Famous first words

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 15 years ago

Famous first words

Unspecified

UnspecifiedCredit: Tourism Queensland

Dropping names is a local pastime in Far North Queensland, Angie Kelly discovers.

The one thing I forgot to take to Port Douglas was a brush and pan, as name-dropping is a local pastime. We'd been off the plane only an hour when the first name hit the floor.

Lunching at the bush-meets-sea Thala resort, we were told pop stars Natalie Imbruglia and Daniel Johns got married here.

"They stayed in our best suite," one of the higher-ups told us proudly before showing us the very room they stayed in.

A post-lunch helicopter ride, which took us on a 10-minute sweep along the coast before landing on a fairway of the Bale golf resort, ended with more celebrity news.

"We've only been open a year and Tom Hanks has already stayed here," said the guy who picked us up in a golf cart.

At dinner on our first night in town, one of our hosts at the popular eatery Salsa insisted I get up to see an autographed plate hanging on a wall near our table. It had been signed by former "leader of the free world" Bill Clinton. "And did you notice the date he wrote it?" our host asked.

I certainly did - he had handwritten under his signature September 11, 2001.

"He was here in this restaurant when the secret service people came in and whispered the news of the Twin Towers collapse. And he immediately jumped into a car and sped off somewhere."

Advertisement

Next day, after a morning bobbing about on the reef on an ultra-fancy private charter boat, we were are told we had been sitting on the same white leather sofas as Kylie and her love rat Ollie. "Kylie and Ollie rented the boat for a week last year," someone back on dry land told us (though the boat's operators remained a bastion of discretion).

John Travolta apparently has a favourite day spa in town, and Kate Hudson has been spotted smoking like a chimney.

But the mother of all name-dropping stories in town is everyone's brush with Hollywood A-lister Matthew McConaughey. Matt, as people like to call him, spent several months in the town last year while he filmed the romantic comedy Fool's Gold.

While our group enjoyed a drink at the town's Court House Hotel, a random fellow drinker couldn't wait to tell us exactly where the big M had sat inside the pub to film a scene in the movie.

And exactly how he had sat on a horse in the pouring rain right outside the beer garden.

And how he had his birthday party in another pub in town, and shouted everyone beers.

Everywhere you go in Port, stories about McConaughey fly faster than fire in the nearby cane fields.

Bring him up with almost anyone and there seems to be a stock-standard collection of titbits to pass on.

Over three days in town we hear that he rented a house overlooking Four Mile Beach; that he needed a new deodorant and that he had a spectacular fling with one lucky local gal.

It was like gossiping over the back fence, only with palm trees and a lovely dessert menu.

Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter

Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading