Port Douglas

For Thursday we thought about taking another snorkeling trip with a different company but instead decided to rent a car and drive up the coast to Port Douglas and back.
We rented a very small car with automatic transmission. I can drive a stick but I've never driven one with my left hand nor had I driven on the left side of the road and I figured doing both for the first time in the same day wasn't a good idea. Actually it wasn't hard to drive on the left side of the road. Most of the time you are following other cars so that makes it easy. The rest is just knowing where to aim when you make right or left turns.
We first went over to the Lagoon in Cairns and parked and walked around a bit. They have this huge pool that sits next to the boardwalk. It's maybe 6' deep at the deepest point with most of it being less than 2'. There is a small area that has a sandy beach that the water laps up on. We didn't have swimming attire on or I would've ventured for a swim. You definitely notice in Cairns how well kept the public areas are. From medians to parks, everything there is well manacured and well cared for.
Driving up the coast with the pacific ocean in view about 80% was gorgeous. We stopped 3 times on the way to Port Douglas on the side of the road and got out with cameras and waked down a steep rocky ledge to a vacant beach. It was like we were in a movie and had been stranded on an island. The sand was smooth and the grade was nearly flat. The tide was out which provided for gentle waves that broke on shore and send a 1" sheet of water up the sand for 30' or more. We watched the pacific send more waves toward us and looked up and down the coast at the magnificent cliffs and trees that completed this picturesque dot on the globe. I literally could've stayed there for days. It was so peaceful and beautiful, all that was missing was a picnic basket and a shelter for shade and you'd be set.
Dragging ourselves back up to the car to continue on, we finally made it to Port Douglas. It was quite the touristy town but still nice to walk around. I saw a boat named Oscar that Anna laughs at me for talking about. My guess is that the ship probably cost $7M-$10M and was probably 100'-120' long. A black hull with wood trimmed decks and railings, an aft deck dining table that sat 8 complete with a small boom crane and waverunner on top. If I won the lottery, a boat like that would be mine and I'd be off to all the friendly ports in the world.
I tried to take a picture of a small but pretty Catholic Church that sat there next to the sea but when I realized the woman in my frame that was squatting in the bushes was not looking for a hose but actually peeing... I decided to just walk away. I'm not sure what would make a 45 year old woman pee in the bushes in broad daylight directly in front of a church when there were several bars with restrooms within 100 yards.
We did some souvenir shopping, (Mom, I hope the shirt fits) and were back in the car and headed back down the coast. This time there was no lane between our car and the cliffs and that made the driving that much more exhilerating. Even though our engine was probably < 1.5 liters it was still fun to drive. We stopped at one more beach on the way back and chatted with a Greek couple who were up from Melbourne. We made it back to the rental car place and they drove us out to the airport. We ran into one of Anna's friends who was on our flight down to Sydney and we settled into a seat in the quaint domestic terminal at Virgin Blue and waited for our plane.
We got in to Sydney just after 10p and made our way over to the Boulevard Hotel. Again the bed was a wonderful site and we were fast asleep by midnight.