In Cairns (Cans) we picked up the rental car (brand new!) at the airport then drove around Cairns a bit before heading north. Our first stop was Palm Cove, where we got (casino) coffees and looked at the waterfront shops - really nice feeling place that we would recommend. Most the town shops closed down by 5 on a Friday. From there we drove ~1hr to Port Douglas where we’d reserved a room at the Lazy Lizard Motor Inn - was way better than it sounds. The manager was really helpful in answering our barrage of questions about activities, snorkeling guides and dinner recommendations. We got settled in the room a bit (caught up on WiFi) and researched/called several companies that did tours of the Great Barrier Reef, but all were closed/booked/too long for the time we had - one possibility needed to be called when they opened. We headed out to find dinner in town - lots to choose from but settled on an alleged favorite of locals (Salsa). After dinner we walked the town/waterfront a bit looking for more flying foxes (largest ones are here), then went to the pier where we found an indigenous family fishing by hand for barra (barramundi?).
We woke up at normal time and called as soon as the snorkel company (Ocean Safari) opened. They had to call back but had two openings for Saturday morning - hooray! Since they left from Cape Tribulation, we also booked a place there that had good ratings and was more of a B&B in the jungle.
We checked out (and Don got some extra soap he liked), then after a quick trip to coffee/the store, and a walk on 4 Mile Beach, we headed north toward the Cape.
We stopped at the Mossman Gorge and took their tram ($11.50/ea) to the forest tracks where we walked for ~90min. We saw an iguana(?) and a bush turkey that stole a bag of money from a lady by the river - funny 🙂.Before leaving the town of Mossman we did some shopping for the night/snorkel trip the next day.
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