Two days into our tropical escape up here in Queensland and I think we've all more-or-less acclimatised to the heat, Tizer included. She wasn't the happiest of bunnies for the first couple of nights, refusing point blank to do the decent thing and sleep in her push-chair when we were out of an evening.
It's probably worth pointing out that when we're travelling away from home, we are usually fortunate enough to be able to book a sitter or - as long as we dine in the hotel - leave daughter-dear asleep in our room. Yes, I know, I'm opening up a whole can of ugly worms here with regards to the very real tradgedy of a certain little British girl in Portugal earlier this year, but we're comfortable with the way we go about it and it works for us. We'd never stay in a hotel where we weren't happy with the general security, or in a room that wasn't clearly secure with a decent lock on the door. She's never left for more than 10 minutes at a time (we take it in turns; plays havoc with your digestion, but there you go) and, as is the case here at Thala, we never leave her if we are more than 90 seconds from the room.
So, as our beautiful rainforest bungalow is about as far as you could get from the hotel restaurant without it being in another state, she must join us for dinner. She was hot and tired, and - most importantly - she wanted us to know that she was hot and tired, so it made for two rather stressful dining experiences. The second of these was partaken in the bar, instead of the restaurant itself, mainly in the interests of letting our fellow guests enjoy their dinner to the sounds of the Queensland rainforest at night rather than the catterwalling of a toddler from Yorkshire.
It's great food in the hotel, by the way. I had a fantastic stuffed chicken breast with risotto the other night, and a damn fine plate of battered red snapper and chips yesterday evening. Well above normal hotel fair - and priced accordingly, more's the pity - but still, you get what you pay for.
Sunday was a delightfully lazy day; after all, with Hong Kong followed by Sydney we'd essentially been on a nine day city break puntuated by 24 hours of flying, and Tizer wasn't the only one starting to feel the strain. We drove into Port Douglas, a 12 minute journey from the hotel (I like to time these kind of things), but then, of course, it takes as long again to find a parking space. Be it Sainsburys on a Saturday or the tropics on a Sunday afternoon, some things are the same the world over.
To be fair, the reason that Port Douglas was quite so busy this particular morning was because it was market day, held each Sunday near to the Marina. I'm not normally a fan of dawdling around craft fairs, and I'd rather have electrodes attached to the tenderest parts of my body than go to a 'car boot sale', but this weekly market was a delight. The sky was blue, with a few stray, fluffy white clouds, the temperature was somewhere in the mid-80s and the market stalls were set out amongst palm trees between the town and the waters edge.
The stalls were generally quite hippified, with a least three dedicated to various forms of far eastern massage (which seems a tad excessive for a small market, until I realised that all three were doing pretty decent business). Others sold the obligitory T-shirts - one of which had to be purchased for Tizer after we were naive enough to buy her a luminous green snow cone - wind chimes, natural cosmetics, local foods and one very strange man attempting to sell duck-callers and wooden whistles, predominantly to young boys. I think he was French, which goes some way to explaining things.
Having bought the afore mentioned snow cones and replacement T-shirt, as well as a really nice wind-chimey thing with a lizard on it, we had a wander through the town. What's that saying about mad-dogs and Englishmen? Well, I think we proved it true, as it was now well into the 90s and even I was starting to find the going a little tough. We headed up the main street through Port Douglas to the beach, which was much better thanks to a stiff sea-breeze.
We weren't dressed for a dip, which was just as well, as there were signs up and down the beach warning us of the threat from box-jellyfish. I'd done a fair bit of reading up on this before we came out, so it wasn't too much of a surprise. You see, you really don't want to swim with box-jellyfish because they've got a pretty nasty sting which will - well, to put none too fine a point upon it - kill you. Not before it's put you through a hellish-ring-cycle of unbearable pain, of course, but death is usually the ultimate outcome. The local Surf Rescue Club were out and they'd netted an area of sea off for 'safe' swimming, but - and call me a softy if you will - I like more than a bit of netting between me and an almost certain, agonising death when I go for a swim. I paddled, which I thought was terribly brave, but that's as far as I went.
