Monday, 10th April 2017 - Port Douglas

Today is a tender port. From experience, this is probably my most hated concept about cruising, mainly from the uncertainty of how long it is going to take to get on the tender. It makes organising anything except a ship tour a nightmare. Some cruises it has taken 2-3 hours of waiting for your turn, others the weather has turned for the worst and the tender operation gets suspended and all efforts are placed in retrieving the passengers already on shore. So...against my own advice, and because it was an Australian port, I decided to go ahead and organise a huge day ashore. This required my fellow cabin cruisers to be ready, out of bed, and breakfasted by 7am so that we could get ashore ASAP (these are sleep late type of people). 
Fortunately luck was on my side today. A large shore-side vessel was helping with the tender process and we were on board the first trip.
Our days plan was to pick-up a hire car for the day, drive up to Mossman gorge, return for a reef tour, lunch and then some more scenic driving around before returning on the almost last tender.

Port Douglas marina

All the car hire companies are located in Warner street, a 5 minute walk from the marina. We had a reservation with Budget and were on the road by 8:20am. As we didn't need to be back for our reef trip until 11:30 we decided to head for Mossman gorge first.

Mossman Gorge
The last time we were here was 1998 and we were able to drive up and park beside the river for a swim. Now there is a visitor centre and cafe, board walks, shuttle bus and guided tours. The drive from Port Douglas was about 25 minutes.

 UNESCO world heritage info

 Mossman river

 Rex bridge

Wood fungus

The shuttle bus provides short trip to where the board walks start. The road is very narrow and limiting the traffic on the road makes it safer for everyone.
Most of the walks are short, some with a small amount of steps. We didn't go much further than the Rex suspension bridge as our time was limited. We did stop for a coffee at the cafe and can recommend the damper with the coffee.

Reef trip with Reefsprinter, Port Douglas.
I pre-booked a few weeks ago a reef trip with Reefsprinter. The trip is a 2 hour fast tour to the Low Isles and I had booked the 11am tour. On the Friday, as we were leaving for the cruise they phoned to say they had pushed back the tour to 12pm due to the tide. This suited me as I was nervous that the tendering could run us late. As it turned out, we fitted the Mossman gorge trip in first.
Having the car, we were able to take a change of clothes with us without returning to the cruise ship. We had to check in at 11:30am and they supplied us with stinger suits, snorkel, masks, and flippers.
The boat takes 14 people and the trip is fast, about 15 minutes. We had about 90 minutes of snorkel time, plenty of time.
The water was a bit murky, stirred up from recent cyclone activity. The photos below don't do justice to the reef and they have been saved from video footage from our GoPro and a Lumix DMC-FT2.

Low Island

  

  

  

  

Port Douglas sightseeing

 Bally Hooley Railway Station

 Train

Flagstaff Hill view

At Flagstaff Hill

Lunch at the brewery

We returned the car and managed to get a tender straight away. It has been the best tender experience ever.

Tonights dinner in the MDR 

Tonight I had the crispy spring rolls followed by the lamb shank. Delicious but no photos tonight.

Tonights Entertainment
6:15pm Comedy and Magic of Adam Dean
We didn't make the late night show by Monty Cotton.
Tomorrow is Cairns, another early day.