Flying South

It was time to say 'ta-ta' to Thala and set off airport-wards for our flight down to Melbourne and, as per for the forecast, cooler climes. A shame really, I think we were getting rather used to the heat, the cane toads (massive, they are, and they were everywhere around the hotel), the beautiful lorikeets, the endless Coral Sea vistas and the laid-back tropical atmosphere.

We'd spent our last full day in Port Douglas firmly ensconced at the hotel. A rest day is what we'd promised ourselves and a rest day is what we had. A late start, a light breakfast, then some quality time by the pool which we had entirely to ourselves for most of the day. Mrs V and I took it in turns to take Tizer in the pool, interspersed by catching up on a book, sipping on a cool beer and generally wondering why we hadn't booked to stay here for another week.

We also discovered, later that afternoon, that Thala has wireless (and free) internet access. I bring this up now as our one travelling companion I haven't had rise to mention much of yet is my trusty MacBook Pro, who I like to call Mac. And before you say anything, it took me all of 5 minutes to come up with that name.

Mac has been an essential piece of kit so far on this trip, allowing me to email hotels, check-in for flights, keep up (almost) with this blog and - thanks to its groovy little integral webcam - say 'hi' to Ma and Pa back home. As all of this has been dependent on wireless internet access, we've been quite fortunate so far as the hotels in Hong Kong and Sydney both had oodles of it, all for nowt. Thala, on the other hand, had a PC for guest use in the reception but nothing at all of the wireless variety - at least not according to the bumpf in the room. So, for the past four or five days we'd been pretty much incommunicado.

This particular lazy afternoon by the pool, I decided to boot old Mac up just to let him know he hadn't been forgotten when - hey presto! Bars and bars of lovely, free, wireless internet! Wish I'd known a bit sooner, mind. Then again, perhaps it was good to 'get-away-from-it-all' for a few days. Either way, we celebrated by giving Mum and Dad a tinkle. It was half 5ish in Queensland, so half 7ish in the morn back home. It being a Wednesday, my parents would probably be up and about, which they were. Tizer, as ever, was delighted to see them and tried to give the screen a hug, and I gave them a roaming, internet tour of Thala, such as the wireless connection would let me. One of the waitresses even came over to say 'Hello' in a delightfully thick Aussie accent which can only have added to the whole feel of the piece, so to speak.

We dined in the hotel that night, with a blissfully sleeping daughter by our side. Beautiful food, surroundings, wine - really couldn't fault it. We even managed a couple of after-dinner G & Ts and a chat with a pleasant English couple who'd got married at Thala the week before. Then to bed, ready for an early start the following day.

I was genuinely sad to be leaving Thala; it felt as if we'd just got into the pace of things in time to leave, which is always a shame. But the nature of our trip meant that it was time to move on, and another delightful Qantas Economy flight lay ahead of us. Oh happy day. Over three hours of it this time, which I really wasn't looking forward to. We'd tried to upgrade the night before, but we'd got such cheapy tickets that it was going to cost somewhere in the region of 900 quid, and even a inveterate Business Class Snob like me couldn't bring himself to hack that up for a relatively short flight.

But first, having driven south toward Cairns once again, we had to drop the hire-car off. And it looked like rain. Now, I know from experience that different countries and even different car hire firms have different rules when dropping your car off. For Avis, at Cairns airport, the system seems to involve a woman in very comfortable shoes ("What is a protective dyke? Is it a woman in comfortable shoes saying 'Don't go near there'!") accosting you as soon as you step out of the car. She looked to me as if she'd been living in the outback for the previous three weeks or so - wide brimmed ranger's hat, multi-pocketed shorts for keeping knives in, wrap-around mirror shades, and she rather looked like she could do with a shave. Probably smoked roll-ups and had a sexually non-descript friend call Val. Anyway, without a 'Hi', 'Hello' or 'How are ya?' she pointed accusingly at a scratch on the rear bumper of the car and told us, abruptly, "That wasn't there when you picked it up".

