Slept in. Awoke to warm breezes and strange bird sounds. Ate breakfast here. No big deal.

Went for a bit of a hike down to the second beach, much rockier and wilder than the other. We climbed around the rocks, and saw tidal pools with crabs and cuttlefish scurrying about. We’d hoped to kayak around a bit that morning but the wind was too high.

Windy or not, we were still getting pretty damned warm and sweaty. By the time we walked back up the hill to the main lodge we knew we needed a dip to cool off, so into the ocean we went.

After a bit of relaxation back at the room, we thought…what the heck, another swim? Why not, right? This time we went to the pool just up the hill, sprawled out and read for a bit, and then had a swim. Not a bad venue either.

After drying off from that excursion we had a leisurely lunch of meats, fruits and cheeses on the front deck of our cabin. The weather was perfect…sunny and warm, but with shade and a cool breeze to keep things bearable.

Still, it did get quite warm by the afternoon so we turned to the water once more, this time opting for a smaller, shadier pool near the beach. It was deserted, and incredibly refreshing.

The rest of our afternoon was spent sitting on our balcony, cleaning sand from our feet, drinking wine, enjoying the views, getting ready for dinner and listening to bush turkeys scratch around in the scrub below. That evening the plan was to take the shuttle into Port Douglas for dinner.

We walked around the town, which took about…oh, ten minutes. Not an enormous place, Port Douglas. We sat at Iron Bar and had a few schooners, listening to a great chattering flock of birds shriek from the trees at the oncoming night. We walked down Wharf Street and chose a spot on an empty patio. Just one glass of wine later the restaurant we were in, and practically the entire row of restaurants on the street, was overflowing.

For our part, we had dinner at Harrison’s, one of the nicer places on the strip. Our server (who was from Montreal!) was a little slow off the mark — we guessed that she was new — but the meal was wonderful. It accelerated a little toward the end as we had to dash to catch our shuttle back to Thala, though.

By this time the wind was really starting to pick up — it had blown several coconuts off the trees and on to the roof over us during dinner — and spoiled our plans for one last swim when we got back to the lodge. Whatever, though…there was no way around the fact that we’d just had a vacation day for the ages.