North Queensland

A few more pics from our trip to the tropical north of Queensland.

This was the view from my bedroom balcony:

If you walked along this path:

Past the coconut palms:

You got to this beach - looking north towards Port Douglas itself which is built around the headland:

Of course, this is Australia and all is not as placid as it seems. The beach has regular warning signs:

If you've ever seen Billy Connolly's routine about stingers, you'll be happy to know that that is, in fact, a bottle of vinegar in the tube under the sign.

We ate in some pretty fancy places. This was the view from the table on the first night:

As you can see, although we were there in the dry season, it was actually quite cloudy some of the time. Our last night, we went to a hotel in the middle of the forest. This was the table view there:

There are no walls on the restaurant at all. I suppose there's just never any need for them. Whilst we were eating, the heavens opened, creating waterfalls from the roof above us onto the forest floor and into the river:

The day we went out to the Reef, we ate at a place in Port Douglas called Zinc, who have the best backdrop to any toilet I've ever seen:

Though it was a little tame having spent the day swimming on the real thing.

I've heard of restaurants having signature dishes, but this place really did do a signature dessert:

Finally, and sorry to end on a low note, but there's obviously a problem in Queensland with people misunderstanding toilets as, on two separate occasions, I came across these instructions:

Just shows you that what seems obvious to one culture might not be to another.