"Well of course it was", I replied, hoping it was true, whilst attempting to man-handle a two year old, a push-chair, three cases and hand luggage from the car in tropical heat, at the same time as trying to spy a luggage trolley. And all the while watching the ever blackening sky which appeared hell bent on providing us with an utter soaking at any time.

"Paperwork" she/he barked.

"I'm sorry?" I enquired.

"The paperwork you were given when you picked up the car".

"Yes. Fine. OK. Can we just get our luggage sorted out?” I replied, feeling my proverbial rag starting to slip through my fingers.

"Ah, yeah. Rain", she said, as the heavens opened. She strode manfully to the dry refuge of her shack, no doubt the interior walls of which were adorned with pictures of monster trucks and K D Lang, whilst we got piss-wet through. Too late, we decided to shelter back in the car, as it really was coming down now as if someone had turned a hose on. Wet and hot. Well, to misquote the great 'Good Morning Vietnam' one more time, 'That's nice if you're with a lady, but ain't no good if you're in the jungle'. And it's not that great if you're stuck in a rental car, with your luggage getting drenched outside, a threatening lesbian rolling cigarettes in her hut mere metres away and a flight to catch in less than an hour.

The rain stopped, as they say, as quickly as it began, and we stepped - pretty much soaked - back out of the car to finish putting our luggage onto the trolley. Our hairy legged tormentor ventured out of her hut and was once more coming back to harangue us. We'd found the paperwork- which was, by now, in danger of turning into papier-mâché - and thrust it at her, explaining that it clearly showed (thank god!) that the scratch on the bumper was there when we collected the car. Reluctantly, and with the kind of bad grace you'd expect from a six year old boy who's been told to stop tying fireworks to the cat's tail, she printed us a receipt and was on her way.

Matters weren't helped by the unwelcome sight of a long queue for check-in snaking towards us as we squelched into the terminal. And we only had about 15 minutes before our flight closed. If anything, the time spent in the queue allowed us to dry off quite nicely (you're never wet for long in the tropics) and once we checked-in we were informed that there was no rush anyway as our flight was delayed by an hour and a half.

The departure hall was the kind of hell that first made me start saving my pocket money very hard indeed so that I could avoid it completely and use the Executive Lounge instead. Screaming kids, bored looking teenagers plugged into their iPods, adults in ill fitting track suits stuffing their faces with overpriced airport sandwiches showing scant regard for the very real possiblilty of contracting bochelism prior to boarding their upcoming flight.

A recovering alcoholic in a Santa suit was milling around giving sticky sweets to the children. Generously assuming he was employed in some way by the airport, I allowed a rather dumb-struck Tizer to accept one, but then confiscated it as soon as Old Soak Santa had stumbled away. Tizer wasn’t all that bothered either, which says something.

I'd barely had time to spill a cup of steaming hot coffee over my foot and eat half a stale muffin before our flight was mercifully called. But then, of course, this was Qantas Economy, so it wasn't going to be a great deal better once we were on the plane. And it wasn't.

Our seats were about mid-way down the plane and - as Qantas don't employ anything as common-sense as a priority boarding system for those travelling with small children - we squeezed our way uncomfortably through the cabin carrying three lots of hand luggage and a wriggling toddler. Not an easy task. We managed to prise ourselves into our seats and settled in for the long haul. I know, three hours and a half hours isn't really long haul, but in economy it certainly feels like it. I hate to keep banging on about this, but it was pretty awful.

Tizer was well behaved throughout, but then she usually is, bless 'er. We stuck a DVD on the portable player for her and she was happy enough with that. The food was terrible; almost inedible, to be honest. It was some sort of curry. One of the cabin crew was billing it as a vegetable jalfrezi, whilst another was introducing it as a chicken korma and I can assure you - not a word of a lie - they were exactly the same meal. It had a label on the foil lid that said 'Curry' so, at the very least, you've got to give the crew 10 out of 10 for imagination. I dipped at the sauce with a piece of bread, then hungrily devoured the chocolate biscuit that came with it instead.