Heading back into town we found a decent looking restaurant/bar. I ordered what turned out to be a pretty good steak and one of the most perfectly chilled and refreshing pints of Stella Artois I have ever been fortunate enough lay my lips upon. It was so good that, once I'd finished it, I had another one. And a cigarette, in the bar's rather attractive decking area, whilst watching some stunning parrot-type-birds - with 'beautiful plumage' - flit amongst the trees above me. I've since discovered - from one of the really friendly waitresses at the hotel - that they are in fact lorikeets, so there you go. Certainly much nicer than enduring any length of time in some of the so-called 'smoking shelters' back home.
Now, I like detail in these blog posts as much as the next man, but I wou,ldn't normally go as far as describing my visits to the toilet to you, dear reader. However, the gents in this particular bar have almost inspired me to start a whole new section to this blog. Maybe I'll call it 'Bogs of Note'. Or 'Bog Blog'. I'm not sure yet; I think it still might need some work.
Anyway, the gents in this particular gaff were situated just off the decking area where the dirty smokers hang out. I entered, did my best to get my bearings having just come in from bright sunlight, spied the latrine, unzipped and commenced doing what a man's gotta do. Then I had a sudden realisation; I was looking straight at the couple with whom I'd just been sharing the decking area, which was odd and just a tad disconcerting, all things considered. With some relief (geddit?) I quickly discovered that the back of the latrine was actually one big sheet of smoked, one-way glass so, as you went about your business you could make sure no one was nicking your pint outside. I thought it was excessively cool and, upon returning to the bar, swiftly ordered another pint to give me a reason to go back again soon.
Back at our digs we ate and managed a couple of drinks prior to heading bedwards for a relatively early night, as we had a big day ahead of us - sailing on an authentic Chinese junk to the Low Isles and the Great Barrier Reef.
There're lots of trips out to the 'GBR', as they seem to call it around these parts, both from Port Douglas and from Cairns. A company called Quicksilver appears to be the biggest operator, with big motorised catamarans that look like they can accommodate literally hundreds of giddy snorkellers and divers. They tend to head out to the reef proper, which is a good 2 hours each way. We didn't fancy that or, at least, felt it would probably be a bit boring for Tizer and really didn't appreciate the prospect of sharing a boat with so many people. Considering the current craze for 'Cruise Holidays' has much the same effect on me - the prospect of being trapped on a bloody great floating all-inclusive hotel for days on end, with no escape from boring couples like John & Doreen from Wolverhampton short of hurling oneself (or John & Doreen from Wolverhampton) into the deep blue briny fills me with an absolute dread.
We decided, instead, on taking a boat to Low Isles - a coral cay island - which is only an hour each way and, unlike visiting the GBR, means you can get off the boat and onto dry land. This was probably going to be much better suited to a two year old and, whilst not officially on the GBR itself, it was close enough to have some pretty impressive coral, all of which could be easily viewed by your average snorkeller (a.k.a - me) in nice, calm, protected waters.
The Chinese junk which was going to get us out there was named Shaolin and, whilst I'm not exactly a nautical man, she was a beauty, especially when set alongside the hulking motor catamarans in Port Douglas marina. She was commissioned and built in Hong Kong some forty years ago, has sailed around the world twice and had ulitimately found herself in Port Doulglas plowing her way to-and-fro across the Coral Sea. We were due to board around mid-day, which seemed wonderfully civilised as so many of these tours seem to set off at the crack of dawn. We were to sail off to Low Isles, drop anchor for a spot of lunch on board, then take the little motorised tender (which doubles up as a glass bottom boat) over to the beach to snorkel, sunbathe, chill out, whatever really.
All terribly relaxed, and when we discovered that we were three of only seven guests on board - bearing in mind their website proudly announces they normally only allow a maximum of 23 people - we were certainly rather pleased with ourselves. OK, so as we boarded we realised we hadn't brought a single towel between us, but one of the three crew quickly found us a spare and surprising clean one, so we didn't stress for too long.
