Saturday, September 21, 2013

Vacation to Port Douglas and Cairns-Days 1 & 2

We went on our first big trip since moving to Australia and had a magnificent time!  It was also so great that our friends, the Perrys, were with us for most of our trip.  We all flew in to Cairns together and had done most of the planning for the trip other than booking a rental car…didn’t think it was a huge deal at the time as we thought we’d just grab a couple at the airport.  Well, we were terribly wrong.  Here in Australia, school holidays are a big deal and a lot of people go somewhere during them, meaning that things are much more expensive as well as booked out….including rental cars.  There were 5 places to rent from and after learning that 4 were sold out, we went to the 5th and final counter.  They had 2 left (other than some really expensive ones)-2 Hyundai i20s, manual.  So, that’s what we went with and crammed ourselves and our luggage in.  Lets just say that on our return to the airport, I was in the back with Kyla on my lap and the other 2 next to me! 

Here’s our lovely rental car!

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We grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDonalds before heading 1 hour north to our hotel in Port Douglas.  We got there and settled in for the night.  The next day we decided to drive to Mossman’s Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest and do a little hike and play in the rock pools…getting only a little wet!

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We then drove on to the Daintree River where we took a River cruise and got to see some crocodiles in the wild.

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The kids got to drive the boat!

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