Cairns

Jerome writes:

Well, its been quite a long time since we've last blogged because we've been free camping since we left Cairns and consequently haven't had any power! We spent one week in Cairns, staying with the lovely Winiarski family that we met at the Brisbane Growing Families camp. They have three girls aged 5, 3 and 1 so Molly and Sophia had fun playing together with them and they so kindly shared their playroom and toys which was a great treat for all the girls.

Their house was right by a railway that carried sugar cane, and being the harvest season, the trains were passing four or more a day, so I was in heaven! (everyone's a winner at the Winiarksi's!!)

While we were in Cairns, we visited the Muddy's playground, a huge playground on the foreshore - see the Fish picture. We also visited the Crystal Cascades, and Daddy, Joise and I had a swim in the fresh, cool water. (see picture)

We vistited Port Douglas and went for a ride on the Balleyhooley steam railway. At Port Douglas, we also saw the spectacular Mossman Gorge - see picture. There were people swimming there as well, but as it was getting late into the afternnon, we decided not to.

We decided to spend a night in the Atherton tablelands, without the caravan. We visited the village of Kuranda, we went to the Kuranda Markets, (where I was nearly eaten by a dinosaur - see picture), we went to the Coffee Works cafe, which Daddy enjoyed and we spent the night in a cabin. It seemed so big compared to our caravan.

The next day, we saw a massive Curtain Fig tree (see picture) in the rainforrest, then we went to Atherton where the scenery of undulating green hills reminded us of Tasmania.

It was on to Lake Barine on our way home, we had lunch here and then went on a little Lake Cruise that putted around the lake, and we saw a Red Belly Black snake, two Amethyst Pythons and a big eel. We had a Deveonshire tea to follow, that was yummy. We think we found the windiest road in Australia - the Gillies Hwy Atherton to Gordonvale road, it wound backwards and forwards heading down the range for 30km or so!!

By far the highlight of Cairns was going on a tour of the Great Barrier reef. We caught a boat 40km offshore out to a pontoon and we all went for a snorkle. We saw lots of different fish, clams and masses of coral. It was amazing, though I was expecting the coral to have brighter colours. Graces highlight was seeing the little electric-blue fish and Dad said it was like they had a battery in them. We also went on a glass-bottom boat and a semi-sub boat - see picture of Mum, Grace and Sophia. All in all we marvel at God's amazing creation in the big deep ocean.