We set off out of the marina, waved off by locals and tourists alike along the waters edge, and headed out to sea towards Low Isles. The sea was relatively calm, but a boat of the design and age of Shaolin doesn't have the same kind of stability as more modern boats, so it was delightfully 'bouncy'. I love it. We've been visiting Barbados each spring for the last few years and we always try and squeeze in a couple of sailing trips; one of the highlights for me is when we head out away from the coast to catch some of the bigger waves. Most exhilarating. Shaolin was a gentler experience, but it was still bags of fun. And with so few of us on board it really did feel like our own private junk as we bounced over the waves, the forested mountains of the mainland behind us, a cloudless blue sky above and the tiny prospect of Low Isles getting slowly larger before us.
Our fellow adventurers were a middle-aged British couple on a 'once-in-a-lifetime' around the world, and a pair of Kiwi lads in their late twenties, and all four were very pleasant travelling companions. Also on board with us was skipper, Connor, his girlfriend and his son, Brodie (lovely lad) as well as 'first mate' and snorkelling guru, Carly, who was an American but had been in Oz a fair few years. She issued us with stinger suits, designed to protect us from the jellyfish which could otherwise make our snorkelling experience at best, rather uncomfortable and, at worst, deadly.
This made me nervous, such is my dispostion, especially when you consider that, even with the suit on, my cheeks and chin were still going to be exposed, as were my feet, at least they would be until I put my fins on. I expressed my reservations to Carly who was as reassuring as she could be in a realistic kind of way.
"Life is about taking risks," she told me. "Of all the people who come snorkelling out here, maybe 1 in 20,000 get stung, and that's not even by box jellyfish". She's quite right, the 'boxy' is quite rare when you get away from the coast; you're much more likely to be stung by a little fella called the irukandji, a much smaller jellyfish that just loves it out on the reef. It's unlikely a sting from one would kill you, but it's supposedly so painful that if you are stung you may well wish you were dead.
"Do you smoke?" asked Carly. I admitted sheepishly that yes, I do. "Much riskier" she told me in a that's-our-discussion-over kind of way, handing me my attractive blue stinger suit.
We dropped anchor quarter of a mile or so off Low Isles at about 1ish amidst three of four larger tour boats. As lunch was served - salad and cold meats, all very nice - the other boats called their hoardes of snorkellers back and, one by one and much to our delight, sailed back off toward the mainland, leaving us as the only boat out there. Just how I like it.
It's probably worth pointing out that when we're travelling away from home, we are usually fortunate enough to be able to book a sitter or - as long as we dine in the hotel - leave daughter-dear asleep in our room. Yes, I know, I'm opening up a whole can of ugly worms here with regards to the very real tradgedy of a certain little British girl in Portugal earlier this year, but we're comfortable with the way we go about it and it works for us. We'd never stay in a hotel where we weren't happy with the general security, or in a room that wasn't clearly secure with a decent lock on the door. She's never left for more than 10 minutes at a time (we take it in turns; plays havoc with your digestion, but there you go) and, as is the case here at Thala, we never leave her if we are more than 90 seconds from the room.
So, as our beautiful rainforest bungalow is about as far as you could get from the hotel restaurant without it being in another state, she must join us for dinner. She was hot and tired, and - most importantly - she wanted us to know that she was hot and tired, so it made for two rather stressful dining experiences. The second of these was partaken in the bar, instead of the restaurant itself, mainly in the interests of letting our fellow guests enjoy their dinner to the sounds of the Queensland rainforest at night rather than the catterwalling of a toddler from Yorkshire.
It's great food in the hotel, by the way. I had a fantastic stuffed chicken breast with risotto the other night, and a damn fine plate of battered red snapper and chips yesterday evening. Well above normal hotel fair - and priced accordingly, more's the pity - but still, you get what you pay for.
