We used the beautiful town of Port Douglas as our base for exploring the Daintree Forest. We were busy everyday driving to the different sites and realized that our trip was nearly over and we had hardly explored Port Douglas itself. So we decided on our last day, that we would dedicate the entire morning to this lovely town. After breakfast, we walked to the northern section of Four Mile Beach and started our way upwards on the lovely Flagstaff Hill Walking Trail. It is only 1 1/2 kms long and not too difficult but it offers such gorgeous views of the Four Mile Beach below and the Low Isles, Snapper Island and the Daintree Rainforest beyond. There is even a viewing platform that literally hovers over the sea. Perfect place for photo shots!
Once you get to the top, you are rewarded with magnificent views. It's a view that pretty much summed up our North Queensland travels in the past week - mountains, rain forests and long stretches of practically untouched coastline. To get back down, you can either walk back on the same trail or walk along the road… of course we took the gorgeous trail down back to Four Mile Beach.
We then started walking southward on the beautiful Four Mile Beach. It is a gorgeous beach, wide and long and quite empty for the most part…. The side of the beach is lined with coconut palms trees so I guess you need to watch out for falling coconuts… ouch! In total, we must of walked over 8 kms. So we rested our weary legs on the beach lying down on hired sunbeds. Son and I even braved the deadly salt water crocodiles and box jellyfish and went swimming in the beautiful ocean. We survived!!!
Because of the danger of box Jellyfish and the prehistoric salt-water crocodiles (both of which are very dangerous to humans) only a small area of the beach is supervised for swimming. They have netted the area against Jelly fish and supervise the waters for these dangerous crocs. They even have daily signs indicating the jellyfish and crocodile situation.
It is worthwhile noting that at the northern end of Four Mile Beach is an area that is densely populated with rocks. As the tide splashes over the smooth boulders, it creates little rock pools, perfect for children to play and explore. The larger rocks can be used for sun-baking on!!
Another fun activity to start your day while in Port Douglas is to join the daily one hour yoga classes on Four Mile beach. They start at 08.00 am and cost $20 a class. The classes are suitable for all levels of experience and you don’t have to be fit or flexible to join in.
After lunch, we drove to our last destination for our trip, Mossman Gorge . It is only 22 kms north of Port Douglas. When you arrive, you park in the large car park. From there, you take a shuttle from the Visitor's Center into the gorge and forest . The cost for using the shuttle is only $6 (there and back). Once you arrive at the actual site, you have the options of gorgeous walking trails and magnificent water holes to swim in. It is really breathtakingly beautiful. The water was very cold and we weren't brave enough to swim so we opted to do the Rainforest Circuit Track instead which also gave us the last opportunity to locate a cassowary…. The trail is just under 3kms long and it is beautiful and empty of tourists…. It seems that the majority of tourists go for the waterholes only and forego the beautiful trail (our luck!!). We did not find a cassowary on this trail but we were rewarded with gorgeous lush fauna and majestic trees that nearly touch the clouds! All in all, we were over three hours in Mossman Gorge but if you go in the water, you can easily spend an entire day here…
We returned to Port Douglas to start packing as tomorrow leave Australia… We are not happy!