We landed at a very soggy looking Melbourne, more-or-less on time, to be told that we were exceptionally lucky to be doing so. A thunder storm had passed through earlier that afternoon and had completely closed the airport, shutting most of the electrics down. They'd been re-directing flights to Sydney, apparently, and had only re-opened just in time for us to land.

We decamped from the plane, relishing the sensation of blood flowing back to our feet again, and headed for baggage retrieval. We'd booked a car to collect us a couple of days before and were glad to see the driver waiting for us with our names on his little sign. Then we waited for the baggage conveyor to start. The airport may have re-opened but, clearly, no one had told the bright and industrious gentlemen who work in baggage handling. It was almost an hour before all of our luggage came off, and by the time we headed for our waiting car I worked out we'd been on the move for nearly 7 hours.

We were shattered, and matters weren't helped by the sight of the car that awaited us. What we'd booked was an 'executive' SUV so that we'd have lots of room for our luggage. What we got was an off-white stretch limo with beige velour seats, the likes of which you might expect to see in a bad 70s porn movie. The real down side was that whilst there was plenty of room to do whatever it is people do in these dreadful stretched monstrosities, there wasn't all that much space for things like suitcases or push-chairs. The driver - who went by the name of Dieter, looked about 75 years old and may or may not have been a Nazi war criminal - manfully managed to get the push-chair wedged into the front seat. He also completed a task equal to anything they ever set on the Krypton Factor by somehow fitting our luggage into the boot, but only after five or six aborted attempts and what looked to me like a minor stroke.

An hour later and we were pulling outside the Westin Melbourne; Dieter leapt from the car with the sprightliness of a man half his age and transferred all of our luggage to one of those hotel trolley things (I'm sure there's a more concise term for them, but that's the best I can come up with for now). We tipped him accordingly, of course. It wasn't his fault we'd had to show up at one of Melbourne's finest hotels in a Porn Limo.

The Westin, from where I'm now typing this blog, is a very pleasant hotel. I'm in the bar (of course) enjoying a Peroni and waiting for Mrs V to settle Tizer with the babysitter we've booked for this eve. We've got a smashing room, a 'Westin Studio', which is a great size and has a massive bathroom. One thing I have noticed is the overuse of 'Westin' on this property. The studio is a 'Westin' as is the bed. The bathroom is no normal bathroom, oh no. It's a Westin Spa Bathroom. We have Westin Towels in there, along with two Westin Robes. You can order a Westin Burger from room service. Tizer, on arrival at the hotel, received a Westin Kids Club Pack. Still, as I say, it's a very nice hotel.

Melbourne's a lovely city too. Bloody cold, mind. It was about 16 digress today and it peed it down most of the afternoon. Quite a shock to the system after the sultry climes of Port Douglas. There's a lot of charm to the place though, and you'd be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere in Northern Europe rather than a city of such a southerly latitude. Trams pass up and down the tree-lined avenues past Victorian facades and street side coffee shops. There are up-market restaurants and fancy looking fashion stores all over the place and it feels strangely like 'home', an image that's probably helped by the clouds, rain and rather chilly breeze that led us to quit our day's sight-seeing early today and take refuge in the hotel bar.

One thing that must be mentioned, however, are the flies. They are - to put none too fine a point upon it - bloody annoying. If anything, that's the bonus of the rain, as they only seem to come out when it stops. But, chirst, they are persistent little buggers and they don't take no for an answer, seemingly hell-bent on landing actually inside your mouth. Wave your hands around your head as much as you like, it won't put them off. They say you get used to them after a while, but Mrs V seems a long way from that...

We started our day with some very sad news. We'd spied a little coffee place in the square in front of the hotel so grabbed a table there for a spot of breakfast. Then we got a text from home informing us that Bill, a good friend and neighbour of ours, had died. We knew he'd been very poorly, but he was a rather private gentleman and I don't think many people, us included, realised just how ill he was. We've been neighbours for 13 years and it was a heck of a blow finding out so far from home.

