Far North Queensland

Its been two months today since we arrived in Cairns….. we were talked into staying for a couple of months to help out in the Esplanade Office, what could I say?  We just love the environment up here, the mountains, vegetation and the warmth, so it wasn’t that hard to decide.  We found it hard to choose where to stay in Cairns, none of the parks received glowing reviews so we thought that we’d start out at the Sunland Caravan Park. 

Once we got ourselves set up we headed northwards via Woolies and Dan’s (for supplies) and made it to Peter and Ann-Marie’s for a wonderful dinner and sleepover! It was really good to catchup with them again, we had so much to talk about (their Europe trip and our Aussie expedition).

We had a leisurely wake up with a lovely breakfast prepared for us, thank you to the Clarks for their wonderful hospitality again!  The road back to Cairns was typically a beautiful drive, one of my favourites in fact!  When we got back to Cairns we called into Rusty’s, wow it was good to be back!! We just love the fruit and veg (and the tastings), we loaded up with fresh monkey bananas, pineapple, paw paw and tomatoes etc etc….. a yummy week ahead for us!!  Then it was off to the Carnival on Collins, we made it in time to see hundreds of stalls and we even glimpsed the stunning Botanic Gardens!  It was a busy day because next we couldn’t resist a Sunday Sesh at the Pier!! We also checked out my old office and where I was going to be working once again, it’s the best, who wouldn’t love an office in a mini rain forest? Welcome Back to us!!

 

 

Monday morning we started with a walk along the Cairns Esplanade wow its was good to do this again!  We spent most of the day trying to get me some work clothes and other shopping ready for the week!  I started work on the Tuesday…. And everything just fell into place.  Geoff took the car in for a service and came out with a long list of things that we’d need to have done (new tyres, brakes, shockers etc )… all good we had plenty of time!

Well first week at work and Geoff and I were looking forward to our Happy Hour at the Pier. We spent the weekend having a bit of a look around Yorkey’s Knob and lunch at the Trinity Beach pub…. Went to Rustys and watched the Port Adelaide / Fremantle game…. Geoff is off to Melbourne next weekend to see his beloved Port!

 

 

We decided that while we were in Cairns we were going to make a significant effort to walk every morning and essentially up our fitness regime… it was actually really good to do this but in the area we were staying it was a little dodgy.  We also did the Red Arrow, oh wow I forgot how hard that was, great to get that heart pumping but ouch!!  I was having fun working back at the Esplanade in the Events team…. It felt wonderful to get back into it and my colleague Bell was just lovely!!  After a hard week of work the office girls decided it was time for drinkies over at the Salthouse, what a great team effort and of course Geoff joined us!

 

 

Saturday morning was an early start, I dropped a very excited Geoff off at the airport, he was headed for Melbourne to meet Sam and watch Port Adelaide v Hawthorn in the preliminary final!  I decided   to spend the weekend at Port Douglas with my cuz Julie while Geoff was away.  It was great to see Julie’s place and she’d obviously done a lot of gardening, well we didn’t run out of things to talk about!! We went for a stroll down to Four Mile and had a Thai dinner.  The next morning we got up early and went down to the Markets, it was so lovely to be back here.  Next I was off to meeting the gorgeous Rochelle for lunch at Yorkey’s Boat Club, so great to catch up with you girlfriend!!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I picked up a very deflated Geoff from the airport, his voice had seemed to disappear!  He had a wonderful time down in Melbourne but was very disappointed that they lost the game.

We woke up the next morning and went for our early morning walk and returned to realise to our horror that the car had been broken into and Geoff’s wallet stolen, along with a few other things!!  We were so upset about it, the Caravan Park people didn’t care and there were others that had been hit too… So this started the long long hassle of arranging for replacement cards, licences, etc!!  Lucky that no transactions had taken place the cash was gone, so was my backpack and its contents! L

 

Another week of work went by and we were continuing our fitness with not only morning walks but also afternoon walks along the Esplanade and the Red Arrow!!  We even did the Blue Arrow one Sunday which was amazing, it gave our legs a full on workout and provided us with amazing rain forest walking and views!!

We were lucky enough to score a stint of house sitting in Whitfield, we moved into the house on the Saturday and adopted Tigger for two weeks.  So this meant that we could watch the Grand Final on the big screen, unfortunately it was a dismal game!!   After our two weeks house sitting we moved to the Cairns Holiday Park for a week and then the last two we decided we’d move up to Palm Cove, which meant long drives to and from work, but it was a much better place to be!!