Sunday was a delightfully lazy day; after all, with Hong Kong followed by Sydney we'd essentially been on a nine day city break puntuated by 24 hours of flying, and Tizer wasn't the only one starting to feel the strain. We drove into Port Douglas, a 12 minute journey from the hotel (I like to time these kind of things), but then, of course, it takes as long again to find a parking space. Be it Sainsburys on a Saturday or the tropics on a Sunday afternoon, some things are the same the world over.
To be fair, the reason that Port Douglas was quite so busy this particular morning was because it was market day, held each Sunday near to the Marina. I'm not normally a fan of dawdling around craft fairs, and I'd rather have electrodes attached to the tenderest parts of my body than go to a 'car boot sale', but this weekly market was a delight. The sky was blue, with a few stray, fluffy white clouds, the temperature was somewhere in the mid-80s and the market stalls were set out amongst palm trees between the town and the waters edge.
The stalls were generally quite hippified, with a least three dedicated to various forms of far eastern massage (which seems a tad excessive for a small market, until I realised that all three were doing pretty decent business). Others sold the obligitory T-shirts - one of which had to be purchased for Tizer after we were naive enough to buy her a luminous green snow cone - wind chimes, natural cosmetics, local foods and one very strange man attempting to sell duck-callers and wooden whistles, predominantly to young boys. I think he was French, which goes some way to explaining things.
Having bought the afore mentioned snow cones and replacement T-shirt, as well as a really nice wind-chimey thing with a lizard on it, we had a wander through the town. What's that saying about mad-dogs and Englishmen? Well, I think we proved it true, as it was now well into the 90s and even I was starting to find the going a little tough. We headed up the main street through Port Douglas to the beach, which was much better thanks to a stiff sea-breeze.
We weren't dressed for a dip, which was just as well, as there were signs up and down the beach warning us of the threat from box-jellyfish. I'd done a fair bit of reading up on this before we came out, so it wasn't too much of a surprise. You see, you really don't want to swim with box-jellyfish because they've got a pretty nasty sting which will - well, to put none too fine a point upon it - kill you. Not before it's put you through a hellish-ring-cycle of unbearable pain, of course, but death is usually the ultimate outcome. The local Surf Rescue Club were out and they'd netted an area of sea off for 'safe' swimming, but - and call me a softy if you will - I like more than a bit of netting between me and an almost certain, agonising death when I go for a swim. I paddled, which I thought was terribly brave, but that's as far as I went.
Heading back into town we found a decent looking restaurant/bar. I ordered what turned out to be a pretty good steak and one of the most perfectly chilled and refreshing pints of Stella Artois I have ever been fortunate enough lay my lips upon. It was so good that, once I'd finished it, I had another one. And a cigarette, in the bar's rather attractive decking area, whilst watching some stunning parrot-type-birds - with 'beautiful plumage' - flit amongst the trees above me. I've since discovered - from one of the really friendly waitresses at the hotel - that they are in fact lorikeets, so there you go. Certainly much nicer than enduring any length of time in some of the so-called 'smoking shelters' back home.
Now, I like detail in these blog posts as much as the next man, but I wou,ldn't normally go as far as describing my visits to the toilet to you, dear reader. However, the gents in this particular bar have almost inspired me to start a whole new section to this blog. Maybe I'll call it 'Bogs of Note'. Or 'Bog Blog'. I'm not sure yet; I think it still might need some work.
Anyway, the gents in this particular gaff were situated just off the decking area where the dirty smokers hang out. I entered, did my best to get my bearings having just come in from bright sunlight, spied the latrine, unzipped and commenced doing what a man's gotta do. Then I had a sudden realisation; I was looking straight at the couple with whom I'd just been sharing the decking area, which was odd and just a tad disconcerting, all things considered. With some relief (geddit?) I quickly discovered that the back of the latrine was actually one big sheet of smoked, one-way glass so, as you went about your business you could make sure no one was nicking your pint outside. I thought it was excessively cool and, upon returning to the bar, swiftly ordered another pint to give me a reason to go back again soon.
