Who goes first?

 The air temperature might be 24° but what about the water temperature and it looks dark in there, it's also  slippery, it's also rocky and all with bare feet.  My feet were a dappled pattern when I got back to the room later.  I was hoping for some more sooty grunters but nothing doing. Nevertheless once you got in it was a pleasant flow.  We had finished our egg and lettuce sandwiches so it was time to swim it off. PS we used eggs a bit in the evenings when a large lunch had been consumed, scrambled, poached and frittataed. No wonder we only went out for a cooked breakfast once. No more eggs for a month please.

Chores

 We made sure the house was exceptionally cleaned before we went away so we could come back and just put the feet up. We had no food so made a quick dash followed by another major supermarket haul.  The weather is brightly sunny and not a breeze so I have filled the line with washing from the last 10 days. Why bother trying to find Sun up North it you have it here by the thermometer full.  The lawns have gone jungle like. We may have had a clean house but the outside was left to itself. So an hours mowing effort turned into two as the Minister for Home Affairs suggested mowing the neighbours as well. They have been in and out of hospital she says, mowing their lawn would be good she says. Groan. I did have time to make a short clip of our turtle friends.

International

 We gave ourselves extra time at the airport as this is an international flight even though we are not leaving the country. There is a rigamarol to do, like getting a dispensation to go through customs without a passport. The duty free grog was tempting but we were not allowed to purchase any. Not sure why you would fly across the country as an international passenger but that is the way they scheduled it. It seems more relaxed though as this terminal is huge and there are not many people here. Too bad I did not bring my fancy earbuds with wifi transmission to pickup the audio.

morning blue afternoon black

Pistacchi

 We wandered along one of the streets here looking for our last meal and it was a beauty. The other places had a few occupied tables but this place was busy featuring Italian style. We spied one empty table out front and were told we could have it.  As well, they had a Hemingways beer from across at the wharf where we ate last year.  Good old dependable spaghetti with seafood. This very tasty and a huge plate so we shared one serve.  It had a large morton bug sliced in two and sitting on top.  When next in Cairns try Pistacchi.

Trinity

It seemed like a good idea to try for a beach lunch. We had the sandwich, the drinks and the location.  We found it the other day on the bicycles. A corner tucked away out of the wind. Wrong. The wind found us with nasty gusts driving chunky sand particles into our faces. We were wondering why a large sand dune was built at this part of the beach and now we know. There was a short walk around the bluff with a seat and someone spied a turtle earlier. We retreated anyway back to Cairns for a snooze siesta. 

Muddy's

For some reason the weather has come good on our last full day. We did nine days of onshore heavy duty winds, accompanied by rain most mornings which cleared up well by the afternoon, except for the last two days of non stop soaking. My backpack is still wet and I need to dry it for todays outings. We went back to Muddy's cafe. Even mid week it is very busy with a 30min wait for coffee. We also had our first cooked breakfast which was very tasty and very large which is why we had half each of one serve. They also sell the trusty egg and lettuce sandwich so we are ready for our beach session later. Some of the other eateries we have used are Treasure Court for chinese and Splash for seafood. No shortage of choices.

Muddy's because on the other side of the path it is nothing but mud at low tide

Stoney Creek

The weather has closed in badly for two days but we are here so what can you do. The room is small like a cruise ship but there is no quick stroll to a pool, lounge or bar.  This trip requires getting out each day and today is Stoney Creek. This is part of Barron Gorge National Park which we have been to before. There is a sign that declares no maintenance whatsoever is done on this track up Stoney Creek. Beware! The rain kept coming and the rocks and stones were wet and slippery. It is a tough uphill walk for 1km to an old weir. We stopped here as it is another 1.5 hours of relentless, trackless rocks and water to get to the falls proper which you can see more easily from the Kuranda train.  We had half our lunch here and had to wade to get to a bank with a tree for shelter to sit down. We retreated back down after an hour or so to another spot with a gravel shore. The rain really hit here and soaked everything but we were wearing swimmers so went into the water anyway. It was coolish in the water but the other half of our lunch warmed us up.  It was about 30 mins here as we needed to keep moving to get warm. This reminded me of the Tassie days when everything was wet. There was a guy at the bottom reattaching the sign that says no track maintenance beyond this point. Good on ya.