He was only in his early 60s, a former army-man who served with the Coldstream Guards (they're the ones in the bearskins outside Buckingham Palace). He and his wife moved to our village around the same time I bought our current house. We used to go round to each others gaffs after the pub on a weekend to play a particularly bastardised game of poker to which only Bill seemed to know the rules, a fact that was usually reflected by the way in which he'd taken most of our money off us by the time we staggered homeward in the early hours. He'll be sadly missed, the old bugger.

Nonetheless, we're on the other side of the planet and, short of sending a couple of conciliatory text messages, there's little more we can do. We took Tizer's photo with the very jolly Santa in the square, then walked the few blocks down to the 55 storey Rialto Tower, which has an observation deck offering what I imagine are pretty stunning views when it's not raining.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a sitter tonight, so we're heading out to a little Italian place we've found a couple of blocks away. Piles of fresh pasta and a couple of bottles of red are the order of the day, I think. And we'll be raising a glass or three in memory of Bill. "Pame!" Bill, as you (and the Greeks) used to say...

A Cable Car Named Desire

Another darned day in paradise. I woke, as is the norm, before my slumbersome spouse and stepped out onto the balcony of our bugalow to see what the weather had to offer (and was presented with the vista above). Sunny? Check. Hot? Check. Gentle sea breeze to take the edge of the humidity? Check. That'll do, thought I, and went back inside to wake wife and daughter for yet another exciting adventure - a cable car ride over the rainforest.

Not wanting to delay our departure more than was absolutely necessary we breakfasted on chocolate out of the mini-bar (the health-kick can wait 'til the New Year), tramped stickily up to reception and had one of the staff bring our cavernous SUV round for us. It's wonderful that they offer this 'valet' service, not just because it saves us the walk down to the car park but also as they're canny enough to stick the air con. on full wack, so that by the time we get in it's all nicely chilled.

We were heading south, back towards Cairns, and the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway which climbs up over the mountains to a little town called Kuranda. After an hour's drive, we parked up at the Skyrail terminal and stepped from the cool airconditioned luxury of our car into the kind of heat that comes from the shimmering tarmac beneath your feet rather than the sun above. It was hot, hot, hot.

We made a dash for the shade of the Skyrail and bumped into nice middle-aged couple from our boat trip on Shaolin. They'd just come down from Kuranda and, whilst Mrs. middle-aged had had a delightful time, Mr. middle-aged had liked it considerably less, suffering from a problem with heights. Oh dear. So that's snorkelling and cable cars out. They were waiting for a coach to take them on the 'second part' of their tour - whatever that might be, we tend to feel the same about coach tours as we do cruise ships - so we bade them farewell and headed for the Skyrail.

The cableway itself is over 4 miles long and climbs up the mountainside over some of the oldest rainforest on earth. There's just the right amount of room in the cable car for four or five adults or, in our case, 2 adults, one child and a push-chair. All loaded on board the main cable grabs the car and all but hurls it up over the trees. Quite exhilirating. Within a couple of minutes we were already enjoying wonderful views of the trees below, climbing toward the first mountain rigde, enjoying stunning vistas of the coast and the sea behind us.

Tizer thought it was fantastic, immediately squishing her nose against the cable car window with a look of complete delight on her face. There are two stops along the way before you get to Kuranda, and we were approaching the first one after quarter of an hour or so of skimming the treetops. We were helped, push-chair and all, out of our cable car by a really friendly member of staff (they were all very good, putting the surly teenagers you get working in many of the UK's tourist attractions to shame). We took a wander along the decked walkway that leads off into the rainforest and joined a little guided tour where a terribly knowledgable ranger type - kitted out in the de rigeuer khaki shirt, shorts and bushman's hat - spouted forth about the different trees and plants, how they pollenated and some of their medicinal properites.

