Port Douglas Incentive Trip

* Less than 1% of all demonstrators earn the incentive trip each year.

Well, I’m finally home 🙁  but on the upside, I have HEAPS of photo’s 🙂  it was hard to whittle it down to the ones here, and I’m sorry there are so many *grin*.  Here’s a run down on what we did.

Tuesday 21st – we actually left a day early and stayed the night in Adelaide at the Rydges on South Terrace.  Up nice and early at 4am for our flight to Brisbane.

Wednesday 22nd – Flew from Adelaide to Brisbane to Cairns.  Then took an hours drive in a luxury car (we were the only couple in the car) to Port Douglas.  Oh to my joy when I found out that John Travolta had been riding in that same car *heart all a flutter*.  We were also told that Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg were in the area filming.

Craig and I were the first ones to arrive, so we had a little chill out time before meeting everyone for dinner.

Here is the room we stayed in – well part of the room, and the view from the balcony door

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Dinner was amazing, I have the menu around here somewhere, and will update that bit later.  Seated at our table was Jayne and Joanna, Shelli and Stirling, Craig and Myself.  It was a great evening, with great company.

Thursday 23rd –  We sort of slept in and then had a light breakfast at the Sunbird Cafe in the resort overlooking the golf course.  We then caught up with Jayne and Joanna and headed into Port Douglas for a wander around the marina and the town.

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Then came the really scarey bit for me – White Water Rafting.  I must say that I was so nervous I felt sick on the way out there.  But I did it, was petrified going over the first couple of rapids, had to appologise to Shelli and Sterling for any bad language that may come out of my mouth!  I enjoyed the paddling much better as it gave us time to chat more and talk about family and how we all met our partners.  On the last rapid, we had the chance to get out and float down the ‘S’ bend rapid.  Craig (hubby) was the first one out, followed by Jayne and Joanna, I had been feeling rather confident by now, and had a fleeting thought of doing it too, but thank goodness that thought came and went quickly!

We topped the evening off by heading into town with Jayne and Joanna for a meal (missed out on the cane toad racing) but did get some ice cream!

Friday 24th – Started the morning off with some Stamping!!  Woohoo.  On my table was Vicki Dean, Nicki Tidbold, Jayne, Joanna, Robyn Lawton, her daughter Alex and Shelli.  Jayne has all the projects on her blog if you would like to check them out here.  She also has details of all the amazing gifts we received each night.

Craig and I then hired this baby for the day!

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We had a little drive around town, posted our Coconut that Craig found on the beack back home to our boys and found this amazing lookout.  Here’s the view from the top.

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After about 10mins out on the open road we pulled over and put the top on the Jeep!  We then travelled to a little home brew winery for some tropical fruit wine and port tasting, yum!!  Picked up a bottle of Black Sapota Port for myself and some Kaffir Lime Port for Craig.

On the to Mossman Gorge we passed a Sugar Train so had to photograph that!

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The following are photo’s on the Swing Bridge at Mossman Gorge.

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We then had to fang it down to Mareeba where the coffee plantations are.  They closed at 5pm and it was just after 4pm, apparently it takes an hour to get there.  The scenery on the was amazing.  We went from Daintree Forest to Dry Gums to Wetlands to Mango and Coffee Plantations and back to Daintree Forest.

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We managed to get to the Coffee Plantation about 15mins after closing, but they still let us in to get some coffee beans 🙂

Next we headed off to Karunda, down a very hairy windy road to Cairns and back up to Port Douglas where we finished off our very full day with a meal at Hogs Breath Cafe (my first time there)

Saturday 25th – Another extremely full day, but worth every penny!  I took my travel sickness tablets just in case, but I really dont think I would have needed them.  We boarded the Quicksilver Wave Piercer and headed out to their Pontoon at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.  This is the view as we were leaving.

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We picked up speed, and it got too windy to enjoy the trip from the top of the boat so we headed downstairs and met up with Teresa (another IT achiever) and her hubby Michael.  The trip took about 90min and it was great to chat with Teresa and get to know her.  We boarded the Pontoon, had lunch and then went for a trip on the semi submersable to view all the coral and fish.  AMAZING.  Craig and Teresa then went for a snorkle while I went to the viewing area to watch more fish swimming around 🙂

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Me on the Pontoon, Teresa is in the purple shirt.

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Craig Snorkling

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Big Fish!

Then….. and wait for it……… we decided to catch this back to Port Douglas than cruise back

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The following photo’s are from the Chopper

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WOW Huh??  We were pretty pumped!  We got 35mins in the air.

Then it was time to get ready for the Flames in the Forrest Dinner.  That was amazing too.  Again, great food, great company.  I sat with Robyn, her daughter, Teresa and Michael, Cathy and her daughter, Shelli and Stirling.  We then heard an Aboriginal Dreamtime story of how the Platypus came to be and of course some traditional music.

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Sunday 26th – Off to the markets.  We met up with Teresa, Jayne and Joanna for breakfast, then Teresa, Craig and I headed off to the markets for a quick look around before we all had to say our goodbyes 🙁

 

This was the most amazing trip I’ve ever been on.  A huge thank you to Shelli and Sterling for being so generous, and offering the opportunity of Stampin Up to Australia.

I’m sure there is so much that I’ve forgotten to write, but it’s a start. LOL

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