Tues 4th Sept - Hitting the road again.

Was good to have the freedom of my own set of wheels again. Rather than head south straight away, I decided to pop up to Port Douglas, to see the place. The drive up from Cairns is really nice as you get closer to Port Douglas. The road is literally within a stones throw from the water on one side and on the other there are patches of steep cliff. At Port Douglas I paid a visit to the Rainforest Habitat. They have a selection of enclosures which attempt to replicate the environment that some of the animals call home, from grasslands to wetlands to the rain forest. There's an interesting selection of birds, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, and crocodiles.

The highlight for me was hand feeding the crocodiles! Only joking, but I did get to feed the kangaroos which was pretty special. They're really cute and it was nice to get so close to them that they were literally eating out of my hand. They share their enclosure with some of the birds, mostly ducks and other small birds but there were a few emus expressing an interest in the food I'd gotten for the kangaroos. It was just a little bit off putting to have a bird that could look me in the eye come towards me in search of food!

After leaving Port Douglas I visited the Mossman Gorge which is in one of the National Park areas. I missed out on the opportunity by a few minutes to go for a guided walk with an Aboriginal guide, but I continued on into the National Park and went for a walk on one of the riverside tracks. Staying in Mareeba over night before heading further south.