The moment we rounded the corner to Port Douglas we could see that it was a pretty little town. We had been told in Cairns that there was a Carnivale on there that weekend, so we were all looking forward to seeing some colour and movement. Unfortunately as is normally the case with us we arrived on Saturday to find out that most of the activity had taken place on the Friday night! We also arrived as the rainclouds were starting to form above this pretty little town.

After fueling up and anchoring down the river we still had just enough time to sneak into town in our inflatable for a quick look around. We were all craving a burger, traveling seems to do that to you for some reason. On the way in Loretta spotted our first Croc. Now I don't mind having a look at them from the safety of a big boat a fair way up from the water, motoring up to them in the inflatable is another thing but of course Jay had to get as close as possible to it. Luckily we brought the camera to record the moment.

Port Douglas is a pretty little town and the locals are really friendly, always ready with a chat and a smile. You could see how, during the season, the town would be over run with tourists. We walked down to the beach which by this stage was very windy and overcast but still there were quite a few people walking along it.

The next day we caught the tail end of the Sunday markets as we had allowed ourselves a late start. We walked to yet another lighthouse (a much smaller one) and then to a lookout overlooking the township and beach. I really enjoyed the feel of Port Douglas, everything was so green. The only downfall of a lot of these places up North is the fact that you can't really swim anywhere, if it's not the stingers, it's the sharks and crocs.

The first Croc we spotted turned out to be our only one despite the confirmation from locals that they were everywhere. We had heard a funny story from Jay's parents prior to leaving about the Port Douglas crocs. Apparently a tour operator years ago that used to take the tourists up the river had quite a scam going. At night if you shine a torch at a crocodile its eyes glow red. This guy had placed some reflectors which glowed red when you shone a torch on it on some planks of wood and placed them through the river. When he took the punters down the river at night they thought they were seeing heaps of crocodiles. One of the yachties took it upon himself to go down the river in his inflatable and pick them all up. He then handed them out to all the other yachties so that everyone could have a genuine Port Douglas Croc. We never heard what happened the next time the tour operator went down the river...

The place where we had anchored was ultra-protected and after we had relaxed there for a couple days we decided to head out to the Low Isles where we had heard there was some good snorkelling.