My old mate Noel Butler had spent a whole lifetime in tropical New Guinea. After his return in the late seventies he unsuccessfully tried to settle back into Australia. First at Caboolture north of Brisbane, then at Mt Perry west of his hometown Bundaberg, and finally at nearby Childers where he eventually passed away in 1995. As he used to say, "My spiritual home will always be in the tropics."
As Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, "Day after day the sun flamed; night after night the moon beaconed, or the stars paraded their lustrous regiment. I was aware of a spiritual change, or perhaps rather a molecular reconstitution. My bones were sweeter to me. I had come home to my own climate, and looked back with pity on those damp and wintry zones, miscalled the temperate."
I could relate to this as I also always hankered for the tropical lifestyle, conveniently forgetting all those tropical critters that can sting and bite you, the enervating heat, the heatrashes and tropical ulcers, the rainy season, the floods and cyclones ...
Real estate agents in tropical Port Douglas, just north of Cairns, keep sending me details of beachside and rainforest properties for sale. Here's one that I could easily live in: Daintree Treetops.
Currently let as holiday accommodation with its own website, it is located 10 minutes' walk from Cow Bay Beach which I know well from my last stay at Crocodylus Village.
Well, I can't see any buyer for "Riverbend" turning up any time soon so you go ahead and buy Daintree Treetops. Just don't forget to invite me!
