Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas in Port Douglas

Merry (belated) Christmas, everyone! We spent Christmas in Port Douglas, in the luxurious surroundings of the local YHA. The drive up the coast from Cairns was pretty spectacular; there were far better views than the Great Ocean Road.
We visited the beach on the way up but were dissuaded from going near the water by the dangerous local wildlife.
When we got to Port Douglas, we were pleased to find the local stinger net, which keeps the jellyfish out and within which it's safe to swim.
While visiting the beach, we did meet some of the local wildlife. Sadly, it turned out to be dead; some kind of ray had been washed up on the beach.
Christmas day was great fun. Hannah and I used our complementary Singapore Airlines socks as makeshift Christmas stockings. My stocking contained a banana, a bottle of Aussie beer and some chocolates. Only a satsuma could have made it better but, sadly, they don't seem to have satsumas in Australia right now.
We spent part of the day on the beach. This was an almost surreal experience for us northern-hemisphere natives. I realised that I don't think I've ever actually spoken to a stranger on Christmas day before, since Christmas has always been a day for sheltering in the house with the family. Hanging out on a busy beach on Christmas day was completely new to us.
The only downside to the day was the state of the hostel kitchen. We had been planning to cook Christmas dinner for ourselves but the state of the kitchen made us decide otherwise. In all of the other hostels that we had visited, people were pretty good at washing up after themselves and leaving the worksurfaces clean. Alas some of the other guests at this place had left the kitchen in a mess. There were unwashed dishes by the sink and scraps of food on the worksurfaces. Unfortunately, this being the tropics, this attracted thousands of ants. I also noticed a frog on the draining board at one point. We managed to clean up enough to cook lunch (sausage butties!) but didn't fancy cooking our evening meal.
Later that evening, we met Hannah's friend Su and her daughter who, by the most unlikely of coincidences, were also in Port Douglas for Christmas. We dined at the local Chinese restaurant before heading into the centre of Port Douglas for pudding  at a restaurant by the name of Mango Jam. Mango Jam serve the best non-savoury pizzas; banana and mango pizza turned out to be very tasty.
All in all, an excellent Christmas that not even a disgusting kitchen could ruin.

1 comment:

sheepette said...

what?! you didn't fancy roast frog and ant soup then?!

I'm sure you ingenious travellers could have speared and cooked the frog and then made a tast ant soup!