From the rainforest to the beach...

Someone better speak up if this vacation stuff is boring you, because I have a lot of pictures to share and this could go on for a while... :)

When we last left Kathleen and Alex, they were on a train through the rainforest. From there, Alex continued his efforts to become acquainted with driving on the funny side of the road and using "roundies" (Alex's new name for roundabouts). He didn't get to totally appreciate it, but the drive along the east coast of Australia is lovely.

The Pacific ocean is right there!! It was amazing. After driving most of the way from Cairns to Port Douglas,


we arrived at our hotel: the Thala Beach Resort. Who doesn't like a hotel that welcomes you with a pretty drink like this:


And the views from the totally open (i.e. no exterior walls) lobby were gorgeous. Here is what we looked at while we drank our pretty drinks:


Here is Alex enjoying the views from the lobby.


The Thala Beach Resort occupies 145 acres of beautiful wooded lands and private beachfront. We're not usually beach people, but we made an exception in order to stay here. The sacrifices we make, you know? :)

Alex, suffering for the cause

The beach that we had to endure ;)

The hotel has a really wonderful restaurant. We were quite pleasantly surprised by the quality/creativity of the food given the somewhat remote location meant that it didn't have to be so good. The restaurant is part of the almost outdoors lobby building and our view of the grounds during dinner looked like this:


Kudos to Alex on such an amazing find. I'm so lucky to have such a great travel buddy. :)

Tune in tomorrow when we find Kathleen and Alex totally outside of their element...