Sunday, Sep 23, 2018

To Australia!

3:30am came very quickly even though we were in bed by 9:30pm. I thought we were catching up on sleep from the jet lag of our first flight, having crossed over the international date line. Auckland is 19 hours ahead of Sooke and Port Douglas, Queensland is 17 hours ahead of Sooke, but when things are that far out of whack catching up on sleep is a dream away, we’re getting there.

Flight from Auckland to Cairns, Australia on Air New Zealand.

We lucked out and caught a direct flight from Auckland to Cairns, Queensland on Air New Zealnd. Our first stop is an hour north in the beach town of Port Douglas, a good home base for visiting the Daintree Rainforest, believed to be 135 million years old and the Great Barrier Reef both of which are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the only two in the world that located together in the same region and on our list of places to visit.

We picked up our local SIM cards and some groceries in Cairns after grabbing our rental car and then hit the road to Port Douglas. We arrived at our Airbnb, got settled and you would think had a nap but somehow powered through to hop on the bikes at the rental and rode in to check out the beach only a 5 minute bike ride from the house.

“Settling in” at the rental house.

Quick bike ride to check out 4 Mile Beach in Port Douglas.

Needless to say we did hit a wall and all crawled into bed and had a solid sleep to wake up refreshed to tackle our first full day in Australia.