We arrived here yesterday after a trip to Mossman Gorge, a lovely river where we all went swimming. We are in a beach campsite in Port Douglas. Unfortunately the weather is still pretty bad and will be for the next few days. The kids don’t seem to care though and have been in the sea twice since we arrived. The water is really warm. We want to do a reef trip to do some diving and snorkeling but the weather isn’t really good enough so we’ll have to wait a few days. Port Douglas is a nice town, fairly upmarket but not as commercialised as I thought it would be. I think the weather is keeping everyone away.

This is a huge area on the Great Dividing Range separating the West of Australia from the East. It is mainly dairy countryside and the landscape looks the same as the English countryside. The weather is definately the same…we have not had a peep of sunshine for over a week! We had a good day visiting various gorges and waterfalls. We finished the day with a visit to the curtain fig tree in somewhere with a name I can’t remember. The tree is over 500 years old and is pretty stunning. The attached picture just doesn’t do it justice..it’s huge! The big long strands that you can see are roots.

We finally reach Cairns and travel up the mountain to a village called Kuranda. Anyone who has done the tourist trail round Aus will know that this is home to the famous Cairns Skyrail, a cablecar that takes you through the rainforest. We decide to stay here in the Kurunda rainforest park. We have been completely indulgent and have booked into a lovely rainforest cottage for a couple of nights. It’s still pouring and we can’t face another day in wet clothes. The park is beautiful and the cottage lovely, with views of the rainforest and a good pool for the kids. Over the next few days we intend to stay in the area and do all the tourist stuff including the skyrail and snorkelling and diving in the great barrier reef.

Today we are in Cairns and been on a sky rail above the rainforest and it was realy high pictures are not to good then we stopped for the best part of the day which was at a aboriginal park.It was really good because of the spear throwing and boomerang throwing and fire starting got some good pics of the dancing and music. The next day we have been going to lot’s of water falls and i went swimming behind it and you could see all the water rushing down and its great fun.missing the whole form c,ya soon……….jack

Here are the pictures of the day visiting the skyrail and aboriginal park. We all really enjoyed both. Everyone was good at boomerang throwing except for me. I was pants! Jack managed to make a fire with two sticks and some coconut husk.

On our way to Cairns we stopped for lunch in a natural beauty spot called the Boulders. I got my walking fix by taking a stroll through the rainforest to a lookout onto the raging river. Many people get killed here by jumping into the water and getting sucked under into what they called the devils pool. I’m sure Jack Salmon will tell you more about this place and also how he got his new name.

We arrived here on Monday 14th. Mission beach is a beautiful area, rich in plant and wildlife. It is cassowary country. They are strange looking emu like creatures and are endangered..probably because they keep running out into the road! There are only about 1500 left in Australia and are essential to keeping some plant life alive (some plants germinate from their poo!) We spent the afternoon with Robbie’s dad at Uncle Dennis’house and then afterwards at a beautiful cliff side hotel (see picture). Unfortunately we were only there for coffee, not to sleep. We were based at the campsite on the beach. Nice I hear you say? Actually no…later that evening it proceeded to pour down and continued to do so for the next 48 hours. We were completed washed out and the kids had to sleep in the van on the second night. The rain didn’t seem to stop Robbie and the kids however. They still managed to get some swimming in at the campsite pool despite it raining pretty heavily! This area is apparently one of the wettest in Australia. It is still recovering from a huge cyclone in 2006 that pretty much wiped out the neighbouring town Innishal. Uncle Dennis tells us that in the monsoon season the rain comes down so hard that you have to cover your mouth with your hand just to breathe. We left this area on Wednesday having seen pretty much nothing as it was too wet to travel anywhere.

…..I have turned into my mother.

Yesterday on arrival at a new campsite I spent 20 minutes shuffling Robbie into the correct campsite position, taking into consideration the position of the sun (for the evening and the following morning), position in relation to facilities (not to close..or too far away from the toilets and the play area), position of trees and of the nearest water tap. Then before anything else I needed to have my cup of tea. I then bussled about getting the van sorted while Robbie and the kids went swimming. I have even been making sandwiches for trips out. God what has happened to me? At what age do you turn into your mother? Next thing I’ll be buying a flask…oh god I have.

Another thing that reminds me of mum is the total depression I go into when the weather is bad…and god it’s been bad. We have had constant rain for about 24 hours and the forecast says it’s set in for several days. It’s the first rain they’ve had at mission beach for months. Our campsite is a large pool of water. And this is the dry season! Anyway miss you mum…

We met Robbies Dad yesterday. He has had the most wonderful life for the past 5 years travelling around camping and working on peoples properties (farms) with his partner Roz. We caught up with him for dinner yesterday and he is going to travel with us for the next week or so. There’s something wrong with the site at the moment and we can’t attach pictures but I’ll put one on as soon as I can.

hi everybody what are u doing.we met robbie dad yesterday and he’s taller than robbie. it’s really nice weather here….. NOT it has been raining all day  and all night and i thought it was ment to be hot here and our campsite is like a huge swimming pool. How long have u got left at school it can’t be that long left.

I love a sun burnt country, a land of sweeping plains… I am, however, not sure about the pink things.

I just got out of intensive care today from Townsville hospital after trying to make tea in a Billy Can for the first time this morning. I was trying hard to get it right in an attempt to appease Claire’s requirement of tea once every 15 minutes of the day. Sadly the Billy tipped to far in my direction and the boiling water frayed my wool. Lucky there were some burn experts that have enabled me to be back at camp to cook dinner for Claire and the gang. I am starting to think that Auntie Jane would appreciate my culinary skills more…