 We were certainly using our time to be very social… We went out for dinner at the Raw Prawn with Peter, Anne-Marie, Pat and Mick – we had a great night!!  Shirley and Guy also dropped into Cairns for dinner at our new place and we also caught up with them in Port Douglas for lunch at the Iron Bar and swimming at their motel, we had great catchups!!  We also caught up with Kylie, Michael and Chiara at Vivo in Palm Cove for a lovely brunch together!  And it was fabulous to see Michael, Helen and Jules and have a lovely lunch at 2 Fish.

Besides working at the Cairns Esplanade Office, I also got to work at the Botanic Gardens which I quite liked and I completed a small project for the Barlow Park ground (home of the Northern Pride)!!  So all in all I had an interesting eight weeks of work… Thank you Rochelle and Malcolm for thinking of me!  While I was work Geoff amused himself by visiting every shop in Cairns plus he gave the bike a good work out, including visiting Lake Placid and various other places!

One of the good things about working for the Esplanade Events is you get to participate in great events such as “Colour Me Rad” and rock it with the Hilltop Hoods!  All done with my work colleagues, what a great group of people!!

 

 

During our Cairns stay we managed to get up to Kuranda, we just love the little village that it is…. And it still has that “Hippie” feel about it!! We also checked out the Barron Falls but the water wasn’t flowing too fast!

 

The most exciting thing about our Cairns stint was our trip home to Adelaide for the Rolling Stones and wonderful catchups with my babies, family and friends!!  Thank you so much Dee, it was wonderful to come home to our house and see how well you are looking after it, especially the gorgeous front garden!! It was so wonderful to see Cas, Manda, Matt, Josh and Benny… my heart was “singing”, Bentley was a little unsure to start with but my big boys were very willing to give me lots of cuddles!  Geoff had a great lunch and catch up with Helen and Stephen on Friday while I got my hair done (yay) and caught up with Amanda and Bentley.  What would a visit to Adelaide be without a Happy Hour??  We enjoyed the company of Dee, Lynda, Derek, Cassie and the boys on Friday night… it actually went for a little longer than an hour!

 

 

 

 

 

We’d booked into the Oaks Horizons for the night so we travelled into town early afternoon.  We went for a bit of a walk, got Geoff’s Stones Tee and also some Bubbles, Charlesworth and Haighs!  We had an amazing apartment with a fabulous view!!  The concert was fantastic and Adelaide Oval as a venue was truly awesome!  Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie sure have still got it, we loved rocking it to their tunes…. A concert we’ll never forget!

 

Next day we went to Nev and Dorothy’s then took them up to Mum and Johns for lunch, Phil, Sharyn, James, Bailey and Chloe joined us – it was so good to be with our family!!  After our long and leisurely lunch we dropped off Geoff’s M&D home then we topped off our great day by having dinner with Sam, Billy and Katie at the Earl of Leister!  It was great to see the boys again and to know how well they are both doing!

Then it was our last day in Adelaide…. It was so wonderful to go up to Shirley’s and be there with Chris too, and all of our wonderful kids and grand kids, it was wonderful to know that we have known each other since we were teenagers and now we are nannas together!! Yay thank you Karri for holding on to that babe so I could see you with your beautiful tummy full of baby! 



 

It was back to Cairns on Tuesday at “stupid o’clock” for my last week of work before we commence our journey again!  After a very long day at work I went out to drinks and dinner at Mondo with my wonderful work team … Rochelle, Bell, Heather, Mal, Katelyn, Mel and Cliff – what a fantastic night!!  And it didn’t stop there… it was lunch with next day at the Pier with my work team again then off to a wonderful dinner with Bell and Jesse at the Lime Tree in Trinity Beach.  Bell was an amazing person to work with and I was privileged to meet her and also fantastic to finally meet Jesse too!  My last day of work finally came around and because Geoff hadn’t yet been to Mondo, we thought we’d have lunch at Mondo…. We had the bbq which was delicious!  Then it was time for our final catchup with the beautiful Shell… its been so wonderful to work with her everyday, we decided on Bayleaf for dinner and cocktails!!  Love you Shell and I’ll miss you!! Xo

For a special treat Geoff booked us into a trip to Fitzroy Island, this was our “icing on the cake” for our FNQ experience! We spent one night and two magical days on the island, snorkelling, walking, swimming and relaxing, love it!!







Palm Cove - rough one day.....



Palm Cove.... and calm the next!

 We packed up our van and drove up to Mossman to spend the last week with our wonderful friends, Peter and Ann-Marie – as usual they showed us wonderful hospitality and we enjoyed ourselves immensely…. We lunched at High Falls Farm, visited the Coffee Works and Mount Uncle and generally talked, drank, ate and laughed our way through the week!  Now we are heading off for detox!! Hahaha!

 

 

This week on the 6^th it marked 6 months since we left home on this trip, tomorrow we commence our journey home…… can’t wait to see all of our beautiful people again!!