Port Douglas & Palm Cove – Mind the Crocs!

“Warning! Achtung Crocodiles inhabit this area.”  The sign, accompanied by a helpful illustration of a hapless pet dog with a red bar across it really brings home to you that you’re in far north Queensland.

After all, there aren’t many suburbs around Australia where your dog – or you- are in peril of being eaten by a crocodile when you take your pet for a walk.

From the minute you land at Cairns airport and walk outside into the heady fragrant air you know you’re in the tropics.

Following the long windy road through stunning surrounds of the resorts of Port Douglas and Palm Cove and leave all our stresses behind.

The drive has to be one of the most beautiful in Australia – weaving through cane fields, past mountain-scapes covered in palm trees and snaking right round the edge of the coast alongside deserted beaches and crumbling cliff tops.

One of my favourite places alone the way to Port Douglas was Trinity beach, which you needed to turn right off the main road but well worth either a stop over, or a look around.  There is a little charter company there that will take you to an old disused lighthouse where you can snorkel all day and then come back on board and have a delicious cold chicken and a variety of salads made for you.

If you are looking for a beachside escape, where relaxation is top of your agenda this is the region to visit.

Port Douglas is an hour’s drive and 70 km from Cairns airport is a well-established bustling seaside resort catering to every level of the holiday market.

It’s an immaculate town, with manicured lawns resort after resort lining the main road into it.

Set on a peninsula, on one side is the beautiful Four Mile Beach, and the other natural harbour.

While Port Douglas is a family resort with everything you could need at your fingertips Palm Cove meanwhile is a single strip of resorts along a picture perfect beach.

Skyrail is really something that you should put on your to do list which is a 2.5 hour cable car and sky rail ride through the rainforest.  The story behind the sky rail is that a helicopter was used to bring in timber to build the skyrail as to not to disturb the vegetation and wildlife.  The attraction has won many awards in the tourism industry.

There are many tours to the Great Barrier Reef that leave from Port Douglas enthusiasts can take a PADI scuba-diving course if they have enough time and accredited divers can enjoy unrivalled diving around the Reef.  The less qualified can still have an amazing experience, from a day dive to snorkeling.

Once you have a Great Barrier Reef tour under your belt it is back to Palm Cove for some serious loafing around.  The resort caters for ever budget from self-catering to 5 star resorts such as the Sea Temple, Angsana and Peppers.

We opt for Sea Temple, the benefit of the latter is that it is self catering apartments which is the best of both worlds with hotel appointments with you doing your own thing and a little bit of cooking if you feel up to it.

There are a lot of singles, couples and families who all had the same idea about the self catering accommodation it let you run back to the room to make lunch then back down again.

Being a resort it has something for everyone, babysitting if you want to get a break from the kids to lots of little tucked a way bars.  For the more energetic you have also got golf, gym and of course loads of wet water activities.  For me it was a few rounds of golf then relax by the pool sipping the suggested cocktail for the day.