All good things must...........

 Thursday 11th July 2024

On our last morning before we fly away from here, a few random thoughts, photos and dessert

dessert after the big lunch. great creme brulee minus the pistacchio biscuit ($%^GF)

Paul snorkeling and that is my leg with the pink fin

Our beautiful outlook.

The view out our door

The platter with the champagne with our friends on our last evening.

It has been a lovely holiday apart from the panic around losing my phone and then needing a new credit card. 

One of worst things is that all the walking (ie thousands of steps, really) i did to find the phone was not recorded on the Health app which is on the phone. Damn.

The trip home is not very eventful as we went from car to shuttle bus to plane to Qantas lounge to plane to qantas lounge and back to plane in a buggy.

My first buggy ever!. They also offered to get me on the plane to Newcastle via an outdoor lift in front of everyone. I said no, i will use the stairs!

Palm cove we will be back!  We always need Rest and Relaxation.

Rest and relaxation FFS

Wednesday10th July 

Today is a bit of a rest day after yesterday.  All we have on is the big seafood lunch for two (part of the package).

A nice swim and walk help with the relaxation. As does brekky which is fantastic (part of the package). it is such a lovely outlook over the beach from the resort dining room.

Great restaurant !

We need to walk and stroll back down to the beach path being ultra ultra careful re phone with gentle reminders from Paul.

It is beautiful weather, sunny and warm but a nice breeze stopping it from feeling muggy.

But there are deadly predators out there.

and more

Time for lunch and we head down for the seafood platter.  The menu below...

There is a small plate of blinis and then the actual platter with the fresh  seafood. Because it had to be GF, the blinis were not blinis but cut out pieces of GF toast.  This is my life but i do feel a bit sorry for Paul having to also put up with it.

 

It was pretty amazing and even better that the glass each of champagne we were expecting as part of the package was actually a bottle of champagne.

we did not leave much.

A lovely restful afternoon reading by the mineral pool which was suddenly not so heated. Damn. Paul tried to make fun of my need for a 30 degree pool but a guy nearby said he wouldn't consider going in unless it was at least 30 degrees. That felt good.

We had a afternoon 3pm sorbet (part of the package). lovely colour today. It changes daily.

This is a pool selfie.

Of course we had to get ready for the cocktails and canapes at 5pm on the dot!

We did and shared them with a lovely couple from Melbourne. We have exchanged phone numbers and we may stay with them when next we are in Melbourne. I think they have serious money but are both very nice, Teacher and lawyer (owns own firm with about 35 lawyers....)

We decide that we dont need dinner but they insist on sharing a bottle of champagne with us so we order a grazing board to have with it.

And then another bottle of champagne.

Cheers to rest and relaxation!

My horse, my horse, my kingdom for my horse

Tuesday 9/7/24 

Today is officially a rest day.  All we have on is cocktail making at 2.30pm so a whole morning of rest and relaxation awaits.

After a lovely breakfast, i suggest we go for  a nice walk along the beach as it is a beautiful day and the sand is wet and not so hard for me to walk on.

Nice walk

Paul on the war I mean footpath

Paul on our walk

this is the swimmers area where they are safe from crocodiles and poisonous jellyfish

Me walking on sand. Yes!

And then it happened........

After taking my photo, Paul handed me back my phone and i at some point put it back in my bag.....

But as we were leaving the beach, maybe 20 metres from where the photo was taken,  i realised i did not have my phone. Not in my bag, or pocket or anywhere i could see.

I delivered this news to Paul...... 

and we immediately tried to retrace our steps along the beach. But we could not see it.

At this point we decided to try the find your phone app thing of which we had little knowledge or expertise.

So in a panic we raced back to the resort and i tried to find the find my phone thing.

As i google, a couple of apps come up promising to help me. I actually try one before realising it is asking me to pay and i don't think that is right. Oh god why cant i do this computer shit!  So i quickly get out of it and find the bona fide Samsung one. But i need to talk to someone.

I do and we do find the app and it is tracking my phone. We have a bit of a map and race to to where it was last seen, sort of on the beach but not. We hope that someone has found it. However we have been ringing it and no response. It is not easy as the resorts and restaurants on this strip have all odd numbers. We walk in different directions and are unable to find the number until it is obvious that the phone is at the hotel or in front of it.  But it isn't. It seems to be tracking where i last had it????

After much useless walking, we return to our room and the computer to work out what is happening. It is saying it will track its position every 15 minutes but nothing is happening. The internet here is not great.

In a lather of fear and desperation, i suggest one last walk along the beach. Maybe someone has found it??????   Not a popular idea but i go anyway. I am sure we will find it. It cant have been swept away into the ocean or taken by some form of dangerous wildlife.

I go back to the beach, (which is very close to our room) and walk along asking people on the beach had they seen my phone etc. Most of them had not been there long. One lovely young lady told me she had seen a man bend over and pick something off the sand and then head towards the lifesaving area. 

