We’ve been in our Clifton Beach home for almost 3 weeks now and  we’re absolutely loving life here! It’s a tropical paradise – the heat is constant and, at this time of the year, a reliable sunny 29 degrees every single day. It’s still the ‘dry season’ even though we’re in mid-November, with little to no rain to speak of. Though, of course, I shouldn’t assume it’s always like this. The ‘Wet’ is looming, everyone here says so. It probably won’t arrive until early January and will stick around till Easter, so late March. But in this, an El Niño, year who knows how the Far North Queensland tropics will be affected. 

We’ve inherited an amazing and large tropical garden. I’ve always said I wanted a large mature expanse to get my teeth stuck into and now I have it in spades, if you pardon the pun. 833 square metres of wrap around beds and grass including (at least) 15 Banana trees, all of them at various stages of development. Five of them have large ripening bunches of bananas, some more advanced than others. I’d say we’ll be awash with bananas by Christmas! Any recipes most welcome, though I can’t help but think we’ll be drowning in Banana Daiquiris (as already suggested by a couple of friends). Additional to the small ‘banana plantation’ we also have Papaya trees, Dragon Fruit, Passion Fruit and a large Pandanus tree – the enormous Pineapple-like fruit that’s apparently edible. 

Life is at a slower pace here. There are barely 12,000 souls living in tranquil Clifton Beach, though the nearby more upbeat Palm Cove heaves in the school holidays and winter months and is a short distance away along wooden walkways through mangroves. Trinity Beach to the south is even more geared up for tourism and a tad over-developed for my liking, but it does have a gorgeous palm-fringed beach. Actually, all the beaches are drop-dead gorgeous and palm-fringed here, just some (Clifton) are less busy than others. All have stinger nets up from November until around April, then net-free for the winter months. There are of course ACHTUNG WARNING signs for Crocs everywhere in FNQ, but actual Croc sightings around here are few and far between. From what I’ve read, the last sighting at Clifton was several years ago now. But again, one should never assume… 

Clifton Beach itself is a couple of blocks away from the house – an easy 5min walk down to Dead Man’s Gully, through the mangroves, over a wooden bridge and onto the beach, straight out of central casting with Double Island just off shore and the glimmering reef beyond. The colour of the water is so changeable, from flat calm and dark blue in the early morning to a vivid emerald green in the afternoon with trade winds sending waves either rippling or crashing onto the sand. There’s a winding cycle-and-walk route all the way from Palm Cove through to Clifton and over to the neighbouring beach of Kewarra and, from 2024, all the way to Trinity Beach. It’s a glorious walk with tall swaying palms, large fancy beachfront homes and a rainforest elevated boardwalk section into Palm Cove – our walk of choice in the early morning before the heat and humidity inevitably rise. It’s our paradise found. Home.