I have been up here many times, although only two or three times since I became a wheelie. I have included a couple of posts and accommodation, Club Tropical and Le Cher Du Monde. Without a car, Port Douglas is pretty hard to get to in a power wheelchair (as at 2016). We flew to Cairns, only to discover there were no accessible vans for hire and worse, all the buses were inaccessible. Wake up Queensland! We ended up paying for an accessible cab which cost a lot of money as you can imagine.
Port Douglas however can be a relaxing, charming place. The good restaurants are pretty expensive but there are humbler offerings about, even on the waterfront. The boardwalk and marina area is lovely on a tropical evening. The walk out along Island Point Road to the Trinity Bay lookout is quite nice. On the water, there is a joint called The Tin Shed which is not bad. A bit further along is a seafood restaurant called On the Inlet which is more upmarket and a lot more expensive. Otherwise a few little places scattered about, sometimes at the edge of hotels, as well as hotel dining rooms. We also edit one on the waterfront called Lure, also expensive but quite nice.
Let’s see, what else? We wandered around town a bit and came across a theatre called The Clink. I’m not sure about access. There is also a backpackers called Dougies.
From Port Douglas of course, it’s only 50 km north to Daintree River, which is a lot more developed than I remembered from the 70s 🙂 It’s also about 280 K or 3.5 hours on the sealed road up to Cooktown or if you’re really adventurous and have a four-wheel-drive you can even drive up through Cape Tribulation, along the coast, where the hippies live.