Eureka! Hopefully. I made my way back to the lifesaving area but still asked everyone on the beach on the way whether they had seen my phone. The young ones understood the gravity more than the older ones. Hmm

I walked as quickly as i could and found the lifesaver at the front of his hut keeping an eye out for crocodiles and deadly jellyfish.

I sheepishly asked about the phone. He got up, walked over to a chair and brought out my phone!!!!!!  He said it had been there for about 20 minutes, which was after Paul had previously asked him. 

Hallelulia.  I wanted to hug him mainly because he had my phone.

Apparently my phone was on silent so did not ring when we rang it. 

Disaster averted. I was so happy that we had a glass or two of wine around the pool sharing a nice thai beef salad. (GF)

While enjoying the euphoria, i saw a message on my phone from the bank saying there had been a strange transaction and to advise them if it was authorised or not. 

%^&*$ It was the scammy find your phone thing that i had tried first. So i had to say no i hadnt but that meant they would cancel my credit card but ring me within the hour.  Paul had gone through a similar thing just before the holiday. 

What is wrong with us????

Anyway the nice man from the bank confirmed that it was a phone thing, a known scam and suggested i have a look at the list of recent scams etc to better protect my self from them. (You silly old woman! subtext)

But i could still use my googlepay on my phone until i  got my new card next week. Great.

In the afternoon we went to  cocktail making class (part of the package). We made a cosmopolitan and a tommy margarita.  Not hard.

Cosmopolitan

cosmo selfie

and proper photo

tommys margarita

Great afternoon  drinking cocktails. Time for a swim in the beautiful heated mineral pool and then Greek for dinner. No photos but particularly nice food.

Back to our room after  a rather busy and stressful day.  Thank god for the cushions. 

. 

This place has cushions everywhere. on  the bed on chairs on the swing, round the pool. And candles. 

Peace is serenity is what is happening, but not today it didnt...

Water.water everywhere

 Monday 8/7/24

Today we got up very early to drive to Cairns to the reef terminal to board the Silver Swift for a diving and snorkeling adventure on the reef.  So us!

 Paul was keen as he had never seen the reef while i had been there once before on a catamaran from Cairns to Green Island during a cyclone watch. Unsurprisingly, on that trip,  everyone was sick on the way out including the crew with whom you had to fight to get to the toilet. Nice, not. Green Island was lovely and we got pills for the trip back.

But this was a dive and snorkeling tour to the outer reef on a moderately windy day. Nothing unusual so we were pretty confident we would be ok. A small seed of doubt had been planted by a woman we had shared the sky train with. She mentioned everyone on her reef adventure had been sick and apparently this is very common. Buy sea sick pills she recommended. We thought about it but in the end forgot.

A photo of our boat:

that is not us, taken from website

picture of the two of us embarking 

We climbed aboard the double hull boat with 3 levels. Yeah i love stairs.. on a moving boat. There were seats for the scuba divers and seats for the snorkelers. We were kept separate. This cruise was for beginners as well as experienced divers and snorkelers.  Catered to the young and old etc.  Except that you had to be relatively fit or if not, you  had to advise of medical conditions etc so they could keep an eye on you. They seemed as concerned about Paul's blood pressure as they were about my MS.

 The stairs to the change rooms, from normal wear to swimmers. so fun, not.

Before setting off we had to organise our equipment which was supplied including mask and snorkels, flippers (based on shoe size) and a lycra suit (they just kind of looked at you and handed you a suit) to protect against jelly fish etc. Sounded great so far.

We had a chat to a guy who appeared to be a marine biologist and he was english with a lovely accent. On questioning, he said it looked a bit windy where we were going and if we were not experienced boat people or even if we were, he suggested we buy the travel calm pills being sold on the boat. They were also giving out ginger pills for free but he recommended the hard stuff. We listened and bought and took  the real drugs.

The boat started on its way to Gordon Pontoon, the site of the first of our 3 dives/snorkels.  It started to get a bit windy and bumpy and the crew walked around handing out little white sick bags. They said, just in case and there are more if you need them etc. We felt OK having taken the drugs but still a bit unpleasant. 

More so when a group of young people a few metres away from us stated using their sick bags. Lucky they were not too close as that is what can set you off .We thanked the nice english man and the drugs and were fine.

As we neared Gordon Pontoon from which we would be snorkeling, we had to get into our gear. So over our swimmers, the lycra suit which covered you  from head to toes and even had a hood. Unfortunately they were a bit wet which made it difficult to get them on. So easy to get wrong as Paul found when he put his leg in the sleeve. We were unable to take cameras to the wet part of the boat so there are no photos of us in our suits. Thank god.

It is really hard to get wet flippers on when on the edge of the pontoon as waves washed over it.  We did finally.

I enjoyed it and was able to see great coral and beautiful coloured fish. My difficulty was getting the flippers to work with my weak legs. And they suggested i wear a lifejacket which meant i could not dive under. But all in all, it was great and beautiful in the sea water.

