March 26th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 222
Our morning alarm
Today was a major down day. After the Daintree yesterday and with the Great Barrier Reef coming tomorrow we knew we needed some time to catch up on things and get a little rest. Lea worked on school all day and really got a lot done. I am so proud of how she is tackling the work she had left. Stacie worked on her website, Peter worked on some video editing and his app and I worked on my app and a lot of trip planning. Getting the last few weeks of the trip planned has proven to be much more difficult than expected. We played in the pool had a nice dinner and got to bed really early in anticipation of another early wakeup call for our snorkeling trip to the reef.
One thing I did want to mention here is the incredible sounds of the jungle that we have the privilege (and sometimes frustration) of hearing every day here in PD. We are literally in the rain forrest and as such there are amazing birds all around us nearly all the time. Our favorite is the Kookaburra, who sounds like an aggravated monkey when he wakes up in the morning. I really wanted to capture the sound on video, however, they only make this sound once or twice a day so I was not sure I would be able to get it. On this morning I was really lucky and got a good recording. You can hear other birds in the background, but once the Kookaburra gets going you will know what I mean.
Stacie's favorite is a bird that sounds just like a kitten. She asked our guide on the Daintree tour what the bird was and he replied "oh, that is a cat bird - we are really simple here in Australia". I will try to get one of them on video as well, but they make their sound at different times throughout the day so it will be more difficult.
Our time here in Port Douglas is winding down and we are all getting excited but a little scared to move on. Our next leg of the trip is our most "foreign" and the leg where we move the most. We are going to visit 5 countries and 11 cities in the space of 56 days, which may not sound too bad, however, since the beginning of the trip we have visited 11 countries and 32 cities and averaged almost 20 days in each country. This leg will be about 10 days in each country and 5 in each city. So a lot more movement, combined with the major cultural differences in Asia, AND the fact that we have been on the road for so long, has us all excited but a little worried about how we are going to cope. We are nearly booked though, so there is no turning back now!