Back at our digs we ate and managed a couple of drinks prior to heading bedwards for a relatively early night, as we had a big day ahead of us - sailing on an authentic Chinese junk to the Low Isles and the Great Barrier Reef.
There're lots of trips out to the 'GBR', as they seem to call it around these parts, both from Port Douglas and from Cairns. A company called Quicksilver appears to be the biggest operator, with big motorised catamarans that look like they can accommodate literally hundreds of giddy snorkellers and divers. They tend to head out to the reef proper, which is a good 2 hours each way. We didn't fancy that or, at least, felt it would probably be a bit boring for Tizer and really didn't appreciate the prospect of sharing a boat with so many people. Considering the current craze for 'Cruise Holidays' has much the same effect on me - the prospect of being trapped on a bloody great floating all-inclusive hotel for days on end, with no escape from boring couples like John & Doreen from Wolverhampton short of hurling oneself (or John & Doreen from Wolverhampton) into the deep blue briny fills me with an absolute dread.
We decided, instead, on taking a boat to Low Isles - a coral cay island - which is only an hour each way and, unlike visiting the GBR, means you can get off the boat and onto dry land. This was probably going to be much better suited to a two year old and, whilst not officially on the GBR itself, it was close enough to have some pretty impressive coral, all of which could be easily viewed by your average snorkeller (a.k.a - me) in nice, calm, protected waters.
The Chinese junk which was going to get us out there was named Shaolin and, whilst I'm not exactly a nautical man, she was a beauty, especially when set alongside the hulking motor catamarans in Port Douglas marina. She was commissioned and built in Hong Kong some forty years ago, has sailed around the world twice and had ulitimately found herself in Port Doulglas plowing her way to-and-fro across the Coral Sea. We were due to board around mid-day, which seemed wonderfully civilised as so many of these tours seem to set off at the crack of dawn. We were to sail off to Low Isles, drop anchor for a spot of lunch on board, then take the little motorised tender (which doubles up as a glass bottom boat) over to the beach to snorkel, sunbathe, chill out, whatever really.
All terribly relaxed, and when we discovered that we were three of only seven guests on board - bearing in mind their website proudly announces they normally only allow a maximum of 23 people - we were certainly rather pleased with ourselves. OK, so as we boarded we realised we hadn't brought a single towel between us, but one of the three crew quickly found us a spare and surprising clean one, so we didn't stress for too long.
We set off out of the marina, waved off by locals and tourists alike along the waters edge, and headed out to sea towards Low Isles. The sea was relatively calm, but a boat of the design and age of Shaolin doesn't have the same kind of stability as more modern boats, so it was delightfully 'bouncy'. I love it. We've been visiting Barbados each spring for the last few years and we always try and squeeze in a couple of sailing trips; one of the highlights for me is when we head out away from the coast to catch some of the bigger waves. Most exhilarating. Shaolin was a gentler experience, but it was still bags of fun. And with so few of us on board it really did feel like our own private junk as we bounced over the waves, the forested mountains of the mainland behind us, a cloudless blue sky above and the tiny prospect of Low Isles getting slowly larger before us.
Our fellow adventurers were a middle-aged British couple on a 'once-in-a-lifetime' around the world, and a pair of Kiwi lads in their late twenties, and all four were very pleasant travelling companions. Also on board with us was skipper, Connor, his girlfriend and his son, Brodie (lovely lad) as well as 'first mate' and snorkelling guru, Carly, who was an American but had been in Oz a fair few years. She issued us with stinger suits, designed to protect us from the jellyfish which could otherwise make our snorkelling experience at best, rather uncomfortable and, at worst, deadly.
This made me nervous, such is my dispostion, especially when you consider that, even with the suit on, my cheeks and chin were still going to be exposed, as were my feet, at least they would be until I put my fins on. I expressed my reservations to Carly who was as reassuring as she could be in a realistic kind of way.
