Tuesday, 6 August 2013
Pencilling in the day by day details for this little excursion we figured we’d covered the basics. We’d done the small town Australia bit (which sort of explains why we live where we live), hit the Reef and the Rainforest, which is the basic draw for overseas tourists visiting our part of the world, and delivered a glimpse of regional city life. Good food and wine along the way, some interesting people...
So what do we do for the last full day?
We’d left it relatively free, with two basic options and possibilities that could be pencilled in should the inclination take us.
The basic options, predictably, covered the Reef, which is a little closer in along the Cairns-Port Douglas coast, which means you could, should the mood take you, venture all the way out to the Outer Reef or, alternatively, visit somewhere closer in for snorkelling and glass bottomed boat action.
The Sister, however, wasn’t keen on the snorkelling side of things, having been there and done that on the Thursday. Once, it seemed, was enough for this trip, and The Niece can always come back with friends around her age should she want to do something involving a lengthy spell in the water. We also reckoned if the desire to get up close and personal with the coral wasn’t there we could switch it for the panoramic view with what looked to be a reasonably priced flight out over Green Island and the outer reef. That would take a bit under an hour, and would probably be rather spectacular, weather and cloud cover permitting.
I don’t know how keen Madam was about the actual flight, but having flown back and forth from Palm Island through the 1973 school year (at least once a month) I was keen. Light aircraft fly a lot lower than commercial jets, and you can definitely see more detail of what’s below when you’re flying in one. Sightings of turtles and dugong were relatively commonplace back then, and I reckoned you’d get a better perspective on the sheer magnitude of the system from the air.
The operator we’d found was Daintree Air Services, the cost was a reasonable $160/head, and Hughesy, at least was keen. One suspects a certain degree of trepidation among the other three participants, but I was actively looking forward to it.
We’d been relatively late booking the flight, however, due to a Saturday afternoon nap that ran a bit longer than expected. We booked directly (here) and, what with it being a Saturday night with the office closed and all, hadn’t received confirmation that everything was under control when we left on the Sunday morning.
That was fine. I had the phone number in my mobile, the contact details on the iPad and we’d have access to WiFi en route, so if anything failed to come through we’d be able to chase it up. Of course, the mobile was now sitting in a cafe in Cardwell but when we logged on to the WiFi at Cassawong there was an email acknowledgement of the booking with the news they’d pick us up from the Aquarius at ten-thirty on Tuesday morning.
From there, if the inclination took us, we could always head out for a bit of rainforest action and a drive up to Mossman and Port Douglas, but there was also the shopping bit that needed to be slotted in, so I didn’t like our chances. Not that I was objecting, of course. These things come down to the driver, and if everyone else was out looking for gifts to carry home Hughesy would be able to sit on the balcony at the Aquarius and enjoy the view. That was fine with me, since I figured I’d be several days behind with the travelogue details and it’d be a good chance to (partially) catch up.