Its been a busy few weeks which has led to me falling a little behind with blogging and having to catch up on this and the previous blog a lot later than I would have liked. Linda and Adrian, Nicola’s Parents, also came to stay so we primarily spent time with them and even used it as an excuse to sneak in another reef visit.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been helping out more with the Bally Hooley, getting my hands dirty down at the depot working on the track and locomotives, as well as volunteering as a guard on the Sunday services. I’ve been working with the Bally Hooley to establish a Facebook presence as well as designing and printing some posters to help draw passengers onto the train. It’s also led to me working in a tour kiosk for a little pocket money whilst Nicola has gained a cleaning job at one of the local resorts.
With everything going on it wasn’t long before we found ourselves heading down to Cairns to pick up Nicola’s parents. Adrian has repeatedly told us that Australia is always windy; something we haven’t experienced. Sure enough though, as they walked out of the airport terminal, a small cyclone reared it’s head and hung around for the time that they were around.
After checking into their hotel the jet-lagged pair managed to find the energy to walk the dogs on the beach and head into town with us for steaks before we finally took them back to their hotel to crash. We spent the first full day showing them around the sights of Port Douglas including the marina, beach and lookout, before a rather posh meal at Nautilus, a great outdoor dining experience.
We had already arranged to head up to Kuranda with Paul, Danielle and Joe to do the City Slider, the worlds longest slip and slide, and managed to talk Adrian in to coming along with us for an afternoon of fun. That night Nicola and myself headed back into Cairns to watch the Imperial Russian Ballet performance of Swan Lake. Although watching men in tights dancing is not one of my favourite pastimes, I have always wanted to see a ballet and there is none better than the Imperial Russian Ballet. It was a fascinating evening and great to see some dancing en pointe. Yes; I know something about dancing.
As you would expect, the Sunday found Linda and Adrian joining me on the Bally Hooley which included the mandatory “ride up front” in the cab for Adrian. After finishing I joined Adrian for a spot of fishing at the beach and although it was colder and windier than the previous weeks, thanks Adrian, we stayed until dark when he managed to land a Guitar Ray before coming back to the house to cook one of his legendary curries!
The next day we joined Linda and Adrian for a trip out to the Outer Great Barrier Reef, once again, with Quicksliver. It was, as always, good fun and the more often we find ourselves out on the reef, the more confident we are becoming out in the water. This leads to a better experience and we’ve started “Duck Diving” down to get a better look of the reef and it’s inhabitants. Linda and Adrian even managed to squeeze in a quick scenic helicopter ride out on the reef.
Nicola and I took Linda and Adrian back down to Cairns, where we stayed the night to catch up with Jim and Moira as well as put ourselves in a good position for the following day. After an early start we headed over the Skyrail for a trip up to Kuranda. After reaching the top of the hill in the cable car I was surprised to see how much further along the ranges it would take us, so far in fact there are two intermediate stations you can stop at and take a rain forest walk, including one at Barron Falls. After a little look around the old town of Kuranda, we visited the Butterfly Sanctuary.
Although it is only a small walk around the sanctuary, we immediately found ourselves surrounded by butterflies, including a few brave enough to land on us. After a while though Nicola began getting a little freaked out by the butterflies being so intimate and I had to explain to her that she really couldn’t swat butterflies in a butterfly sanctuary. We then headed over to the train station to catch our ride back on the Kuranda Scenic Railway and we wiggled our way back through the beautiful ranges and down towards Cairns. Luckily we weren’t doing it in the heat of summer however, as it was warm enough in the old un-airconditioned carriages already.
The Kuranda trip marked the end of our time with Linda and Adrian before they headed “down South”, aside from Nicola taking them to the airport, and now we find ourselves facing the reality of having to work through the next couple of months to top up our travel funds.
A Ginger Down Under
1st October 2015