"Life is about taking risks," she told me. "Of all the people who come snorkelling out here, maybe 1 in 20,000 get stung, and that's not even by box jellyfish". She's quite right, the 'boxy' is quite rare when you get away from the coast; you're much more likely to be stung by a little fella called the irukandji, a much smaller jellyfish that just loves it out on the reef. It's unlikely a sting from one would kill you, but it's supposedly so painful that if you are stung you may well wish you were dead.
"Do you smoke?" asked Carly. I admitted sheepishly that yes, I do. "Much riskier" she told me in a that's-our-discussion-over kind of way, handing me my attractive blue stinger suit.
We dropped anchor quarter of a mile or so off Low Isles at about 1ish amidst three of four larger tour boats. As lunch was served - salad and cold meats, all very nice - the other boats called their hoardes of snorkellers back and, one by one and much to our delight, sailed back off toward the mainland, leaving us as the only boat out there. Just how I like it.
After lunch we donned our stinger suits (be warned, they don't leave a great deal to the imagination which is why you won't find any photos of me wearing mine) and clambered into the glass-bottomed tender - passing Tizer carefully down to the skipper much to our daughter's delight - then proceeded to take a 30 minute tour over the coral around Low Isles.
The Great Barrier Reef is made up predominantly of hard coral (rocky, lumpy, spikey) but at Low Isles it's mostly soft coral (floaty, swishy, swaying) and it was only about 5-15 feet under the water, so great to observe from the tender. Harking back to Barbados again, we've been lucky enough to do a fair bit of snorkelling over some half decent reefs, but they've been almost entirely hard coral and quite old. For my liking, this soft coral was much more akin to what you'd see on a Jacques Cousteau documentary or 'Finding Nemo' (more of Nemo soon...). And not only was it stunningly beautiful, it was also rather easy to identify each species of the coral thanks to a pretty self-explanatory naming system. So, spaghetti coral looks like spaghetti, tree coral looks like a tree and grape coral looks like bunches of grapes. You'll never guess what pineapple coral looks like. Yup, you got it.
Next, we made landfall on Low Isles and, as all the other boats and their touristy hoards were already most of their way back to Port Douglas, we had this tiny desert island - complete with palm trees and solitary white-washed lighthouse - all to ourselves. Mrs V used our dear daughter as an excuse not to go snorkelling, concerned as she was about jellyfish, so our snorkel party comprised of the nice middle-aged couple, the two Kiwi lads, Brodie and myself, led and guided by the gutsy Carly.
Kitted out head-to-toe in close-fitting blue lycra, flippers, snorkels and masks, we certainly weren't catwalk material. Mind you, some of the ridiculous get-ups paraded by the major fashion houses are often far more outrageous. If you stuck a Dior label on our stinger suits I'm sure there'd be some celebrity-chav out there simply dying to be parted from a ridiculous amount of their money for it. Victoria Beckham, for instance.
As I say, I've snorkelled a bit in the Caribbean and have my own prescription mask (without it I could swim toward a 30 foot Great White shark and still not know it was there until it bit my arm off), so I didn't need the Beginners Guide To Snorkelling that Carly was doling out to nice middle-aged couple. It basically involved putting one's snorkel and mask on then dipping your face in the water to see if you drowned or not, so nothing too strenuous. However, after 5 or 10 minutes of aborted attempts, nice middle-aged couple decided it wasn't for them - though at least they tried - so that left just the five of us to head out on our snorkel tour of the reef and, following in Carly's not inconsiderable wake, we made our way out over the coral.
It was tough going as Carly set up a cracking pace and had clearly assumed (wrongly if you ask me) that my Kiwi chums and I were three fit lads with as much stamina as her - but the whole endeavour could not have been more worthwhile. Snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef in water warm enough to bathe in, watching a kalaedoscope of tropical fish and turtles dart amongst the coral was a truly amazing experience. Then Carly stopped, waving to attract our attention, and pointed down toward a cluster of sea anemones - and there he was - Nemo! No, two Nemos!! Swimming in and out of the anemones were two beautiful clown fish (for that is what Nemos are apparently). I was delighted, and got even giddier when Carly told us we might be lucky enough to see Nemo's friend later on (the blue fish with the short term memory problem for those who've seen the film).
