Port Douglas

Port Douglas has captured our attention, again. It’s very similar to Boca Grande in its small town, exclusive, resort feel, old wood-frame architecture, and charm. And prices. The locals are certainly as friendly too. It’s also where celebrities and ex-US presidents are sometimes spotted enjoying low key, semi-anonymous vacations. (Clinton was partying downstairs when he got a sobering phone call on September 11.)

We happened to arrive at the beginning of their so-called peak season, so-called, because we don’t see any crush of tourists. Despite claims of no availability by various accommodation services, we managed to find loads of places, ending up in a prime spot at the corner of Wharf and Macrossan at a bargain rate. The realtors won’t say so, but it seems they may be experiencing a bubble in property prices as well. It didn’t help that they had two major storms within the last few months. So we wait. Just like Boca, once the season passes the prices should start dropping.

Sunday is Market Day. Grice and I got up before dawn, well, really I did -- early rising being a pleasant result of having my clock reset -- and dragged her half-asleep across the street, to the ANZAC park. After an hour or so and a return to the room to get them motivated, Jorge, Sarabelle, and Elle finally joined us. We caught up with some former acquaintances, potters (the kind who make ceramics, Mom, don’t worry) who had us out to their place years ago. We also made some new ones: D and J, squeezing fresh orange juice, who raved about the area they live in up in the mountains above Port Douglas and recommended we see a property on their road (which we did); J and J, selling all kinds of homemade relishes and chutneys, British ex-pats who happily live in the same beautiful Tableland area and also suggested we drive by a house for sale on their road (which we did); B, the award-winning orchid grower, who told me that he would never sell his large holding in the foothills to the Japanese who have been after it for years because they kept him hopping into the trenches during WWII, and who also suggested we take a ride up his way (again, we did); B’s daughter-in-law who is from Clewiston, Florida, where she picked up her Australian husband when he arrived there to teach the Florida cane growers how to use the new mechanical cutters; and P and F, who are selling the property that D and J first recommended. We also came across the Name Guy again, who bends names into gold or silver wire for necklaces. The girls and I had stopped and talked to him at his regular spot on Macrossan a few days before. He wondered if we were Canadian; he thought we were too soft-spoken to be American.

Breakfast was a sample of fresh tropical fruits and juices and a bag of locally made macadamia nut biscuits, and then in a scene reminiscent of Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” and Sunday in the Park with George, we enjoyed the point at the end of the park.




Many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial’s center;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat.

-- Shakespeare (King Henry the Fifth)