Back onto the skyrail, this time with the push-chair travelling behind us in its own cable car, the kind lady at the station having told us we may be a little more comfortable that way, which was nice. The next stop, another 20 minutes up the line, once more had a decked path to follow which brought us out to the edge of a gorge, complete with waterfall, cutting its way through the rainforest. Having taken the obligatory photos, we re-joined the skyrail again and completed our journey to Kuranda.

Now, whilst the cable car trip was possibly one of the highlights of our holiday so far, Kuranda, by comparison, was something of a disappointment. It often seems to be the way that certain journies - especially those of the 'scenic rail' variety - generally end at a pretty pointless destination, the journey itself being the thing that really draws to tourists. Kuranda, originally a mountain retreat of bohemian artist types, was now just one long drag of tacky shops selling tourist tat - hats, T-shirts, digeridoos, boomerangs. Shop, after shop, after shop of the damn stuff. There was a small park at the end with a little playground that we briefly thought Tizer might like to visit, but it was stinking hot and the local police seemed to have chosen it as a venue for hassling some Aborigne kids, so we turned heel and headed back to the skyrail.

Despite the disappointment of Kuranda, it didn't really bother us, as the trip back was just as spectacular as the trip there. Okay, so it was still the same route, same rainforest, but this time we could stay on all the way through and really enjoy the views. It was late afternoon by this time and the sun was low enough to really show off the multitude of greens in the rainforest canopy as we passed over it. We even so a cockatoo, though failed miserably to get a photo of it, succeeding only in taking a slightly blurred picture of Tizer's arm and the top of the seat.


Yes, it was all a bit touristy (we even bought the photo of us that's automatically taken as your cable car comes into 'land' back at the terminal, for crying out loud!) but it was a top notch day out. Tizer loved it, pointing back at the cable cars and saying "Again, again" as we left, which is always a good sign.

We managed to get back to the hotel in time to change and head into Port Douglas for dinner. We found a rather nice little tapas (and pizza) restaurant, and Tizer - whilst getting some cautious glances for our fellow diners when we first arrived - was pretty much well behaved throughout. She didn't like her pizza, unfortunately, as it was herbed to an extent that just about completely obscured the cheese, but she enjoyed sharing my tapas with me. I finished the meal with an Espresso Martini which was not only deliciously invigorating but really bloody strong. Just about put me on my back (and probably would have done if it wasn't for the conter-acting effects of the caffiene).

We finished the evening off sitting outside a bar across the street from the restaurant that had a pretty good singer/pianist type doing a good mixture of songs that Tizer enjoyed having a little dance to. Then back to the hotel, and the prospect of a 'free' day tomorrow. Nothing planned. Nothing at all. Hell, we may even sit around the pool in the sun and do - well - nothing. Oh, the hedonistic lethargy of it all...

Coral Sea Junk-ies

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.

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!

Some Like It Hot

Time to move on. Like The Littlest Hobo, every stop we make, we make a new friend, but can't stay for long, just turn around and we're gone again. Except he was, essentially, just a stray dog and we is people. Mind you, it's times like these that you appreciate his nomadic lifestlye and, to an extent, his ability to wash his balls with his tongue. But I digress.

Mrs V had done her usual, sterling job of packing our numerous, voluminous cases and after one last breakfast up in the Club Lounge it was time to meet our taxi to the airport (which, incidentally, was about a third of the price of the car that picked us up from there earlier in the week). We'd really enjoyed Sydney; the Intercontinental was a very pleasant hotel and the city itself had a good feel to it. But it was time to head north, to Cairns and the heat and humidity of the tropics!

The domestic terminal at Sydney Airport was refreshingly quiet, check-in and security were a breeze and we were at the gate, sipping coffee, with only 40 minutes or so to kill. However, my relaxed exterior belied the internal disquiet I was experiencing at the prospect of being transported to our destination in Cattle Class.