Paul had more difficulty with the snorkel.

At the end of the snorkel, we had to remove the very wet lycra suit and the flippers and mask etc and leave them in the wet area for next time. Lucky we had each other..to pull off the lycra suits.

Good news everyone got back on board the boat. They counted and counted at least 3 times. Why? Have you heard of the divers who were left on the reef? Not just once apparently....

And then more boating to Flynn reef where we were going to do lunch and then snorkel. The divers were doing it in the other order so as to give us all room as we were a pretty full boat.

Lunch was ok with one of the 2 hot meals being gluten free plus i could have most of the salads. Morning tea, when other people got cakes and muffins, i got a protein bar. Yay GF.  

photo from front of the boat

crew

you might be able to see floating balls denoting an area in which we could swim. maybe even see the reefs?

more reef

Our second dive at Flynn's reef was harder. First to get the lycra suit on and the flippers etc was really hard as was jumping off. The current was really strong so that people including us were being carried off in the opposite direction to the reef. I swam and swam and swam but made little progress.  We gave up and went back on the boat. Good thing, no one watched or cared so no judgement.  Later we saw the divers had little scooter things to propel them across the water. If only we had had one of those!

It was only a short distance to the final reef and we decided with many others that we had done enough snorkeling and were unlikely to see anything different We were happy not to go through the lycra suit thing again. Hate those things. 

After we were all counted 3 times (bit of a panic when they were one short for a while), an announcement was made that now was the time to take your seasick drugs. We did.

The trip back was not as bumpy but someone close to us used her white bag which made it a bit unpleasant. We survived however.

While on the boat we met a number of young people in Australia working and/or just experiencing lifestyle. They all loved it and were trying to work out ways to stay longer. One way was to work in a rural remote area. And Palm Cove/Cairns counted. They thought that was very funny but good.  

We returned to the hotel while Cocktails and Canapes were still on thank goodness. 

Can't miss them they are free!

And nice opportunity to meet other guests and socialise.

We went to restaurant called Rattle and Hum for dinner. We both had fish but mine was grilled and gf. All pretty nice.

An exhausting day was had by all. And so nice to get back to our room and comfy bed. MAybe tomorrow we will do more rest and relaxation!

Sunday 7/7/24: Reaching the Heights

 It is Sunday 7/7 and we are booked for the Kuranda Self drive: Scenic rail and Skyrail trip at 12.

As usual we have breakfast in the resort (it is included)       See menu

We even have time for a lovely walk along our beach which goes forever in both directions. It is only across a narrow road and narrow grassy path and a bit of sand.  Sounds so good except that you can't swim in it. It is quite rough and even brown at present due the flooding and storms recently. 

But that is not all. There are crocodiles and two kinds of stingy jellyfish like creatures. Each of those can cause serious injury and/or death.  There is one part that is netted so you can swim there with lifeguards watching.  They go around every morning to net any jellyfish that might have got into the enclosure. It is netted for crocs. Nice.

So we drive to the Skyrail terminal and there are huge numbers of people. Lucky my trusty disabled parking thing gifts me a great park.  We are a bit early for our booked time (Really? How?)  Anyway we push our way forward  and somehow either because of our booked time or my obvious and noted on disability ('she has a disability'  in a loud voice), we are on a cable car from a different entrance ahead of 50 other people. 

Them's the breaks people! 

 the terminal

The Skyrail Rainforest takes you to Kuranda, a little village which i am sure is built just for this purpose. There are a couple of stops on the way so you can take more photos and use facilities.

The village of Kuranda is old and has lots of tourist shops, a couple of pubs and trading post. After lunch at the pub and a stroll around the town, we made our way back to the Kuranda Scenic Rail  station for our trip back through the rainforest.

It was a really long train with lots of people.  The rain forest is apparently the world's oldest continually surviving tropical rainforest.   It was amazing, all sorts of trees and vegetation growing on top of each other trying to get some sun.  The train also stopped a couple of times so we could capture the view.

Inside the train. Very historic and cute but not so comfortable.

Scenes from the train

you might be able to see the end of the train which is very long.

At times we were inches from the edge of a cliff, other times went over bridges which were amazing.

Once we arrived at the station, we then had to find the shuttle bus which would take us back to the skyrain terminal, where our car was.  Big day ie car, cable car, train, shuttle bus and car.

And you wont believe that we were back in time for cocktails and canapes!!(der)

We realised that we did need dinner so decided on a takeaway pizza. After much walking, not always in the right direction, we went the Italian restaurant almost next door to us. Seemed to be everyone in Palm Cove's idea as well.  It was very busy so while waiting we thought we would have a drink at the French  bar next door.

Great idea to have a drink while waiting. Unfortunately the waitress forgot our order and needed reminding....

Anyway all good and after a busy day,  time to watch telly. 

It is Rest and relaxation after all!