But not before we saw a pair of giant clams. They were a good 3 foot long, like something straight out of '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea'. Brodie swam down and stuck his hand breifly into one of the clams' open 'mouths', and it slowly closed its gaping maw, obviously pretty disappointed to find a distinct lack of the promised 8-year-old-boy-limb.
We scooted around the reef for another 40 minutes or so, finally catching up with Nemo's buddy, much to my satisfaction. I have to say, it wasn't lost on me how fortunate we were; Carly was a first class snorkel guide and, by this time, Brodie and one of the Kiwis had dropped out, so there was only the remaining Kiwi and myself left. Now, bearing in mind that Shaolin often takes a full compliment of 20 odd guests, we were exceptionally luck to be taking part in an almost private snorkel tour of the Great Barrier Reef, in wonderful conditions with a truly entertaining and informative guide. And the whole kaboodle had only cost around 70 quid each - boat, lunch, snorkel, the lot.
Cramp and fatigue finally rendering my puny legs all but useless, we ultimately admitted defeat and called it a day, returning to the beach.
"So," said Carly as we stepped back onto the sand, knackered, "Did you see any jellies?". I did, just the one, a small mushroom shaped thing. "There you go," she replied, "and that one can't even sting you". Fair point. For the sake of a bit of risk taking (and a pretty tiny bit at that) I'd had a truly great and memorable experience. Lesson learnt, me thinks. Carpe Diem and all that from now on. Although I draw the line at bungy jumping.
The skipper took everyone back out on the glass bottom tender after this, but I stayed on the island - entirely alone - and carried out a quick circumnavigation of my new realm, whilst quietly worrying that they might not come back for me. It only took 10 minutes to walk all the way around, but I really wish I'd taken some shoes as there were one or two fallen trees to climb over and quite a bit of sharp coral that could have cut my feet to shreds and entirely ruined my newly found - if temporary - Robinson Crusoe status.
I was soon 'rescued' by our returning party. We gathered our belongings (stinger suit - loaned. Towel - ditto) and got back on board the tender which took us over to the junk once more. The sails were set - or whatever it is you do with sails - and we bid a fond farewell to Low Isles and set a course for the mainland (see how nautical I'm getting?).
Shaolin's owners don't have an alcohol license, but - like a lot of Aussie establishments - they are happy for you to 'BYO', or Bring Your Own which, of course, we had. I liberated our bottle of Sauvignon Blanc - Australian, of course - from the ice box where the skipper had kindly let us leave it to chill, poured us a couple of glasses, and took a sip whilst watching the sun drift down toward the mountains behind Port Douglas. The low sunlight was glinting gently off the waves, the warm breeze was drying the saltwater and sand onto our skin in a very satisfying way; Tizer was playing nicely with Brodie and everyone seemed delightfully, excessively chilled as we bobbed our way back toward land and the approaching tropical dusk. Just one of those all too rare perfect moments.
Way too soon, we were back to engine power and put-putting our way into the marina again. Small groups of tourists and locals stood, sundowners in hand, and waved at us from waterside bars as we navigated our way back to Shaolin's berth. Shaking hands with the crew and thanking them wholeheartedly for one hell of a day out, they told us the one thing we're always delighted to hear: It was a pleasure having you - and especially Tizer - on board. Thank goodness; we do try very hard indeed to ensure that Tizer's enjoyment doesn't impact on anyone else's when we're out and about. In fact, they said that they wished all two year olds could be like her, then they'd be a lot happier welcoming them and their families on board in future. Too kind.
We had dinner at a really pleasant restaurant on the edge of the marina, which was throughouly delicious and the perfect end to the perfect day. Tizer fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel, and even Mrs V and I only had the energy for a couple of glasses of wine before retiring ourselves. A wonderful day that will last long in the memory.
Next - we tackle the wilds of the tropical rainforest. Pass me my pith helmet!
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