Tuesday, March 1, 2011 - Sheration Mirage Resort in Port Douglas

Hi.  If you are visiting my blog for the first time, you may want to go to the archives at the right of this page and click on January so you can start from the beginning.  Or just read this and other posts at random.  There are no rules!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 - Sheration Mirage Resort in Port Douglas

Port Douglas is a small town on the coast about 40 miles north of Cairns.  When I was planning the trip, I found it while surfing the net for places to stay where I could use points to pay for our stays.  The Sheraton Mirage turned out to be perfect for us at this point in our journey, because we were kind of tired of excursions and activities and needed a down day to just relax.  It is a beautiful place as you will see from a couple pictures.  Everywhere you turn is a Kodak moment.  They have half a dozen salt water pools, great restaurants, spacious room with great view.  The only thing they couldn’t arrange for us was to have the sun shine!

Is this a tropical paradise or what?!

Tropical rain forest landscaping everywhere

The view from our hotel room

So we slept in, had a late buffet breakfast, and did a laundry!  The rain finally stopped around noon, so we were able to go swimming in one of the beautiful pools.  Quite refreshing, a real treat! 

One more look at my own personal bathing beauty

Then we went to high tea, dahling!  A tower of sandwiches, rolls, and desserts, all very dainty, thank you!  I was very careful to lift my pinkie while sipping my Earl Grey tea!

Why do they call it "high tea?"  Is there something added to the tea?

Dinner was a seafood buffet, best meal we’ve had the whole trip.  I took a dozen pictures of the buffet itself, it was so amazing.  It included (for me) a wine buffet, i.e. unlimited trips to help myself to a selection of wines and bubblies.  Mmmm, baby!

Sushi, prawns, crab, salmon, trout, mussels, yabbies, etc.
(What's a yabby? A crustacean native to Australian waters - like a large prawn, but tasted like lobster to me.)

"Would you like the head with your portion, sir?"

C'n I have another glassh of the Sssshhhardonnay, pleezsh?

So this wasn't the most exciting post on this blog, but it was a great day for us to replenish the élan vitale and prepare ourselves for the trip to Ayers Rock.