Cairns

I feel much closer to home now! This part of Australia is well populated, which makes me realise just how remote the NT and outback Queensland is. We booked into a caravan park for a week, one that has a pool, putt putt and a playground and is close to town. It also has curlews that cry at night. One is very patiently sitting on two eggs. Her mate stays close by and flaps and screeches if anyone gets too close.

Rusty's Markets was our first activity. There was a fantastic range of tropical fruit that looked so fresh and was very cheap. The kids bought some evil looking licorice straps after sampling each variety. They chose the less coloured licorice and thankfully didn't seem to react much. We have tried them on different foods this trip where the results are unlikely to affect anyone but them and us, and have discovered that they can cope with small amounts of a few things that previously they couldn't, like cow's milk. At a 'green' toy shop I had lots of fun buying presents for our three nieces and two goddaughters.



Cairns has a large, free swimming pool on the esplanade, as there are no beaches near the city. We had a good swim there and met a family from England who live on a large yacht. They have been sailing around the world for three years with their two boys aged five and eight. For the last 14 months they have been through Melanesia and their stop in Cairns was their first visit to a western civilisation in that time. The boys were delightful- both spoke only English but with heavy French accents like their mother. They do school every day, as they don't really pay attention to what day it is. Their mum was a bit stressed trying to watch them at the pool. I guess she was used to them being a bit more contained! They had been shopping for lego, 'pirate' lego of course. The thought of being confined to a yacht for so long with two young non swimming boys made me appreciate the freedom of a caravan. I suppose though the thought of being stuck on land doesn't appeal to them at all.


We sought out low cost activites mostly, as it would be easy here to spend our entire holiday budget. One day we found a 4WD track to Trinity Beach. I wasn't sure if we'd actually get back along this track as it was so steep and uneven in parts. Greg of course was in his element. The beach had lots of rock pools to explore. Isaac learnt a painful lesson about not putting his hands where he can't see. He touched something, possibly a white worm type thing, that left hundreds of tiny hairs sticking out of his hand. These were painful and were too fine to be removed with tweezers, so Greg used duct tape to stick on them and pull them out. One week on the blisters are still painful. The kids found dozens of hermit crabs in the rock pools. Some were 'between' shells. When they outgrow a shell they find a bigger one to move into. A great industry started, with Darcy leading the building of 'Kids for Hermit Crabs', and arena in the sand that included a nursery, breeding area (!) and exile for crabs that had nipped anyone. The kids had so much fun doing this, much more fun I think than an expensive tour somewhere, which made us really pleased that we don't have limitless funds.


Kuranda had its annual Spring Fair on so we drove up and had a look. Lots of locals were dressed up, including one elderly woman dressed up in a skin tight striped possum costume- very passionate about her cause! While in Kuranda we went into the butterfly (and moth) sanctuary. Jessamy was quite frightened of the butterflies, but fell asleep and didn't realise a large one had landed on her back. They were very beautiful to watch.


We had our first rainy day for the whole trip in Cairns. It was a good time to stop and do some schoolwork- of which we are doing almost none these days!- catch up on the kids' journals and get some shopping done. The following day it rained again. This was the day of our trip to Michaelmas Cay on the Great Barrier Reef. Thankfully as soon as we were clear of the mainland the sky was sunny again, and remained so throughout the day. Unfortunately the winds were strong and I hadn't taken any motion sickness tablets, as the last time I had on a cruise I slept through it. I was soooooo sick, as was poor little Archie. As one of the cruise ladies walked around handing out vomit bags she commented that they had never gone through so many bags before. The snorkelling just off the cay was great. We saw some really big fish and many colourful ones, plus of course all the different varieties of coral. Isaac and Darcy thought it was 'amazing'. Archie and Jessamy were able to do some snorkelling too, although Jess found the flippers a bit tricky. We took some underwater photos which we haven't had developed yet. Cairns was exciting and busy but I'm glad we're going to a national park again next.