We checked into the Reef Marina in Port Douglas for a quick 3 day stop. The marinas up here are very full, not only with travelling yachts, but with large fleets of charter boats for tourists. These range from big aluminium wave piercing catamarans running at 25knots to sail boats; dive boats; sports fishing boats and even a cute little paddle boat that takes tours up the river to view the crocs. We managed to squeeze in, thanks to the lovely Elize van der Merwe (ex Pretoria)

 

The marina is a little way up a river and very shallow – we could only enter and leave on high tide, and from mid-tide we were anchored in the mud.  The marina is right in the very cute and touristy town, so we hauled out the bikes and enjoyed being quite mobile.

Our trip to Port Douglas also coincided with a holiday trip up from Melbourne by Melanie Ewers, whom I worked with at Clicks and again at Priceline.  While Mel and I had a good catch up on the last 9 years, Mike and her husband Richard watched the Springbok/ All Black game on TV.  It was really great to see her again, and we spent quite a bit of time with them. I was reminded of just how many of our Clicks colleagues have emigrated to Australia.