Day 2 – 9/4/17 – Wait Where Did My Day Go? – Great Barrier Reef

One of the most interesting things about going to Australia was the time change… we lost a day in there, leaving on September 1st and landing on September 3rd. It’s weird to keep in mind that if I want to talk to my family they are eight hours “ahead’ of me, meaning that as I type this it’s 4:26 PM but in Mountain Time it’s 12:26 AM, except it’s yesterday there still. I add time to find out where they are, and subtract a day. Yes, I could go the other way, but this seems easier somehow!

I woke up on the second day of our trip heading to The Great Barrier Reef with a bit of apprehension… I wasn’t exactly sure how this day would go and I’m not a huge fan of water to begin with. I’d like to blame a childhood trauma but nothing in my memory is really that traumatic around water (save for some stories I’ve heard and dreams or memories that are probably dreams)… I just don’t ever really desire to get into the water and have a strong aversion to water that can go over my head. I blame being six and a half feet tall… that means the water’s pretty deep to begin with! Regardless, as I mentioned yesterday it is a natural wonder, and one that will not be around much longer if the climate keeps changing how it is today. I wanted to see it, I wanted to at least step into the water, I want to be able to tell eventual kids or nieces and nephews that I went to that place that they read about in their history class that no longer exists… and I can tell them what I experienced and what it looked like back when the reef was still alive. We agreed to have it as part of the trip and Jen and Jon are excited… I’m mostly just thinking I’ll read my book and get some time in the sun.

We headed out at first light for coffee, stopping at Sparrow Coffee as soon as they opened. I got a mocha, before realizing I really should have gotten a flat white, but enjoyed it all the same. Mocha powder covered the top of the drink and the spoon, and it was delicious! We’ve had some amazing coffee on this trip thus far, save for one on the plane, and I’m sure we’ll continue to do so. The coffee woke us up, and we headed back to the hotel room.

Life in Port Douglas, at least for coffee early in the morning!

Port Douglas Retreat is the hotel where we are booked, and I have to say the staff was amazingly pleasant, but the location was a bit of a surprise to us having booked with Goway Travel before and having such high expectations. I suppose all you can really hope for in a resort town is a resort in the middle of town, and this definitely fits the bill… but when you put the name “Retreat” in the title I think of things like large swaths of land owned by a single company. This is not Port Douglas Retreat, it’s simply a motel of apartments with no turn down service (which I really don’t mind), semi-comfortable beds and air conditioning that works wonders. In all it’s not a bad hotel, but it is very run-of-the-mill, and that has never before been our experience with Goway. At the same time… we’re also traveling in an affluent country, something we also don’t always do, and this may change what our money buys and the experience we’ll have along the way. I would recommend the Port Douglas Retreat overall, but keep in mind this is very much the same experience you’d get anywhere else in the world when booking a motel in a resort town. There is nothing, short of the staff, that stand out.

Port Douglas Retreat

(You can view a map of Port Douglas here. The hotel is about at Mowbray and Garrick St. (really at Iowa St, not pictured), so you get an idea of the town)

As we walked back from town, we prepared for the day. I had brought swim trunks, bought flip flops the night before, and was ready in case I did get in the water. Jen and Jon both went prepared as well, and after a few moments where we wondered if Quicksilver, the tour company that picked us up and was taking us to the Great Barrier Reef, was really going to show or not, the bus came around the corner and we were off! We were excited for the bus ride, settled in, and by the time we got seated we were 20-seconds from the drop off just around the corner (see the map above). That seems odd, but the trip is included in the purchase so might as well take it I suppose!

We exited the bus, got in line and took a few pictures of the docks before getting on our boat. Again, Jen and I were in for a surprise. Expecting a personal, frills-included touch that we had come to expect from Goway, we realized we were walking onto a boat that easily fit four hundred passengers. We would find out throughout the next few hours that it did in fact hold that many men, women, and many… many children, all headed to snorkel in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

The Pier in Port Douglas, our boat on the very right in the background (the big one!)

Once out on the Reef, the boat attached to a large, floating station that easily tripled the size of the boat’s interior. Jen and Jon headed into the water and snorkeling immediately, but I hung back still not really willing to take the dip. I realized I’d not been in water in years, maybe now wasn’t the time to go and dive in again. It’s easily been fifteen years since I was in any body of water, and I opted for the on-boat lunch but stuck mostly to vegetables, pasta, and fruit. Jen and her brother would re-join me shortly after I had eaten, and begun Red Rising, and they too would go grab some food. The deck where the boat was tied had a few levels of walkways and chairs. By the time we were ready all but some metal benches in the middle of the boat were taken and that’s where we sat our things. For the next few hours I was surrounded by people in random states of dress and undress, changing into and out of Lycra suits and swimsuits, as well as kids running around naked with parents running after them and trying to throw them into changing rooms. This seems pretty normal for the staff here, but at the same time I was able to get my feet in the water down on the “launching station” for snorkeling, and I was able to wander into the underwater tunnel on the boat and see the fish and the coral (dead coral where we were anchored), and see some of the colors on the very fringes to really see what the Great Barrier Reef is like. I’ll admit I didn’t get the full experience, but it wasn’t all that bad either, and I can say I’ve been in the waters at the Great Barrier Reef… even if I wasn’t snorkeling them and visiting the fishes with a snorkel.

The trip had taken the entire day, and after getting back we elected to walk back to our motel, and then walk half the town again to arrive at Paddy’s Pub (shout out to Always Sunny!), and enjoy some Bangers and Mash that wasn’t quite right but were still delicious. We were also introduced to Bulmer’s cider, and I’m considering this a replacement for Strongbow at this point. It’s delicious! The next morning was an even earlier start, so we needed to make it back to the hotel and get a good night’s sleep. We’re all still getting used to the time change.