I t’s April and in Canberra the air is developing a distinct nip.
We can all feel it, and thoughts are starting to turn north, to Bali,manolo shoes, to Thailand, to Queensland, which is handybecause this is the month that the rain stops in Port Douglas.
Between December and April, this far north Queensland town, which has developed a reputation as the playground of therich and famous, has two kinds of weather: wet and really

wet.
And it can get very wet indeed, with anything up to four inches of rain falling in a matter of hours, in a torrentialsingle downpour.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the wet season. The sight of those low clouds sliding down the mountainstoward a tranquil Coral Sea, sheltered by the Great Barrier Reef

just a few kilometres offshore, could make even themost devout sun worshipper rethink the traditional prejudice that rainy days and holidays don’t go together.
April is also the traditional opening of the region’s tourist season, boosted in no small part by southernerslooking to thaw out their frozen bones, and it’s when Port as the

locals call their town prepares to party.
The Port Douglas Reef and Rainforest Carnivale has grown from humble origins just a few stallholders selling craftsand produce in 1993 to one of Queensland’s biggest tourist

events, attracting more than 50,000 visitors over 10spectacular days.
This year’s carnivale is set to run from May 23 until June 1 and organisers are promising the biggest party the town has seen, a celebration of life in the tropics.
Most visitors approach Port Douglas from Cairns International Airport the 70km of the Captain Cook Highway isn’tAustralia’s best known stretch of seaside bitumen, but with the

range of waterfalls, beaches and rainforests onshow, its reputation must surely soon begin to rise.
Port Douglas, like its main approach road, has had its ups and downs in its 140-year history. The town began life in 1877 as the sea port for the Hodgkinson River Goldfields.

Thriving on gold, tin, silver, cedar wood and, of course,sugarcane, the town soon swelled to 12,ysl boots,000 souls, and 27 hotels. But goldrushes come to an end and when the town wasby-

passed by the Cairns-to- Mareeba railway in 1893, Port’s population started to dwindle. A devastating cyclone in1911 continued the process of decline, and by 1960 Port was down

to just 100 souls.
Then came the 1980s, and a different kind of goldrush brought Christopher Skase to town.
The notorious entrepreneur and leading member of the ”white shoe brigade” developed Port’sSheraton Mirage Resort.

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