It was going to be a two and half hour flight up to Cairns and I felt I could just about handle that long in economy. Even a Business Class junky like me couldn't justify the price of an upgrade on this one - it was working out something like eight times more than an economy ticket, which is plain crazy (or should that be plane crazy - geddit?) , especially when you see what Qantas domestic Business Class is actually like. We were in the first row of Cattle Class, so got a good vantage point to see what delights the ambrosia sipping, quail's egg scoffing types get up front (cripes, listen to me, it's like I fly economy all the time - up the workers, down with the bourgeoisie!).

Excuse my while I pause here to enlighten you with interesting Oz fact No. 2 (No. 1 was the one about the echinda laying eggs. Remember?). Qantas - note the lack of a 'U' after the 'Q'? - is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service. There you go, that's another one for the pub quiz.

Anyhoo, Qantas Business Class takes up the first three rows of a standard 737 with four seats across rather than six in Cattle. Passengers got a glass of sparkling stuff when they boarded, free headphones (oh, the luxury!), a decent enough looking lunch - kind of Premium Economy style, for those of you who know what that means - and complimentary wine throughout. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have been up there then where we were, but I didn't see much that to justify the astronomical cost of the upgrade, which was reassuring in its own little way.

Qantas crew are a queer bunch, by the way (in more ways than one, might I suggest). Generally pleasant, but much older than, say, Virgin crew. Often the way on domestic routes I think. Lunch (the first economy in-flight meal I've had in the best part of a decade) was some kind of lamb stew and couscous concoction which was vaguely palatable and filled a gap. Can't remember what Mrs V had, but I do remember she hated it.

Anyway, I got my Mac out - once the aging and vaguely camp steward finally cleared my greasy little metal tray from in front of me - and started a bit of this 'ere post. Then in no time at all we were coming in to land in Cairns. It all looked terribly tropical and rainforested out of the window, which is probably just a well, this was tropical Queensland after all. We landed, the doors opened and we got that wonderful warm 'n' wet smell so redolent of these climes. I love it; I'm a loud shirt, shorts and flip-flops kind of guy and a temperature set somewhere in the high 80s, predominantly sunny with the occasional downpour to keep the palm trees green is just ideal for me.

We picked up our luggage, got temprorarily lost on the way to collect the hire car, but were soon on the road (Mrs V driving, me map-reading - do you think I'd let a woman loose with a map?) and heading north through some stunning countryside. We were driving up the Cook Highway, lined by trees full of bright red and yellow blossoms, with the blue coral sea being revealed intermittantly to our right and lush, forest covered mountains rising to our left. Our destination was the Thala Beach Lodge, a hotel a few miles south of Port Douglas, which is a little town based around a marina from where various trips to the Great Barrier Reef depart. The hotel is slap bang in the middle of rainforest, with wooden bungalows on stilts scattered up the hillside.

We arrived, stepped from the air-conditioned car and realised that every pore on our bodies was instantly and profusely leaking. Boy, it was hot, not that you'll hear me complain; all I have to do is imagine people back home scraping ice from their windscreens and suddenly everything seems just fine. A very nice chap called Daryl transfered our luggage onto a groovy little golf cart and whisked us off through the forest to our bungalow. He even came back ten minutes later with a bottle of champagne after learning it was our honeymoon.

The bungalow is great; bags of space with a huge balcony looking out over the treetops to the sea. Mrs V's being a bit iffy with the bugs, however, which can't be helped, phobias being what they are. We've got some bloody huge green ants on the balcony which - so Daryl informs us - can give you a nasty bite, but other than them, the mossies (for which we're dowsing ourselves liberally in repellent) and the truly massive cane toads, I'm not too sure what she's stressing about. Oh, and Tizer's decided that she doesn't like sleeping anymore, which meant she sat and winged at us all the way through dinner last night - and this was at nearly 10 o' clock when she'd normally be well away in her buggy. It's pretty much out of character for her and I can only assume that it's the travelling and heat that's got to a her a bit. She'll adjust, or we'll give her away to gypsies. One or the other.