On Monday we left Sydney and hopped on a Qantas flight to Cairns where we are enjoying the tropical splendor of north Queensland. Yesterday we took a bus to Port Douglas, a small town north of here. We saw some beautiful Australian beaches and had a great lunch before taking in all the sights Port Douglas had to offer. It took less than three hours to tour the town and short of visiting the crocodile farm and the cable car up the mountain, I think we saw it all. I think that little village had some serious money around. Some of the shops had some lovely goods that seemed a bit over the top to me. I cannot image spending $400 for a swim suit cover up even if they were Aussie dollars. I even passed on a $1,200 opal slide.

The bus driver suggested Salsa Restaurant as the best Port Douglas has to offer and we cannot detract from that. Each of us had fish that was to die for. Cairns is most noted as a port on the Great Barrier Reef. Turns out the GBR, as its known around here, is actually over 2,000 individual coral reefs that have been neatly packaged for ease of discussion. It is the size of Texas in area so one can only see a small slice at a time. Today we booked a snorkeling adventure and spent over 5 hours out on the reef seeing all sorts of spectacular ocean creatures including hundreds of species of coral and I even spied a shark or two. Unbeknownst to me, I discovered that Phil can swim. He paddled around the ole GBR and we had a great time. We arrived back in Cairns about 5 pm and thought we take advantage of the hotel internet before venturing out for dinner. The weather has been phenomenal and we are loving all the sunshine!
Phil is going to try and upload more pictures in this setting.

There's statue at the center of the park on the Harbour in Cairns that I didn't notice at first. Flowers were put there for Armistice Day.