Alan

You have a huge selling point there for the wives and kids. Stupid me I never thought of family holidays on the Great Barrier Reef and beaches.

I can vouch for the scenery and beauty of the region. I have only been there once for a stress reduction holiday after a corporate merger but Cairns is a lovely little city.

The bay is very nice and just off the coast is Green Island which has a small resort, some coral reefs and lovely white sands. A day trip there by ferry is a cheap and pleasant cruise.

To the North and South are endless sandy beaches and a short trip to the North is Port Douglas which has one of the best seafood restaurants in the world. President Clinton ate there

. Plus a wonderful golf course (I believe, but we weren't harvesting tartan on that trip, but the female "golfers" could be very very nice).

To the North of Port Douglas is the Daintree rain forests and day trips from Port Douglas can be orgainsed into this famous park as well.

Inland are mountains and little hippy colonies now turned commercial. Plus also there is an Aboriginal cultural centre where you can learn about Aboriginal culture, throw a boomerang, or a spear (I did well with the spears) and see a flick on how evil the white settlers where. They forgot to mention they were cannibals back then though

. A good book of those times is "Rivers of Gold" as the area was a gold rush area.

Alan, Man, the wives will want their hunter husbands to hunt two or three sessions