travel
The allure of the dainty
Named after John Douglas, the premier of Queensland, Port Douglas in northern Australia is the favourite spot of the moneyed & the mighty. The best part is that there are no paparazzi
Preeti Verma Lal

A monument to all war martyrs of Port Douglas

What happens when a drop-dead dapper billionaire goes roguish and randomly picks a squat, sleeping fishing town to plonk his magnificent mirage? He pumps millions into a five mile by half mile village, and amidst the swaying date palm fronds and the wanton ocean waves, brick by brick he lays a fantasy. Literally, a mirage! Christopher Skase's opulent Mirage Hotel metamorphosed the balmy village into the tony town of Port Douglas (northern Australia), where the Clintons holiday, Pink races on her bike, Michelle Pfeiffer checks in disguised and Bob Dylan jams with the local drummers in an old-fashioned pub.

But do not dismiss Port Douglas as an ordinary town that hit a jackpot. This tiny scrap of land was born with Nature's largesse. How else do you explain the Port's proximity to two World Heritage Sites — the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest?

The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, is so huge that not only can astronauts see it from moon but it can also fit 70-million football fields. The Daintree Forest is the largest continuous tropical rainforest in Australian continent. If this is not bounty for a squat town, what is?

Sleepy, it was once upon a time. Sleepy and full of marlins that kept the fishermen ebullient and the locals enthralled with the catch of the day. When gold was discovered on the Hodgkinson River in 1876, the rush was on to find a port for its dispatch. A party of Cooktown businessmen arrived on SS Corea on June 30, 1877, and soon a wharf and stores mushroomed.

The town was born, but it needed to be christened — it happily borrowed its name from John Douglas, the premier of Queensland (1877-1879). The Central Hotel was built in 1878, a small St Mary's on the Sea Catholic Church popped up by the beach in 1880. When the earth's womb ran out of gold, Port Douglas became sparse and sleepy. And empty (in 1960 its population was 100). The town had to wait for a knavish Skase to build Sheraton Mirage and lend glamour and ecstasy to Port Douglas. In the early 1980s, however, even the eternal optimist would not have prophesied the present-day status of Port Douglas as one of the hottest tourist spots in Australia.

Port Douglas' facts can have you drop a jaw. You can walk around the town — it is barely 5 km long and half kilometre wide. Its population: 5,500. The number of tourists on any given day: 8,000. Weddings held in St Mary's church annually: 600. The Sunday market has 160 stalls. Seems too many too few? Think of it, it only has a 5,000+ population. It has 43 restaurants — an Indian restaurant opened its doors recently.

Salsa Bar & Grill is a must-eat-restaurant in Port Douglas. Even the Clintons’ could not resist its specialities Photos by the writer

Facts, however, do not do justice to the town where the monied and the mighty holiday. Says Doug Ryan, Executive Director, Tourism Port Douglas and Daintree, "Call it dainty village that has great food, great shopping and great people. And the best part is that there are no paparazzi." Ryan can vouch for the no-paparazzi bit. In 1996, still President of the United States, Bill Clinton came to Port Douglas on a holiday with his wife and daughter in tow. Guns and Roses, Pink, Bob Dylan, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, John Travolta, Matthew McConaughey and many more starry names have all stuck their toes in the silken sand of Port Douglas. Ask a why and Ryan would tell you, "It is the best place to rest and relax".

As they say, there's something about Mary. Well, you could easily repeat that for Port Douglas. In the evenings, the main street drones with the chirp of a thousand metallic starlings that come to roost on the mango trees; in the mornings, the cyan sky is cluttered with flying foxes that look like black squiggles on a dose of helium. Walk around the main street that is flanked by ritzy shops selling painted kites and glass bangles to artefacts made of crocodile and kangaroo skin.

A crocodile-spotting cruise in Daintree Rainforest can be covered in a day trip

There's also an Iron Bar pub with rusted corrugated iron sheets for a façade; Nautilus, one of the oldest restaurants, which was set up by a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. Of course, there is the Salsa Bar & Grill, where the Clintons dined in 1996. Behind an impeccable glass pane in Salsa lie a white plate and a paper menu signed by Bill Clinton. And enough stories about how charming the man is!

In Port Douglas it is often considered blasphemous to walk away without setting foot on Nature's largesse — the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. Roughly 83 nautical miles and a 90-minute boat ride away, you can snorkel, swim, scuba dive, hop into a chopper, step into a semi-submersible boat and peer hard to see the 1,500 types of marine fish, 4,000 types of snails and clams and millions of corals that comprise the Great Barrier Reef. And go to the Daintree for a crocodile spotting cruise or walk around one of the oldest rainforests.

Whoever has ever been to Port Douglas, finds a new reason to love it to return to it. If I were to pick a reason - it would be the chirpy orchestra of the metallic starlings. You'd never hear that jingle anywhere else in the world!

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