at the Marina for a light lunch then did some more shopping. Back at the house we settled in - a major task given the size of this place. The master suite takes up a whole floor with a massive shower, spa, a pool room and swimming pool complete with water fall.
I had a video conference with our Strata Committee at 5pm - it finally finished - we had happy hour then a home cooked dinner - duck beast, roast potatoes and beans and snow peas.
Friday July 31
The day started out cloudy with a chance of rain - but cleared to another great day, just windy. As planned we had a lazy day - a long beach walk on the most wonderful 4 mile beach, then a boutique crawl through town looking for a sweatshirt for me. Found one at Cotton On - the evenings were cooler than expected. While in town we bumped into Natasha from WB - a neighbour we really only know to say hello to - she’s on her own as her partner could not make the trip. While having a relaxing lunch at the Tin Shed we decided we should get in touch with Natasha and see if she wanted to join us for a day trip or 2. We contacted Kuldip (also a WB neighbour) who wrote a note which Kishore (the lead concierge) SMS’ed to Natasha - she then responded to me with her contact details - so we got in touch - good bit of detective work, team!!
We returned to our Mansion on Murphy later in the afternoon for some more relaxing - I also had a Happy Hour Zoom at 5:00pm with a few of the WB gang and Joelle who was still stuck in Manila.
We connected with Natasha and arranged for her to join us on a Saturday PM for a trip to Mossman Gorge.
Saturday August 1 - “The Horses Birthday"
It was a cloudy day with a few showers on and off - but we still did the Mossman Gorge trip - all nice and relaxing. On the way home we stopped at the Quicksilver office and booked a trip to the outer reef for Monday - after some procrastinating Natasha (who suffers from seasickness) decided to book as well. We all popped into the Tin Shed for Sundowners then went our separate ways.
Dieter and I had a nice dinner at Melaleuca after showers etc - then home to bed.
Sunday August 2
Another cloudy day with showers predicted. We did a mega beach walk then had lunch at home - later we walked over to the Sunday market but they were already packing up so we just headed home and had dinner at our Mansion on Murphy - Steak, etc
Monday August 3
Woke up to less than ‘another day in paradise’ - very cloudy, a bit windy and a few showers - but with lots of optimism we headed off on our Outer Reef Adventure on Quicksilver. Natasha joined the adventure - our ‘upgrade’ came through and we were assigned table one with seating for 6 for the 3 of us. The day was pretty fine - more clouds than sun but the snorkelling was very good - fortunately we made the decision to hire wetsuits (shorties) as the water was only 22C - generally they are only available for scuba divers but with only 100 on board (with a maximum of nearly 300) there were very few divers so we snagged ours - at $16 each - not really a bargain.
Lunch on board was the usual ho-hum buffet, of course no longer self-serve due to Covid restrictions.
Back on terra firma we celebrated a great day out with happy hour at Hemingway's overlooking the marina. We went home for well deserved and definitely needed showers and sambos for dinner - then a bit of news and off to bed.
Tuesday August 4
So as planned we all (us and Natasha) drove to Cape Tribulation - a long way from the tribulations of Victoria who entered Stage 4 lock-downs from midnight for 6 weeks - not great for those poor Victorians but also a disaster for our economy.
It was a nice day out - a couple of beach and rainforest walks refining the rules for “no rules” beach bocci using the perfectly round fruit of some unidentified tree. On the homeward leg we stopped for sad hour (ie wasn’t happy hour yet) at Hemingway's - then home for pasta and salad for us and an early night.
Wednesday August 5
Another wonderful day in paradise - mostly sunny / high of 27C. After fruit salad (topped with deliciously sweet passionfruit donated by Natasha) we had a “lay day”. We of course did a big beach walk then stopped at Coles to buy some yoghurt for lunch then decided to buy a steak for dinner and cancel our reservation at Melaleuca to finish off some leftovers.
After showers etc we had a quiet night at home - dinner was steak and French Champagne (gotta help clear the world-wide glut brought on by the pandemic (caused by the cancellation of many parties, weddings, and of course first class travel).
Thursday August 6
We packed up and left the Mansion on Murphy around 10am for the 1+ hour trip back to Cairns. We checked-in to the Reef Hotel (part of the casino) but our room wasn’t ready so we did a bit of a walk then had lunch at Hemingway’s - which was quickly becoming one of our favourite haunts. Just as we arrived the hotel called to say our room was ready so after lunch we headed back to our hotel. Our room a Junior Suite had been upgraded to a Deluxe JS which was really lovely - it had a nice tropical Queensland decor and a large wrap around balcony overlooking the water - perfect setting for sundowners.
After settling in and unpacking we did a long walk along the waterfront then back to the hotel for showers, happy hour then dinner at Tamarind, the hotel’s fine dining restaurant - it was all a bit too Asian Fusion for our taste but with AccorPlus half-price dining we were happy enough.