Oceania + SE Asia

Moved up to Port Douglas to be closer to the outer reef. Checked into the Ramada Resort, time share and hotel, which immediately seemed odd. The front desk welcomes you with the molasses and the tour desk gives you the sulfur: you are 2.5 miles from town and there are crocodiles on the famous 4 mile beach. I'm going to write an entry about nightmare hotels separately, but now is not the time to be "bad husband". There is a stream and pool down the center of the resort and the restaurant looks like an Australian "river station". It's half Disney and half weird. It kind of grows on you. UPDATE: turns out every restaurant in town has no wait staff. You order your drinks from the bar and your food from kitchen. Condiments and salt and pepper are on the sideboard. WHY DON'T YOU KNOW THIS (maybe posting this somewhere would help). Once you know, it works pretty well. Travel can sometimes be like a thousand irritating cuts, some places are easier than others....

Guests waiting to place their dinner orders (no wait staff)

Four Mile Beach


Photo of a crocodile just 20 meters offshore on Four Mile Beach in August 2017 IMAGE: Newsport.

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Following our Cairns experience, we decided to double up our chances and booked two outer reef trips:
1). Mine is the Quicksilver Wave Piercing Catamaran tour (tomorrow) .
2). Jan's is the Calypso Reef Charters tour (the next day).
Different reefs and boat types.

We'll report back.
Quicksilver Wave Piercer Catamaran
The tour was aboard the 45 meter 480 passenger Quicksilver Wave Piercer Catamaran and its dedicated island platform anchored 72 kilometers out on Agincourt Reef. Travel time to the platform was 1 hour 45 mins (23 knots) the tour included a buffet lunch, semi submersible viewing boats, underwater viewing deck, snorkel gear, and sting suits. Underwater visibility was unlimited with many fish and coral. The purpose built boat and tour platform with its submerged step off snorkel decks, showers, and changing rooms made the trip effortless. Weather was perfect.

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4,000 HP engines

Calypso Reef Charters Tour
This catamaran tour goes to Opal Reef. The boat is 21 meters long 100 passengers (only 30 the day we went) and grantees three 1 hour long snorkel tours at 3 sites. It's more low tech than the Quicksilver and a lot rougher ride. The snorkel sites had higher waves and more current but the extra variety paid off with this meter long Maori Wrasse

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Canceling Bali has created a lot of itinerary changes and these rest days have given me time to clean up some loose ends.

1). We had to shorten our Port Douglas visit by one day so we could fly to Hong Kong (only weekly service to there from Cairns) then onto Yangon, MM (Myanmar) for 10 days. The only other route not stopping in Bali was to fly all the way back to Sydney and then from there to Jakarta, then Bangkok, and then Yangon, laying over a few hours in each place (18+ hours).

2). We pick up our planned itinerary again in Singapore on October 30, but we arrive there from Yangon late and leave for Kuching, MY (Borneo) early, so that only gave us 2 full days to visit. Singapore is our favorite city so we changed plans again. We're not going to Borneo and we got a serviced apartment right on top of the Clarke Quay MRT (subway stop) for 10 days. With an MRT stop below us you can be anywhere in the City in minutes, and Clarke and Boat Quays is where all of the restaurants and night life is. Singapore is a great city but hotels are very expensive and an apartment really brings the cost down. However, that means Jan will miss the Borneo long house native jungle stay (he's being sarcastic since I really didn't want to go). Hopefully we will see Orangutans sometime in the future.

3). Andaman Islands Thailand issues: We're flying to the island of Langkawi from Kuala Lumpur and we will enter Thailand via ferry. Because of the popularity and remoteness of these islands, hotels/beach huts must be booked far in advance, and many are non-refundable. We found out that regular ferry service doesn't start until November 21 (3 days too late for our Koh Lipe island stop), so we're researching the safety of hired speed boats and other ferry options. Once we get to Koh Lipe there will be twice daily ferry service to the 6 other islands we are visiting.

Arrived yesterday from Sydney. Jan is still under the weather with a cough so we're taking some more rest days. The marina is really the center of Cairns as it is a jump off point to the Great Barrier Reef. There is only a tidal flat for a beach, so the city built a nice pool, beach area, and board walk. There are plenty of shops and restaurants.
We've booked a day trip to Fitzroy Island and then we move on to Port Douglas that has access to the outer reef.

Jan's still not well enough to be on a tour, but if you know her that is exactly what she did. The Island is just 45 minutes from Cairns by catamaran and it has a beach and two snorkel areas (these are just local reefs). The weather was perfect but it was low tide when we tried snorkeling and the coral was too close to surface to safely navigate, plus Jan saw a shark loitering nearby. We came ashore, took a nap, and waited for the tide to come in before round two. This time we had plenty of depth and saw numerous large fish, a large green sea turtle and many giant clams. We rated the beach a 2 (out of 10) because of the amount of coral shards and the snorkeling a 4 (similar to Hawaii) because of the poor visibility. This is always the problem when you only have one shot to visit an area; if the water conditions are bad that day there is nothing you can do.

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It was a 3 hour flight over from Queenstown, NZ. We're staying in Potts Point which is backpacker central with lots of bars and hip restaurants all open late. Hotels are expensive but food seems cheaper than NZ. We're about 2 blocks from Kings Cross station (the tube). You can purchase an "Opal Card" in convenience stores and use it for all public transportation: trains, buses, ferries and light rail and you never pay more than $15.40 a day no matter how much you use it. It's the best option to see New South Wales. Jan lost no time in getting us down to Circular Quay, Luna Park, Manly, Darling Harbor, and China Town. It's a world class city to be sure.

The escalator ride down to Kings Cross station

Double decker trains

Ferry terminal

Opera House

Harbor Bridge

Harbor Ferry

Luna Park

Luna Park

Luna Park

Luna Park

Darling Harbor

Maritime Museum

Light rail

China Town Market

Central Station back home

Whale watching. It's peak season for Humpback whales but it was a little slow, only 10 whales. Great crew and a fast boat able to race around to different sightings (We've been on so many catamarans we totally forgot to snap the boat...very comfortable and safe).

Basically the same sights at night. Shot from the ferry, sorry about the blur...

Drove by this fireworks display at Luna Park bay on the harbor ferry. No idea who put it on or why. That's the "Harbour Bridge" in the foreground.

"The Rocks" bar and restaurant district. Very hip place to eat and drink.