Drift snorkelling

Lazy would be the best way to summarise today.

The morning was spent drift snorkelling down the Mossman River. What is that? I hear you ask. It is the lazy man's way to snorkel. We drift on a big inflatable bed and put our face into the water. There were plenty of fish and turtles. A word of warning...the water was cold. The full length wetsuits provided helped somewhat. Photos were taken by the guide and airdropped for free at the end of the tour. Lucky Lara still had an iphone!

We were too lazy to look for a lunch place and so returned to the milk bar we ate yesterday. 

We were too lazy to swim in the pool in the afternoon so we took a family nap instead. 

We were too lazy to go out for dinner so ate at the restaurant within the resort.

There endeth the day. I'm too lazy to write a long blog post. Enjoy the photos! We will now be watching the latest instalment of Loki!

Drift snorkelling on the Mossman River

The water was crystal clear

A little baby rapid

Our assortment of tropical juices

Dinner at Aluco - quail, turkish sausage

Fish tagine

Mossman Gorge & Four Mile Beach

Mossman Gorge

Man we can't run away from these pesky neighbours...

It was a pleasant surprise to discover that my brother, Brian, and his family were going to be in far north Queensland at the same time. It was a shame that we only realised a couple of weeks before the trip and didn't co-ordinate ourselves. So...despite being within the vicinity of each other we only had 1 day overlap as our itineraries were in a completely different order! We met up at the Mossman Gorge Visitor Centre for our walk around the Mossman Gorge area. I would recommend going early. There was no one there when we arrived at 0830am and by the time we left at 1030am it was full of people. The children were delighted to see each other and any hope of spotting wildlife disappeared as the noise we created was deafening...Nonetheless we enjoyed our walk. The area was gorgeous and well worth visiting. We ate lunch at a milkbar in Mossman before having a brief afternoon snooze. 

The plan was to swim at Four Mile Beach in the late afternoon but we were derailed by sandal-sucking black mud underneath the sand! We ogled at the multitudes of hermit crab instead before heading to our apartment for a much cleaner dip in the plunge pool. It was fortunate that we all had the same eating patterns. By 1630 it appeared everyone was starving. 

Brian dutifully advised that the only Chinese restaurant in town had closed. So Thai would have to do the honours. Our reservation at Star of Siam was for 1730 but they kindly let us in right on opening time of 5pm. Opa and Oma would have been proud of us. Brian and family will now go their separate ways but we will reunite again we return home...when we can say hello over the fence everyday 😂

Mossman River

Fun exploring together

So many things to see

The very old Daintree rainforest

Jonah I'm sure walked twice as many steps as anyone else

Shame we couldn't swim

Gorgeous creek near the end of the circuit

As promised photos of our 2 bedroom apartment!

Looking out to the outdoor/pool area

Access to Four Mile Beach from the resort

A log or a crocodile

It really is...just a log

Four Mile Beach

Should we swim?!

Nah...

Family dinner

Fried barramundi

Goodbye GBR Hello Port Douglas

Fun fact: Did you know that clownfish has one dominant female? If that female dies, the remaining males fight to be alpha and turn into a female!

 It had all caught up with us. We couldn’t muster ourselves to get up for the sunrise dive, our exhaustion out-trumped the Asianness of squeezing everything out of something we’ve paid for as well as MOFO.

We caught up with Amy over breakfast and made a plan for the our last day on the boat. Mal and the children completed the rest of the required skills session over the next two dives whilst I enjoyed leisurely snorkels. Although to be honest, leisurely was somewhat of a stretch as I always felt tired after each session! After lunch, the diving paperwork was finalised and voila! We now have 3 certified divers in the family!

We made up for our lack of Asianness in the morning with some bargaining with the boat photographer. Mal was delighted with his success and we were fortunate that he did as we discovered later that we had problems with our own footage (keep reading).

Our rental camera was pot luck. Half the time we couldn’t see the footage we were taking, and we couldn’t take the SD card out of its waterproof casing to check on the laptop. We were very excited to see the videos and photos that we took only to find out after we had arrived at Port Douglas that we couldn’t read the SD card! At least we had the professional photographer’s photos thankfully.

Waffles with maple glazed bacon...mmm

Last two dive sessions

They are certified!!

Lunch - beef schnitzel burger. It was really good!

Farewelling the amazing Amy. We never tip but we did this time!

We packed and waited to transfer across to the Reef Experience at 1430 to take us back to the mainland. We arrived back at the Marina at Cairns well before 1630. Once there, we apparently picked an uber that took the longest time just to drive 1.5km…we finally got to East Coast Car Rentals to pick up our Kia. The kids said it was so small it could have been a go-cart. Too bad, it was the only car that didn’t cost a fortune…

Our drive to port Douglas was only 56 min but felt long because we were so tired. We ditched plans to visit Brian & family and checked into the Pullman Sea Temple Resort. Our 2-bedroom apartment was lovely but the reviews will have to wait until tomorrow. Although Mal and I were so happy to see a King bed...lol..how we miss a BIG bed!

We had a dinner reservation at Zinc at 8:15pm. By this stage everyone was grumpy. We were fortunate to be able to dine earlier and we were out of there by 8:15pm. The general mood was considerably lifted by the sight of green and gold Aussie fruit loops, and creamy honey oatmeal at the convenience store next door. So much for the wagyu steak, salmon carpaccio, squid salad and seafood linguine we just had!

Thank you Reef Encounter for our phenomenal experience at the Great Barrier Reef. We would definitely recommend it if you are interested in diving.

Our "go-cart"

Driving north to Port Douglas

Only have time to take a photo of the bedrooms...

Dinner at Zinc. Please make a booking in advance if interested

A very well made seafood linguine. Just wanted something familiar and comforting

Yeah...this was what made everyone happy. Sheesh!