Tuesday May 3
We arrived back in Cairns around 4:30pm and took a taxi to our hotel, the Pullman Reef International. We had dinner at Hemmingways which was “perfect”.
Wednesday May 4
We had a leisurely breakfast - included as we are Accor Platinum - breakfast buffets are back and it was fine - fruit and yoghurt with toast. Coffee was DYI Nespresso which suits us perfectly We had already had a wake-up Nespresso in our room - a newly renovated ocean view extra large room - very swish indeed.
We had a bit of a bum-around day with some (unsuccessful) shopping and lunch at Hemmingway's, again. We had dinner at nice little Italian restaurant (Picclo Cucina) right next to our hotel - it was very pleasant.
Thursday May 5
We left today for Rosegum Cottages in the Atherton Tablelands. Since we had plenty of time to get to Rosegum’s before the ’strict’ 2pm check-in we decided to drive by the Australian Platypus center - unfortunately Google Maps took us on a wild goose chance but we finally reached the platypus place where we had a quick lunch and did a bit of platypus spotting - we actually did see a few in the distance just popping their heads up.
We reached Rosegum’s at about 2:30pm and checked into our cottage - a tree house (sort of) with amazing views. We felt that the ‘luxury’ description should have read ‘rustic’. The manager warned us to wary of cassowaries and leeches and snakes. Because the local cassowaries sometimes attach cars we had to cover our car with one of those huge car covers - we never did see a cassowary. By the time we settled in it was time for happy hour and dinner. We had brought a bottle of champagne (Roederer in fact) from Lizard for the occasion along with a couple of bottles of red - arrival gifts from the two Pullmans we stayed at. Since the cottages were 100% self-catering we had planned to have the same dinner both nights - pasta and salad - easy with no leftovers.
Friday May 6
After breakfast (fruit and yoghurt) we did one of the rain forest walks on the property - sort of a loop to the creek and platypus pool. Even though we were kitted out with full rain forest hiking gear - jungles pants, shirts, gators and hiking boots - all pre-sprayed with insect repellant - by the time we got back to our cottage some 1.5 hours later we discovered we both had several leeches sucking our blood out and many more on our clothes. We stripped off - spraying everything with more repellant and threw everything in the washing machine. We decided that an afternoon hike was now off the agenda so we had lunch (we ate the breakfast provisions provided - 2 fried eggs on toast). We wiled away the afternoon finishing up the laundry and playing a double header of scrabble. There was no WiFi or phone connection so online activities were out.
We slipped into happy and dinner - a repeat of the previous evening - we decided that 2 days was plenty for Rosegum’s.
Saturday May 7
So it was up early and off to Silky Oaks for the finale of our Queensland break. As we drove out of the property we saw 3 Azure Kingfishers sitting on a power cable.