Home » Port Douglas & Cairns » What’s it Like To Experience a Total Solar Eclipse (Port Douglas) in Photos
This post may contain affiliate links.
So what’s this all about Mum and can I go back to bed? 5:50am
We’ve just got back from observing the total solar eclipse at Four Mile Beach Port Douglas, the whole experience was stunning! Dragging the kids out of bed at 4am didn’t go down too well, but a few ice creams and some celestial spectacularness soon perked them up.
A few thousand people on the beach. The stinger net is in the foreground, a few people have asked what a stinger net is. It’s a rectangular netted enclosure, it’s attached by ropes to fixings on the beach and anchored out at sea somehow, they can wind it in and out with the tide.
This last total solar eclipse in Australia was in November 2012 and it drew huge crowds to our small town. In April 2024 there is a solar eclipse visible from many parts of the US. This post is about how it all looks, on the day.
The anticipation was incredible as it got darker and cooler.
Port Douglas FM playing us some moon themed tunes from the lifeguard station
WOW MUM!!!
Almost there
Huge telescopes and a projection screen. These guys take it pretty seriously!
Totality and the clouds were on our side. ( best I could do with a pocket camera, sorry!)
The sun came back, today’s astronomy lesson done. D always does cartwheels to celebrate.
Part of Photo Friday on Delicious Baby. As a new blogger I’d do linkies like this. Travel blogging is our business now, linkies are a thing of the past.
Today I am incredibly grateful to live in the tropics in such a beautiful location, to see the solar eclipse from Four Mile Beach was pretty special. I love Port Douglas today! See our post on things to do in Port Douglas. We hope you enjoy your solar eclipse in the US!
Alyson Long is a British medical scientist who jumped ship to chase dreams. A former Chief Biomedical Scientist at London's West Middlesex Hospital she started in website creation and travel writing in 2011.
Alyson is a full-time blogger and travel writer, a published author, and owns several websites. World Travel Family is the biggest.
A lifetime of wanderlust and over 6 years of full-time travel, plus a separate 12 month gap year, has given Alyson and the family some travel expert smarts to share with you on this world travel site.
Today Alyson still travels extensively to update this site and continue her mission to visit every country, but she's often at home on her farm in Australia.
12 thoughts on “What’s it Like To Experience a Total Solar Eclipse (Port Douglas) in Photos”
This is fantastic!! Love the music, the big screen, the cool glasses- what a fun way for the whole family to experience the eclipse! Your photos are gorgeous as well…
Thanks Becky it was a really great morning. I whinge about living in Port Douglas sometimes, but that was a very special morning. Now I’d better check out that flightless birds post as we live in the Daintree rainforest and are no strangers to cassowaries!
Thanks for sharing these photos. I am so sorry that I missed this! We live locally but I had to be in Melbourne for my brother’s wedding. I have heard from all how spectacular it was.
Oh no! Sorry you missed the eclipse, but hope you enjoyed the wedding. I’m glad you like the pics, I’m no photographer but I’m having fun mucking about. You’re just down the road from us in Cairns, I’ve been checking you out! Thanks for commenting, comments make me happy!
Thanks Keryn. Sorry I couldn’t get a better pic of the actual eclipse, I think tripods and things would be required. Now I’m off to read your post about Bern, I went there on a school trip when I was about 14 ( 30 years ago). If the pit is still the same I’d be rather disgusted. My younger brother and a couple of his friends had a terrible experience in the public washrooms there too, not nice at all.
Moon themed tunes . . . Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd? Blue Moon by Sha-Na-Na? Moon River by Andy Williams? This is fun! Must have been an exciting day!
It was on TV in the UK, one of my friends saw it. It was very cool, my second total solar eclipse, I was working in Cardiff for the first one, it was great being on Four Mile beach for this one, despite a bit of cloud cover.
This is fantastic!! Love the music, the big screen, the cool glasses- what a fun way for the whole family to experience the eclipse! Your photos are gorgeous as well…
Thanks Becky it was a really great morning. I whinge about living in Port Douglas sometimes, but that was a very special morning. Now I’d better check out that flightless birds post as we live in the Daintree rainforest and are no strangers to cassowaries!
Thanks for sharing these photos. I am so sorry that I missed this! We live locally but I had to be in Melbourne for my brother’s wedding. I have heard from all how spectacular it was.
Oh no! Sorry you missed the eclipse, but hope you enjoyed the wedding. I’m glad you like the pics, I’m no photographer but I’m having fun mucking about. You’re just down the road from us in Cairns, I’ve been checking you out! Thanks for commenting, comments make me happy!
This is so cool! I was watching people’s updates on Facebook as it happened. So excited to actually see pictures.
Thanks Keryn. Sorry I couldn’t get a better pic of the actual eclipse, I think tripods and things would be required. Now I’m off to read your post about Bern, I went there on a school trip when I was about 14 ( 30 years ago). If the pit is still the same I’d be rather disgusted. My younger brother and a couple of his friends had a terrible experience in the public washrooms there too, not nice at all.
Moon themed tunes . . . Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd? Blue Moon by Sha-Na-Na? Moon River by Andy Williams? This is fun! Must have been an exciting day!
Bad Moon Rising, The Whole of the Moon, There’s a Moon in the Sky, you get the picture! Age of Aquarius was in there somewhere too.
Wow, what fascinating photos of a memorable event! We didn’t hear about it in the UK!
It was on TV in the UK, one of my friends saw it. It was very cool, my second total solar eclipse, I was working in Cardiff for the first one, it was great being on Four Mile beach for this one, despite a bit of cloud cover.
Very cool! And that’s awesome the radio station was playing “moon themed tunes,” ha! I love when people get involved at every level…
Thanks Adam!