Day 6 - Happy Thanksgiving from Cairns

Today is Thanksgiving day. Well, at least in Australia it is the Thursday of Thanksgiving. It is still Wednesday in the United States. We did not have anything planned for today. We had some ideas of things we could do, but we left it open. We thought we might want to go diving for a couple of days, but ultimately decided against it. We thought we might go to Green Island or visit a beach.

I woke up at 4 a.m. and could not go back to sleep and Alison was up not long after me. We threw on some clothes and headed for a stroll along the ocean to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful. I took my drone and flew it while we walked. Australia is a very drone-friendly place.

Once the sun was fully up we began to walk back to our hotel. We noticed some people swimming at the lagoon - a large swimming pool/man-made sandy beach area next to the ocean. It looked like fun so we changed into our swimsuits and went for a morning swim. It was nice. The lagoon is built in such a way so that when you are in it looks like you are swimming in a continuation of the ocean.

After our morning swim, we got ready for the day and met Blake and Debbie for brekkie (what most people in Australia call breakfast). We had decided to go to Palm Cove, which is a beach to the north of Cairns. However, after breakfast, we went over and talked to Sue at the travel desk. We wanted to sure up our plan for tomorrow. While Sue was helping us get some train and tram tickets booked we told her about the Palm Cove plan. She assured us that was not what we wanted to do. Instead, she suggested we drive up the Port Douglas road (a beautiful coastal drive) to a mile beach. That sounded like a great plan to us so that is what we did.

The Port Douglas road was spectacular. A rainforest comes down the more mountainous inland area right up the the ocean. One minute we would be driving through thick green trees and the next we would be overlooking golden beaches and turquoise water.

We stopped at an overlook point where we took some pictures and flew my drone.

We continued to four-mile beach. When we found it we immediately decided it needed to be a beach day. This beach was picturesque. It looked like the kind of beach you would see in an advertisement. It was a little slice of paradise. We rented some beach chairs and a couple of umbrellas from an enterprising gentleman and we got comfortable.

It was warm, sunny, and a glorious day. When it got hot we would go float in the ocean. The waves here were nice and gentle. The one caveat with playing in the ocean was that we needed to stay within a netted area. It was quite large, maybe the size of a football field, but the nets were important because they kept crocs and jellyfish out of our swimming area.

Debbie was in her happy place. She brought some cheap headphones so she could go out and float in the ocean for hours listening to her music. Alison and I would often join her. Despite our best efforts, we all got a little sunburned. We all even wore sunscreen, but with all of the ocean time, we probably should have reapplied more often. Oh well, a little bit of sunburn was worth this relaxing day in the sun.

In between floating in the ocean Alison napped or read and I also read. Alison and I both brought great books on this trip. She is reading Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrick Blackman and I am reading In The Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History by Mitch Landrieu.

Just up the road from the beach was a little bistro called The Surfy. When we were hungry we dried off and went to get some food. Alison had fish and chips and I had fish tacos. When you are that close to the ocean you kind of need to eat seafood. It is so good.

When spent the whole day at the beach, pretty much right up until we had to vacate our beach chairs at 5 p.m. After the beach, we drove to a nearby hill overlooking the beach. While we were there we ran into an Indian family that just happened to be from West Jordan, UT. It really is such a small world.

We made our way back to Cairns via the Port Douglas road. It was just as beautiful going the other way. We stopped at a little beach on our way back so Blake and I could drone.

We ended up getting back to Cairns fairly late. It was late enough that we were all hungry. Rather than cleaning up at the hotel, we decided to just find a place for dinner. We looked like hell but didn’t really care at this point. We found an Italian place nearby and got some food. Afterward, we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.