Port Douglas

So after we went to the Gold Coast, we flew way further up north, to where it's tropical! We flew into Cairns, then took a shuttle bus to the resort town of Port Douglas. It's the best place ever. The Hansens had told us it was their favorite vacation spot, and they were so right! It's a little town of only 3,000 residents, but full of resorts and hotels. Still, it never feels like it's too touristy, because it's not commercial at all, and none of the buildings are over 3 stories. We stayed at a hotel that basically backed up to the famous "four mile beach," and it was also only a 10 minute walk into the village full of cute shops and restaurants. We loved it. It was really fun because one of our friends, Jenna, that we met down here in Melbourne also got to come with us! We arrived on a Sunday, and Jenna had to leave to be back at work Friday, then Jen & I stayed till the following Sunday. Super super fun. The posts below have the major highlights of the trip (great barrier reef and the daintree rainforest), but the other days were just as awesome!

Here's a picture of the hotel we stayed at with Jenna! (After she left Jen & I moved across to a hostel since it was cheaper- though actually we got a really good deal on this hotel!) How cute is it!!

And here's a picture of the beach where we practically lived all week! It was perfect beach weather- hot: in the 30s. (celcius haha) and the ocean was even warm so we could totally swim in the water- quite different from the beaches in melbourne! Check out this white sand!
And here's the beach- complete with mountains in the background. no big deal.
Haha in our hotel room we had like a kitchenette thing, which was nice, but there were only 2 plates! Haha so one night Jen ate dinner over the cutting board.

Everyone told us that when we went to Port Douglas we *had* to go on a crocodile cruise. On the non-beach side of Port Douglas, there's no swimming allowed because that's where the crocodiles live!! Apparently they get up to 16 feet long! Crazy. So we got on this cute little boat and went on a boat ride through this beautiful little inlet off the ocean and tried to spot the crocodiles! Here's me and Jen on board the boat! The scenery behind us was also really pretty- green and mountains and everything.
See if you can spot the crocodiles in these pics...

The last thing that everyone told us that we had to go to the "Cane Toad Races" at a pub in the village. Hilarious.
They have this guy, with like 8 cane toads, and people get their names drawn to "race" their toads across a table! It's pretty weird I must admit. But uniquely Port Douglas! Here's me and Jen with one of them after the races.. we had just been at the rainforest all day, so don't judge our looks haha!

Oh, and this pic is for everyone on our spring break trip... As Jen and I were sitting on the beach one day, we saw these 2 guys set up their stuff next to us, and they started blowing up the explorer 2000! Not kidding! We started laughing so hard! (for those of you who weren't there- we had the same thing in gulf shores, and it provided hours of entertainment for us) They had a lot of trouble getting out past the waves- we were laughing for like 30 minutes at them. Gotta love cheap entertainment.
So, all in all, Port Douglas was awesome. Excellent vacation spot, if you're ever looking for one...