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| Sunset - Palm trees & beach, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Sunset - Palm trees, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 | Sunset - Palm trees, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Sunset - Beach & Taylor Point, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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| Front view, Sea Temple, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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| View out from foyer Sea Temple Image © David Powell, 2007 |
The last day. Yes, the end has almost arrived. Time for a final swim at the beach, finished packing (with a bit of jumping up and down on the luggage to squeeze everything in), checked out the boutique shop at the resort then checked out. Spent an hour or so in the Palm Cove village centre, window shopping and having an early lunch.
Spoke to one of the shop owners who said that this time of the year the water is usually crystal clear (as per all the advertisements) - so it's almost milk-like murkiness, especially out to the reef, is quite unusual. Figures. As to why .. that's another matter. Stirred up sediment from the winds the day we arrived perhaps? But according to the locals that normally settles after a few days, yet a week latter it was as bad as the day after. Certainly there was also a lot of crud washing out in the rivers .. you could see that from the plane and from the mountains. But the lousy water quality was just too widespread for that. Coral spawning was suggested by some, but the spanning season hadn't yet started. I guess the experts might know, but evidently I never found any of them. Still, the water quality was a disappointment and for that, if nothing else, I guess we'll have to return another year .. and hope the water is the usual crystal clear so we can get everything out of a reef trip that one should be able to get.
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| Restaurant, Sea Temple, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Gardens & apartments, Sea Temple Image © David Powell, 2007 | Foyer, Sea Temple Resort, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Took some last photo's and then off to the airport. Dropped the car off, checked in ... and waited. The flight to Sydney was delayed due to weather in Sydney (which delayed the inbound flight). Well one expects flights to be late. Eventually the plane arrived ... and took off, with us aboard. The flight back was quite smooth (evidently this pilot knew how to fly a plane unlike the one on the flight up) and over the ocean, giving great views westward of the coastline until we crossed inland, somewhere between Townsville and Brisbane. great views of the Barrier Reef and miles and miles ... hundreds and hundreds of miles ... of beaches. Well Queensland does have more miles of coastline than any other part of the world. Ok, arguably. Somewhere not far north of Brisbane the view was lost to cloud cover which stayed with us all the way back to Sydney.
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| Last of the old weekenders, Palm Cove Image © David Powell, 2007 |
View of Holloways Beach to Cairns Image © David Powell, 2007 | Cairns, from the air Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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| Cairns & Trinity Inlet Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Innisfail & mouth of Johnstone River Image © David Powell, 2007 | Brook, Goold & Hinchinbrook Islands Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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| Face in the clouds Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Storm Clouds near Maryborough Image © David Powell, 2007 | Over Sydney Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Arriving one could not help but be struck by the weather difference ... Cairns: hot and sunny, temperatures in the 30's Celsius. Sydney: cold, overcast and drizzling and just 18' Celsius as we landed. Then again, for the past week Sydney had been suffering scorching temperatures in the mid 30's, hotter than Cairns, and the cooler weather arrived not long before we did.
And that folks is, as they say, it!